What did Jesus say about anger?
Jesus treated anger as more serious than most people do, and he did not treat it as automatically sinful. He was angry himself, publicly. What he warned against was the contempt anger turns into when it sits, and he told people to go deal with it directly and quickly rather than carrying it into worship or into the next day.
What Jesus said
In Matthew 5 he does something startling. He takes the command against murder and pushes it back one step, into the anger that precedes it. Then he goes further, to the words we use when contempt has fully set in. He is tracing the whole chain, not just the last link.
What he prescribes is not suppression. It is interruption. If you are at the altar and remember that someone has something against you, leave the gift there and go work it out first. The repair comes before the ritual, and it is urgent enough to walk out of church for.
He also got angry. In Mark 3 he looks around at people in a synagogue with anger and grief because they cared more about the rule than about the man with a withered hand standing in front of them. In the temple he overturns tables. This is not a teacher who thinks anger is always a failure.
The line he draws is about direction. Anger that moves toward repair, toward the person being harmed, toward the thing that is actually wrong, looks entirely different from anger that curdles into contempt for a person.
The hard part
He puts the responsibility on you to go first, even when they have something against you rather than the other way around. He does not wait until fault is established. That is genuinely unfair, and he asks for it anyway, which means at some point you will be the one walking across the room in a situation where you are not the one who started it.
What this looks like today
- •Ask whether your anger is pointed at a wrong or at a person. The first can be useful. The second hardens fast.
- •If someone has something against you, go this week. Not when you feel ready, and not after they move first.
- •Notice the words. Contempt shows up in language before it shows up in action, and Jesus went straight for the language.
Matthew 5:21-26, Mark 3:1-6, John 2:13-17, Luke 6:27-28
Go deeper: this comes up in the 40 days