ANGER-UNRIGHTEOUS
If your anger
is due to your recognition that a holy God has been offended by another's
behavior, that anger is righteous. In other words, if we are angry because
God's revealed will (not His decreed will; for everything that happens has been foreordained by Him) is violated, our anger is
righteous. On the other hand, if your anger is the result of not having your
personal desires met, that anger is likely to be sinful.
The Complete Husband, Calvary
Press, 1999, Appendix H, www.calvarypress.com.
Anger may be
handled wrongly in either one of two ways: blowing up and clamming up.
Jay E. Adams
Christian Living in the Home, P&R
Publishing, 1972, p. 31, Used by Permission.
A sermon
often does a man most good when it makes him most angry. Those people who walk
down the aisles and say, “I will never hear that man again,” very often have an
arrow rankling in their breast.
Do not say,
“I cannot help having a bad temper." Friend, you must help it. Pray to God
to help you overcome it at once, for either you must kill it, or it will kill
you. You cannot carry a bad temper into heaven.
Anger and
bitterness are two noticeable signs of being focused on self and not trusting
God’s sovereignty in your life. When you believe that God causes all things to
work together for good to those who belong to Him and love Him, you can respond
to trials with joy instead of anger or bitterness.
Self-Confrontation Manuel,
Lesson 11, Page 1, Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Anger and
bitterness are formidable detriments to biblical love, harmonious
relationships, and maturity in Christ. Failing to put off anger and bitterness
grieves the Holy Spirit, gives Satan an opportunity in your life, obscures your
witness to others, and disrupts the unity in the Body of Christ. Dealing
biblically with anger and bitterness requires wholehearted obedience to God’s
Word in every circumstance and with every person, even if your feelings dictate
otherwise.
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 11, Page 2,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Is it any
merit to abstain from wine if one is intoxicated with anger?
Love to God
is opposite to a disposition in men to be angry at others’ faults chiefly as
they themselves are offended and injured by them: It rather disposes them to
look at them chiefly as committed against God.
The Spirit of Love the Opposite of An Angry or Wrathful Spirit, 1 Corinthians 13:5.
Pride is one
chief cause of undue anger. It is because men are proud, and exalt themselves in
their own hearts, that they are revengeful, and are apt to be excited, and to
make great things out of little ones that may be against themselves. Yea, they
even treat as vices things that are in themselves virtues, when they think
their honor is touched, or when their will is crossed. And it is pride that
makes men so unreasonable and rash in their anger, and raises it to such a high
degree, and continues it so long, and often keeps it
up in the form of habitual malice… If men sought not chiefly their own private
and selfish interests, but the glory of God and the common good, then their
spirit would be a great deal more stirred up in God's cause than in their own;
and they would not be prone to hasty, rash, inconsiderate, immoderate, and
long-continued wrath, with any who might have injured or provoked them; but
they would in a great measure forget themselves for God's sake, and from their
zeal for the honor of Christ. The end they would aim at,
would be, not making themselves great, or getting their own will, but the glory
of God and the good of their fellow-beings.
The Spirit of Love the Opposite of An Angry or Wrathful Spirit, 1 Corinthians 13:5.
Anger blows
out the lamp of the mind. It’s a child’s reaction to an adult situation.
Anger is one
letter short of danger.
Anger is
(not) in itself sinful, but…it may be the occasion for sin. The issue of
self-control is the question of how we deal with anger. Violence, tantrums,
bitterness, resentment, hostility, and even withdrawn silence are all sinful
responses to anger.
R.C. Sproul
The
Intimate Marriage, P&R Publishing, 1975, p. 72.
No form of
vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For embittering
life, for breaking communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships,
for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off
childhood; in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this
influence stands alone.
[Anger]
devours almost all other good emotions. It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart
to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
150, www.DesiringGod.org.
God has never
done anything that should legitimately cause anger in any of His children. We
are never warranted in getting angry at God. Ever. It
happens. And we should admit it, and tremble, and repent, and turn back to
humble trust in His sovereign goodness.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
151, www.DesiringGod.org.
