More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
March 20 - July 20, 2018
OUR ANGER IS OUR WHOLE-PERSONED ACTIVE RESPONSE OF NEGATIVE MORAL JUDGMENT AGAINST PERCEIVED EVIL.
Our anger is an active response. It is an action, an activity. Anger is something we do, not something we have. It is not a thing, a fluid, or a force. The Bible pictures people who do anger, not have anger.
Our anger is a whole-personed active response. It involves our entire being and engages our whole person.
Anger is more than mere emotion, volition, cognition, or behavior. Scripture resists simplistic schemes. Anger is complex. It comprises the whole person and encompasses our whole package of beliefs, feelings, actions, and desires.
Our anger is a response against something.
Our anger, in essence, involves a negative moral judgment that we make. It arises from our judicial sense and functions
Our anger postures us against what we determine to be evil. It casts negative mental votes against unjust actions. It determines that all offenders must change, be punished, or be removed. It issues mental death-penalty verdicts against the guilty. No wonder Jesus taught that anger is the moral equivalent of murder: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not
murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matt. 5:21–22). The apostle John repeats this truth: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him” (1 John 3:15).
Our anger involves a judgment against perceived evil. Our moral judgment arises from our personal perception.
It expresses our beliefs and motives.
One theologian summarizes the biblical evidence for anger as judgmentalism: “Human anger is usually directed against other men. The reason for human anger can be that someone has been treated unjustly . . . , that one sees how other men are exploited . . . , or that one’s fellow men manifest disobedience or unbelief in God.”4
Richard Baxter described anger as “the rising up in the heart in passionate displacency against an apprehended evil, which would cross or hinder us of some desired good.”
We can classify anger biblically into three categories: divine anger, human righteous
anger, and human sinful anger.
In one sense, God is both the most loving and the most angry person on our planet.
God’s anger is a whole-personed response involving his mind, will, affections, and actions.
He wanted God to accept his sacrifice on his terms, and he believed God should do so. Anger always starts in the heart, with evil desires and wrong beliefs—lusts and lies. The Old Testament patriarchs
What do we find in all these Old Testament texts? Angry people respond with their whole being—their thoughts, emotions, affections, words, actions, etc.—to people they perceive to be wrong or harmful to their own interests.
For Further Reflection and Life Application 1. Look up in a concordance the places where the words “anger” (and “angry,” “angered”), “wrath,” and “rage” appear in the Bible. Read through them and notice how many references pertain to God’s anger. And notice the range of people and range of behavior associated with anger in the Bible. 2. Reflect on Richard Baxter’s description of anger on page 17 above. Where in your life do you see his words defining you? Pay particular attention to those times when something or someone “would cross or hinder [you] of some desired good.” 3. Jot down a typical
...more
Righteous Anger Reacts against Actual Sin
Righteous anger does not result from merely being inconvenienced or from violations of personal preference or human tradition. It responds to sin as objectively defined by God’s Word, including violations of both of our Lord’s great commandments (Matt. 22:36–40). 2. Righteous Anger Focuses
on God and His Kingdom, Rights, and Concerns, Not on Me and My Kingdom, Rights, and Concerns
In Scripture, God-centered motives, not self-centered motives, drive righteous anger.
Righteous anger focuses on how people offend God and his name, not me and my name. It terminates on God more than me.
Righteous Anger Is Accompanied by Other Godly Qualities and Expresses Itself in Godly Ways
Righteous anger remains self-controlled. It keeps its head without cursing, screaming, raging, or flying off the handle. Nor does it spiral downward in self-pity or despair. It does not ignore people, snub people, or withdraw from people. Instead, righteous anger carries with it the twin qualities of confidence and self-control. Christlike anger is not all-consuming and myopic but channeled to sober, earnest ends. Godly strains of mourning, comfort, joy, praise, and action balance it.
David Powlison asks seven questions to help someone assess whether his or her anger is righteous:2 (1) Do you get angry about the right things? (2) Do you express your anger in the right way? (3) How long does your anger last? (4) How controlled is your anger? (5) What motivates your anger? (6) Is your anger “primed and ready” to respond to another person’s habitual sins? (7) What is the effect of your anger?
