Photo courtesy of Ferran
Interesting to me is the contrast between:
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment...(Matthew 5:22).
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger... Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (Ephesians 4:26, 31)
Do I think this is a biblical inconsistency? No, but I think it puts an interesting light on the times and the manner in which I get angry.
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So, what is a righteous anger anyway?
4 comments:
It's been years, but I think the last I read a commentary on this, the writer took the approach that "Be angry and do not sin..." was not a license to be angry, but was saying "Even when you're angry, don't let it make you sin", or "Even being angry, don't sin"...I apologize I don't have the exact quote or source...as I said it's been a while. I'll try to find it!
Here's the Mormon/LDS "Joseph Smith Translation" version of verse 26, from my footnotes:
"Can ye be angry, and not sin?"
I always find it interesting to read different interpretations. How much do we leave to our spiritual interpretation, and how much do we rely on others' interpretations? If we do rely on others' interpretations, are those the mainstay of our faith, or do we look at them as trivia?
Thought-provoking post, Pat.
An example: Moses, just before throwing down the tablets God had just written.
There's your righteous anger.
MOTW:
Moses throwing down the tablet seems from our modern perspective (i.e. Demille's depiction) to be just a glitch in his temperment.
What about the passage immediately following that, in which they gather up all the Levites, arm themselves, and wade through the camp slaying brothers, etc... (Exodus 32:25f).
THAT's wrath!
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