God gets very angry in the Old Testament. Loses His temper, one might even say. Rants and raves. His hurt feelings pour out, over Israels infidelity. Just as if a husbands feelings upon his wifes infidelity are created in Gods image. For our part, we are told: -be angry. sin not. -let not the sun go down on our wrath.(which is a lot like the old axiom Dont go to bed angry) This seems to me to be clear instructions against internalizing rage. Against leaving it unspoken and unacted upon. Against repression. Against pretending things are fine. Against keeping it to ones self, when it matters. It seems that repressing anger is not only against scripture, but ineffective and foolish. Wont work. Sounds like wisdom lies in a balance between never acting on it, on the one hand, and doing stuff one needs to repent of, on the other. Jesus shouted, and he called people names. He also made a whip and drove people out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. Yet other times he refused to speak up at all. Now, I know its conventional church wisdom that we arent the Son of God, so we arent to act very much like Jesus in most portions of our lives, choosing pastors and missionaries as role models, rather than Jesus. But how ought we to deal with anger? It seems to me like our conventional church views on it stand in direct contradiction to scriptural counsel. Thoughts?
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 17:27:04 +0000