Doubt Your Own Anger

How to Kill a Quiet Killer

Article by
Ed Welch

Counselor, CCEF

Anger is not receiving its due attention. Often, sexual sin captures our attention;
anger less so. But when the apostle Paul lists sins, he especially identifies out-of-
control desires that express themselves in sensuality and anger, with idolatry as a
common thread between the two.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions,
divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies. (Galatians 5:19–21)

With the seriousness of anger in mind, here are a few basic standards that can
improve our anger literacy.

We All Become Sinfully Angry

No exceptions. Today, in your church, anger is a destroyer — separating friends,
breaking marital bonds, crushing children. It can take different forms. Look for
anger in murderous rages, but also look for it in grumbling and complaining
(Numbers 14:2, 11), or in a cold shoulder or silence. Sometimes it turns away
rather than rages against, but it is in us all.

We want peace, health, respect, love, control, influence, safety, and much more.
Sinful anger appears when these desires and expectations quietly become more
important to us than loving God and loving neighbor (James 4:1–2).

Anger Blinds Us
We underestimate our own anger’s frequency and its impact on others. Other
people underestimate the impact of their anger on us. Our anger feels like, “I am
right.” It actually says, “I hate you” and “I am above you.” The more extreme our
anger, the more confident we are that we are right. As a result, angry people are the
last to know that they are sinfully angry.

Anger can also say, “I am hurt and don’t want to be hurt again” or “I am afraid and
feel powerless,” but even then it remains a way that we manage our world in our
own way and on our own terms.

Angry Jesus?
Jesus was never angry when he was tested, mocked, or rejected. He did, indeed,
become angry. The money-changer incident is among the best-known New
Testament stories (John 2:13–17). But his anger was not mixed with selfish and
prideful motivations like ours. His intense passion was for his Father’s glory.

In other words, anger is not always sinful, but given the few times we actually
stumble upon righteous anger, we would do well not to give our own anger the
benefit of the doubt.

The Best Text on Anger

James 4:1–10 is a passage that crams in most everything we need to know about
our anger:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your
passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You
covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do
not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your
passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world
is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes
himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture
says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he
gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn
and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble
yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

There are passages and stories about anger throughout Scripture, and none is
complete in itself, but James gives us quite a bit. Our desires, our fights, our
relationship with God, and the influence of Satan — they are all brought together
in James’s words to us about anger.

He doesn’t go into detail about the Lord’s patience and how he is quick to forgive
— these gems are embedded in his comment about God’s jealousy on our behalf
and how the Lord gives more and more grace. What the passage does is open our
blind eyes to see how anger is against other people and against the Lord. We would
all benefit from mastering and being mastered by these verses.

Where Do We Turn?
When we turn from one thing, we want to know what we are turning to. We turn
away from our self-fueled anger. We turn to Christ and live under him. We turn
from how we authorize our anger because we are “right” (and we might actually
have evidence that would stand in court). We turn to humility and love. And this
turn will have more longevity when done with mourning and weeping (James 4:9).

We are busy people, and it is not easy to find a place for those matters that are on
the heart of God, but our sinful anger is temporary sympathy with the devil’s
murderous ways. It opposes the unity that is at the heart of Christ’s kingdom.

We must not overlook this sin or excuse it away.

Ed Welch is a counselor and faculty member at The Christian Counseling and

Education Foundation. He has been counseling for more than thirty years and has
written extensively on the topics of depression, fear, and addictions. His most
recent book is Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful
Relationships.