I think we do this with Jesus all the time. We take something like “Love your enemies” and “Pray for those who persecute you,” and tack on “But, really, holding on to anger is justified.” We do it with the apostle James, who, in the Bible, said point-blank that anger does not produce the kind of righteousness God wants in us: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20 ESV). We do it with Paul when we read one of his many lists of sins, like Colossians 3:8: “But now also put these things out of your life: anger, bad temper, doing or saying things to hurt others,
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