Thesis 87 We must be slow to become angry.
“Judge not” is surely that text in all of Scripture that is most misunderstood outside the kingdom. Coming in second or third, at least among believers is Paul’s admonition to the church at Ephesus, “Be angry but do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26).One of the sound conclusions we read from this text is that it is possible to be angry and not sin. One of the utterly misguided conclusions we may reach is that it is impossible to sin in anger. When the gentle try to correct the hot-tempered the hot tempered race to Ephesians to justify their anger.
There’s one very good reason we can know that it’s not always wrong to be angry- because God is angry. He is angry with the wicked every day (Psalm 7:11). We not only may be angry there are circumstances when we should be angry. The fact that every day more than 2000 babies are killed in this country alone, and we go days without end not even thinking about it, let alone being angry about it is a vice, not a virtue. Be angry.
We get into trouble when we use our anger to excuse our sin, when we let our anger take control, when we are driven by our emotions. The solution isn’t to seek out better emotions to be driven by, but to master our emotions. Whether we are flying off the handle over something insignificant or floating on clouds because the object of our affections noticed us, we make ourselves and others the victims of our lack of emotional self-control.
James’ admonition that we be slow to anger helps us understand the importance of lot letting anger become master over us. To be slow to be angry means to be deliberate. We are slow to anger when we hold off on reaching conclusions when we have insufficient information. Consider the altar that the two and a half tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan built. The rest of Israel came to make war against their erring brothers, only to learn that they weren’t setting up an alternative place to worship, but a memorial to remind the western tribes that they were united together. The anger came fast, but not so fast that tragedy wasn’t averted.
Reformation requires balance. Stay too broad, or to put it another way, be insufficiently angry with the status quo and the status quo will not move. Get too narrow, however, or to put it another way, be quick to anger and you will create disintegration rather than reformation. We seek Reformation because we long to see the church, and ourselves, better reflect our Husband. We are angry at ourselves for our sins and failures. But we rejoice that we are indeed being washed. Because we know He is holy, we are angry that we are not. We are angry because things are not as they should be. Because we know He is sovereign, we are at peace, knowing that things not being as they should be is how things should be.