By Filings on
Christian Living
Anger
Human Nature
Christian Attitudes

“Anger says, ‘That is wrong.’ It is a judgment, and judgment is intrinsic to our humanity. Human beings are incapable of not making judgments…. Anger says, ‘I will make that right.’ Anger is compelled to do something” - Ed Welch

Discussion

Wed, 03/22/23

If we're called to be angry and not sin, that presumes that there is a realm of anger that is actually Godly, no? A realm of anger where God actually calls us to "harness" that anger to do what He calls us to do?

Some examples I can think of, beyond the obvious reproaches of Jesus to the Pharisees and Sadducees, are when John promises to rebuke Diotrephes, when Paul warns about Alexander the coppersmith, when John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a "brood of vipers", and the like.

There is definitely a place to warn about unbridled, sinful anger, but at the same time, when the most common use of the word in Scripture is about God's anger, we need to balance that with "here is how you can harness this anger to achieve God's agenda."

Maybe start with "is your anger in response to sin against you or another person?" Then "what do you hope to harness your anger to do?", and "how are you going to go about harnessing your anger?" More or less, the core of anger management (and emotional intelligence) being "can you harness your mind between adding the other ox of emotion?".

Or something like that.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.