Chapter 7
In verse 8 Paul continues his appeal to the believers in Colossian Church, and to us, to “put away and rid yourselves completely of all these things…..” He is returning to sins that he sees as holding back the church. His first set of sins was very personal and aimed mainly at the individual. Now he addresses sins that affect the Church as a unit. These sins have the potential to weaken and diminish the witness of the church and her corporate godliness.
Interestingly Paul changes his image from putting to death, to putting away – two different images with the same effect. Every two weeks I put away and rid myself and my household of rubbish, when the bins are put out to be uplifted by the council. I don’t want to keep the rubbish – though when I look around the house sometimes, I wonder how effective I have been – especially in the bedrooms of our three teenage children!! The sad truth is that we often hold on to our rubbish a lot longer than we should. What is the rubbish that Paul tells us we are to get rid of as individuals and as a church?
Throw out anger.
“A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.”
O the damage that has been done to the Kingdom of God because of uncontrolled anger. The Pharisees were drawn to Jesus at first, but because he did not fit their image of what a Messiah should be, they became angry. This strong hostility was to lead to them acting unreasonably and eventually being responsible, along with others, for the death of Jesus.
There are two kinds of anger:
There is the flash in the pan anger. You might call this a knee jerk reaction. How often I have heard people justify this type of anger. “It’s just the way I am. I have to tell people how I feel and just blow up.” Then that person will go on to further justify their anger by saying it is preferable to the person who broods over something and then explodes. Some people will justify their anger by saying that that is just the way they are and they cannot help being like that. People will justify anger over a whole range of issues. But the bottom line is that we are talking here about a loss of control, normally with the mouth, though not always just that. Here is how some different Christian writers have defined both anger and its effects:
Anger’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it stems from one of the most common, natural, and powerful emotions, which when allowed to degenerate into a deadly sin, becomes the sin most harmful to oneself and others, as well as the most destructive to human happiness and harmony – Os Guinness
When we trace wrongdoing back to its roots in the human heart, we find that in the overwhelming number of cases it involves some form of anger. Close beside anger you will find its twin brother, contempt – Dallas Willard
There are five typical features of the sin of anger: the contribution of the will, the wrongness of the motive, the excess and disorderliness of the expression, the desire for revenge, and the easy descent into contempt – Os Guinness
There is nothing than can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it – Dallas Willard
In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves - Thomas Carlyle
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you - Frederick Buechner
Speak when you are angry - and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret – Laurence Peter
Anyone can get angry. It takes no special talent to lose your temper and get mean. I know, I’ve done it. Ugly and threatening exchanges are not hard to come by in our world. But a gentle answer is hard to find, and is the sure mark of a mature and growing believer….Remember, the person who is in control of his responses is ultimately in control of the situation. Gentleness and patience are not signs of weakness, but of maturity and strength. They are vital components of unity – Robert Moeller
Doctors from Coral Gables, Fla., compared the efficiency of the heart's pumping action in 18 men with coronary artery disease to nine healthy controls. Each of the study participants underwent one physical stress test (riding an exercise bicycle) and three mental stress tests (doing math problems in their heads, recalling a recent incident that had made them very angry, and giving a short speech to defend themselves against a hypothetical charge of shoplifting). Using sophisticated X-ray techniques, the doctors took pictures of the subjects' hearts in action during these tests. For all the subjects, anger reduced the amount of blood that the heart pumped to body tissues more than the other tests, but this was especially true for those who had heart disease. Why anger is so much more potent than fear or mental stress is anybody's guess? But until we see more research on this subject, it couldn't hurt to count to 10 before you blow your stack - Unknown
A lady once came to Billy Sunday and tried to rationalize her angry outbursts. "There's nothing wrong with losing my temper," she said. "I blow up, and then it's all over." "So does a shotgun," Sunday replied, "and look at the damage it leaves behind!" - Billy Sunday
I hope that these insights from others help to focus our attention on the negative impact that anger can have on our lives. This is especially true of the slow, smouldering anger that we nurture in our heart and mind.
There is though, righteous anger. I very much hesitate to suggest that this is a place that many Christians can justify being in because we can use this as an excuse for wrong expressions of anger. However, if you look at William Wilberforce, it was his unremitting anger at the injustice of slavery that kept aflame the keen and consistent desire over many years to see that awful trade abolished. I had a similar experience. When I was told about the “Dying Rooms” Channel 4 programme based on the awful conditions that abandoned baby girls in China were being subjected to, I was incensed. The anger is still there, but it led to us adopting Eilidh from China, our fourth and truly special child. It also led, by God’s grace to the setting up of Hope4China’s Children – a small charity we set up after we came home from China that now helps 500 different girls in China who are now being given an opportunity and hope. That initial anger has subsided but in part it was the catalyst that led to someone who is precious beyond words to us coming into our lives.
Jesus showed anger from time to time – always justified. Here is how one Christian writer described it:
Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and saw a man with a crippled hand. He knew that the Pharisees were watching to see what he would do, and he felt angry that they were only out to put him in the wrong. They did not care a scrap for the handicapped man, nor did they want to see the power and love of God brought to bear on him.
There were other instances where Jesus showed anger or sternness. He "sternly charged" the leper whom he had healed not to tell anyone about it (Mark 1:43) because he foresaw the problems of being pursued by a huge crowd of thoughtless people who were interested only in seeing miracles and not in his teaching. But the leper disobeyed and so made things very hard for Jesus.
