Do you tend to get angry easy? Perhaps you might want to read this question and answer excerpt taken from the Sunday Q & A group: Q. Could you please explain the following verses? Ephesians 4 26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: How is it possible to be angry and sin not? And why does the first verse say to be angry, when the second verse says to put anger away? I have also heard it said that a believer can have righteous anger, and the example of Jesus overturning the table of the money changers is used. Could you please comment on that as well? How can a believer be angry, which is a sin, without sinning? Thanks! A. Anger can be a normal emotion. For instance, if I walk by you and step on your foot, your initial reaction is pain, and also a quick burst of anger that I hurt your foot. Its a normal response. Alright, so be ye angry and sin not----the sin isnt in feeling hurt and reacting with anger because of it; but the sin is when you begin to think about getting even with the person that stepped on your foot. The sin would be holding a grudge and still being angry with me tomorrow because I stepped on your foot. The sin is nurtured anger. Anger that is held onto. The world is very good at holding onto anger. I know people that are still angry over something done to them years and years ago. As they speak of the event they still boil over with anger. Gods people are not like that. God will not allow His people to hold onto anger. When someone steps on a child of Gods foot, our natural reaction is to anger. Were like everyone else that way. We feel the physical pain and tend to have the same emotional response to it. But after a little while, if were stewing in our anger and thinking badly about someone, the Word of God begins to work on us. And Scriptures come to mind exactly like the one that follows in Ephesians 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you. We soon are pondering Christs incredibly gracious example of forgiving our numerous sins, and we realize that holding a grudge against someone for something petting like stepping on our foot is horrible. There is such a thing as righteous anger. God is righteous and is angry with the wicked every day. Christ is God, and when He overturned the money changers tables that was a display of righteous anger. But we are not God. We are not the Righteous Judge of men. It is not our place to lash out in wrath against those sinners over there. God forbids that kind of self righteous thinking. People that point to Christs anger and speak of righteous anger are only trying to justify their sinful behavior of getting angry with others and holding onto that anger. Leave that to God. Vengeance is Mine saith the Lord. Not ours.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 03:19:45 +0000