Anger
Hugo McCord
I did not know there are so many synonyms for the word "anger." Webster lists resentment, wrath, ire, indignation, fury, and rage. Webster defines anger as
A strong feeling excited by a real or supposed injury; often accompanied by a desire to take vengeance, or to obtain satisfaction from the offending party …
Temper control was what a grown son had in mind when he heard his parents’ raised voices about a minor difference. "Have you two heard about the five crows?", asked the lad. "No," they replied. "Then let me tell you." They quieted and listened:
Five crows happened upon a bowl of prunes. After they had gorged themselves they were too heavy to fly. To wait for digestion, they climbed up on a hoe handle. Finally, each tried to fly, and fell dead.
"What does that story have to do with us?", asked the father. The son replied, "When you are full of prunes, don’t fly off the handle."
Frank Starling’s story about temper control is quite different:
A young father, pushing a baby carriage, seemed quite unperturbed by the wails emerging from within the carriage. "Easy now, control yourself, keep calm." Another sudden howling rang out. "Now, new, Albert," murmured the father. "Keep your temper."
A young mother who happened to be passing by, paused and remarked, "I have to congratulate you. You know just how to speak to a baby calmly and gently." She patted the youngster and said, "What’s wrong, Albert?"
"No, no," exclaimed the father. "He’s Johnny. I’m Albert." (BIBLE LIGHT, July-August, 1995, p. 2)
Once, when I was introduced to a lady as a preacher, she said,
I am working on a master’s degree in psychology, and I was shocked that my professor assigned for my reading the book of Proverbs in the Bible. When I had read it, I was shocked to find that the wise sayings in that old book are as timely as if written in the 20th century.
Indeed, she was right. Every person, young or old, today is profited by Solomon’s proverbs about anger:
A quick-tempered man acts foolishly (14:17). A wise man is slow getting angry, and the quick-tempered is a fool (14:29). He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who controls his spirit than he who captures a city (16:32). A man of few words displays knowledge; a quiet man has understanding (17:27). Good sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is his delight to overlook an offense (19:11). Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lack self-control (25:28)
Also, Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes:
Do not be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger resides in the bosom of fools (7:9).
As regards anger, and also other subjects, one should not marry himself to any one translation of the Scriptures. As regards anger, beware of a contradiction in the ASV, NASV, NIV and the NRSV, resulting in a teaching that has Jesus preaching one thing and practicing another.
Those translations all delete the words "without a cause" (eike, Matthew 5:22) from the Lord’s language, making him say that all anger (orge) is sin. Those translations delete those words because some reputable Greek manuscripts also delete them. But their deletion leaves Jesus in a bind, for he himself became angry at least four times.
(1). Early in his ministry
He found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the moneychangers sitting. He made a whip of ropes, and drove all out of the temple, both the oxen and the sheep, and he poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and upset their tables. He said to those who sold doves, "Take these away. Stop turning my Father’s house into a market" (John 2:14-16).
Then Jesus’ disciples remembered that Psalm 69:9 a thousand years before had predicted Jesus’ anger about the misuse of the sacred temple: "Zeal for your hose shall consume me" (John 2:17, FHV), "shall eat me up" (ASV).
(2). One sabbath day in the synagogue at Capernaum Jesus glared at his critics "with anger" (orge, Mark 3:5, a form of the same word that reputable manuscripts say that Jesus used in Matthew 5:22 to make all anger sin).
(3). On one occasion, when well-meaning disciples "rebuked" mothers for bringing their children to Jesus "that he might touch them," Jesus "became angry, and said to them, ‘Allow the children to come to me. Do not forbid them, for God’s kingdom consists of such as these’" (Mark 10:13-14).
(4). Then, late in Jesus’ ministry, what he saw in the temple angered him, and he
cast out all of those who were buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who were selling doves, saying, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of thieves’" (Matthew 21:12-13).
Since our Lord would not say one thing and practice another, it is certain that he did not say that "everyone who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the council" (as in the ASV, and similarly in the NASV, the NIV, and the NRSV).
What Jesus did say was "whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment" (as in the KJV, and similarly in the FHV). Causeless anger Jesus prohibited, but not righteous indignation.
Similarly, the inspired James did not prohibit all anger, but because anger can be dangerous and destructive, he warned against hasty anger, as he wrote, "Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness" (James 1:19-20).
Likewise, the inspired David recognized that human anger can quickly become devilish, and so he taught that if anger is unavoidable, do not let it be the master: "In your anger do not sin" (Psalm 4:4, NIV). A more literal translation of David’s words are: "Be angry, but do not sin."
The apostle Paul has taken David’s words into the New Testament: "Be angry, but do not sin; let not the sun set on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26, FHV).
When offenses are not rectified, when they linger and become grudges, not only is love absent (love "holds no grudges," 1 Corinthians 13:5, FHV), but Paul’s command "let not the sun set on your anger" is violated.
A good Christian, when he feels somebody had done him wrong, does not wait until the sun goes down to "go and show him his fault between you and him alone" (Matthew 18:15). When peace results, both the good Christian and the offender will sleep in peace, and the danger of anger has passed.
Likewise, when a good Christian remembers that a person "holds something against" him, then, immediately, even if he is on the way to church to partake of the Lord’s Supper, he will change direction, and do to ‘be reconciled to" the offended person (cf. Matthew 5:23-24). Only after that side trip, which now had become the main trip, would the Christian go on to church to partake of the Lord’s Supper (cf. Matthew 5:24).
As regards Paul’s command, "let not the sun set on your anger," an old man, Bert Brown, and his beloved wife in Bismarck, Illinois, told me that every night, after the two were in bed, each reached over and patted the other, with the understood meaning that "all is well between us." I do not know whether that devoted couple had Paul’s command in mind, but they certainly were putting it into practice.