Jesus showed anger again when the disciples tried to send away the mothers and their children (Mark 10:13-16). He was indignant and distressed at the way the disciples were thwarting his loving purposes and giving the impression that he did not have time for ordinary people.
He showed anger once more when he drove "out those who sold and those who bought in the temple" (Mark 11:15-17). God's house of prayer was being made into a den of thieves and God was not being glorified -- hence Jesus' angry words and deeds. Commenting on this, Warfield wrote: "A man, who cannot be angry, cannot be merciful." The person who cannot be angry at things which thwart God's purposes and God's love toward people is living too far away from his fellow men ever to feel anything positive towards them.
Finally, at Lazarus' grave Jesus showed not just sympathy and deep distress for the mourners (John 11:33-35), but also a sense of angry outrage at the monstrosity of death in God's world. This is the meaning of "deeply moved" in John 11:38 - James Packer
Paul also felt such a passionate anger when people were corrupting the faith and the wonderful Gospel of our Lord Jesus. However he recognised that anger is seldom justified and mainly destructive, especially when it is expressed in the church. How do we deal with it? We eat humble pie and apologise and ask for forgiveness. That is simply what always must be done – even when we feel justified in our anger. We will only change a situation for better, when we first change.
What of my own anger? It has been one of the things that have defined me as a person, and I cannot run from that fact. I feel I have got to read carefully here because I do not want to paint a picture that is darker than it really is. Let me explain, as honestly as I can my past experiences that I believe have significantly influenced who I am.
At the age of 8 I stared taking epileptic fits [grand mal as it was diagnosed]. At the time, all I felt was great fear when these fits would come on. I remember before the age of 8 being a normal, average, happy wee boy. Things changed forever after that. What caused the epilepsy? No-one is sure. It could have been inherited. My mother’s sister died at 3 months from continual fits in 1928 – the family were too poor to get a doctor or a diagnosis. I was a blue baby – the doctor speculated that that was a possible cause. I was severely assaulted by a child with acute learning difficulties not long before the onset of the fits – did he do damage? My father was playing golf with me and knocked me out cold with a really bad shot weeks before the fits started – was that the cause? The poor man could never bring himself to think of that as a possibility. Whatever the cause, the effect was significant. By the age of 10, while still at primary school I was seeing a child psychiatrist suffering from depression, and have probably suffered with it to some extent ever since. I became more and more introverted and was guilty of some real outbursts of anger. I carried around a real chip on my shoulder even after the fits were successfully brought under control with Tegretol [what for many suffering from epilepsy was a wonder drug]. I never really settled – to many people I was very outgoing but the truth is I was deeply unsure of myself and very unhappy and angry.
At the age of 22 I was involved in a serious car accident. It was touch and go whether or not I would survive. But my passenger did not survive and that accident made two girls motherless and devastated a family. I was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, and by this time I had become a Christian. However, since then, I don’t really think I have ever felt forgiven or forgiven myself – perhaps I have never felt I have had the right to be forgiven. Whereas I was angry at life and in particular my parents before the accident, I feel that I have been angry at myself since, and if I was to be perfectly honest part of me fears the judgment of God and his anger at me. No matter how much I know I am forgiven as a Christian, there is lurking in the background, this great fear.
Anger? Yes I am prone to outbursts of anger, in particular at home, and I am not proud of what my wife and children sometimes experience. Why? It is complex, but this one thing I do know, whether I am angry at myself and other people, I know that I can control it – no matter what excuses I manufacture to justify my outbursts. How am I dealing with anger? I keep asking God to make me feel good inside – that has not happened. Am I asking the wrong thing? Is it something both physiologically and psychologically that I cannot help? Possibly. But it is also something I know I am personally and morally responsible for controlling, and seeking God’s help in so doing.
Rid yourself of rage.
“To have no control over anger”
Rage is when we have yielded ourselves to our anger to the point when sometimes we are not even aware of it. Rage is when the fire of anger has become settled in us – is at home in us. This may be directed at a person, a group of people or an institution. This is the kind of anger that wants revenge and sees nothing wrong or immoral in that revenge. It is an anger that judges another person and of course that is for us to stand in the place that only belongs to God.
I remember my time as a part-time chaplain coming across a wide variety of rogues [I came across similar people in business, in the church, and they were not in prison!]. The one group of people that I grew more and more to dislike were the prisoners who were in for child abuse. It got to the stage when in my heart I wished them ill and could not have cared less whether they lived or died. It was a quiet, settled anger, that sought no good or blessing for these people. Some people might feel that I did nothing wrong in feeling that way because they feel a similar disgust at people who abuse children. However, there was no justification for me feeling like that – who gave me the right to judge or to determine who was or was not worthy of forgiveness?
Remember the story of Jonah. I have a wooden carving from Estonia hanging three feel away from me of Jonah sitting in the “huff”. Why? He was angry at both God and the people of Nineveh. He was so angry at the people of Nineveh he did not believe that they deserved the offer of repentance from God. He could not go there, and when the people did repent, he was angry at both them and God for doing such a thing. Why? Because in his heart he hated [had rage for] the people of Nineveh.
We can be so blind to this that it takes the Holy Spirit to show it to us. However it may be that our rage is so settled and deeply rooted we do not want to consider forgiveness or grace. I do not feel I am in that place, but I can think of people I know who are crippled in some areas of their lives because of such deep rooted rage. They need a liberating that only God can bring to them, but they need to be rid of it and put it away. Even if they feel a deep anger, they must leave the judgment to God should he see fit to exercise it.