It is only
our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our
good temper down to ourselves.
No matter how just your words may be,
you ruin everything when you speak with anger.
Four wrong
ways to deal with anger:
1.
Repress.
Hold it in, ignore, deny, push it under, stuff it.
a.
Internally.
Seethe with bitterness, jealousy, etc.
b.
Externally.
The “silent treatment” (Eph. 4:26).
2.
Express.
“Dump it;” “get it off your chest.”
a.
Direct
expression. Explode. Blow up (Gal. 5:20; Prov. 12:16; Prov. 14:29; Prov. 29:11;
Prov. 29:22; Eccl. 7:9).
b.
Indirect
expression. “I’ll get even” (Lev. 19:18; Rom. 12:19).
c.
Substitutionary
expression. “Ventilation.”
3.
Digress.
Turn aside. Get your mind off of it.
4.
Profess
to be powerless. Make excuses. Disclaim responsibility.
James Fowler
Excerpted from: Anger, Study Outlines, 1999, www.christinyou.net.
Five correct
ways to deal with anger:
1.
Suppress.
Restrain; subdue the negative expression (Prov. 29:11; Prov. 17:14; Prov.
20:3).
2.
Assess.
Evaluate the situation objectively.
a.
Consider
the other person’s perspective.
b.
Consider
your contribution to the problem (Matt. 7:3-5; James 1:19).
3.
Confess.
“Say the same thing as God” (I John 1:9).
4.
Process.
Proceed to make it right.
a.
“Turn
the other cheek” (Matt. 5:39).
b.
Gentle
answer (Prov. 15:1).
c.
Meekness
(Eph. 4:2; I Peter 3:15).
d.
Forgiveness
(Matt. 18:22; Col. 3:13).
e.
Give
a blessing (I Peter 3:9).
5.
Access.
In computer terminology this means “to connect with,” “to communicate with.”
The foregoing behavioral expressions must be a result of the Christian
having "accessed" with God (1 Peter 2:23).
James Fowler
Excerpted from: Anger, Study Outlines, 1999, www.christinyou.net.
It's
important to understand that anger is not good as a response to problems. It
usually builds walls, increases tension, and contributes to distance in
relationships. But we do believe that anger is good for identifying problems.
Once you understand anger, you’ll be able to use it to your advantage to point
out problems in life. Then you must move into another mode or plan to solve
those problems.
Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller
Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character In You and Your Kids,
National Center for Biblical Parenting, 76 Hopatcong Drive, Lawrenceville,
NJ 08648, www.biblicalparenting.org,
1-800.771.8334, email parent@biblicalparenting.org.
Five Causes
of Anger:
1.
Physical
Pain
2.
Blocked
Goals
3.
Violated
Rights
4.
Unfairness
5.
Unmet
Expectations
Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller
Adapted from: Good and Angry: Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and
Your Kids, National Center for Biblical Parenting, 76 Hopatcong Drive,
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, www.biblicalparenting.org,
1-800.771.8334, email parent@biblicalparenting.org.
If we are angry [with] God…we should be
reminded that His love is much more sophisticated than we know. Our anger shows
that we are small children who think we know what is best.
Ed Welch
Depression:
A Stubborn Darkness, Punch Press, 2004, p. 70.
Bitterness
arises in our hearts when we do not trust in the sovereign rule of God in our
lives
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 120. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled
temper is soon dissipated on others.
Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat
away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p.
141. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
Six
conditions that make anger sinful:
1.
When,
to favor a resentment or feud, we imagine an injury done to us.
2.
When
an injury done to us becomes, in our minds, greater than it really is.
3.
When,
without real injury, we feel resentment on account of pain or inconvenience.
4.
When
indignation rises too high, and overwhelms our ability to restrain.
5.
When
we gratify resentments by causing pain or harm out of revenge.
6.
When
we are so perplexed and angry at sin in our own lives that we readily project
anger at the sin we find in others.
Robert E. Speer
Christ
and Life, Revell, 1901, p. 104.