What are Christians Really Concerned About

We arrived in Haiti last night, January 15, 2013, to begin  our three year stay here.  More about that later, but now, Chapter 8 of "Peace on Earth."  If you have not been following along, Chapters 1-7 appear as earlier posts on this site.  Eventually, hopefully, the whole book will be here, saving you the $8 to buy a copy or the $5 to download an electronic copy from Kindle.  Click here to buy a copy:  

https://www.amazon.com/author/davidmay 

CHAPTER 8

What are Christians Really Concerned About?

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”[1] 

Awhile back I asked a group of Christian friends what they are worried about.  One of them (a researcher, perhaps) was worried that my sample was small and was not random.  But it is what it is and I would like to mention some of the responses here.

Are we busy enough?

A major group of responses was about whether we are doing enough.  And that is a hard one for me as well.   Even if we can quote the scriptures about it, like Ephesians 2:8-10, we still have a hard time putting them into action.  Paul told the Ephesians in four different ways in verse 8 that we are not responsible for our salvation.  1) It is a gift; 2) it is not something we do ourselves; 3) it is not the result of anything we do; 4) we have no room to boast about it.   But then he said we were created for good works.  So he took the burden off with one hand and put it back on with the other.  What are we supposed to do with that?

Here’s what I’ve figured out about it.  God wants us to fully understand that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation.  No matter how good we are, we are never good enough.  Therefore there is no room for pride, and when we present the good news of salvation to those around us, we are telling them of a gift we have received, not of something we have accomplished. 

 Jesus wants all of us.  He wants our heart, soul, mind, and strength.[2]  Can we ever give Him enough? No.  Does it make sense that we are concerned about not giving him enough?  Yes.  Can we take an afternoon off to play golf, go fishing, or read a book without feeling guilty for not knocking on doors, preaching on the street corner, or helping at the food pantry?   I'm going to say a qualified, "Yes, we can take some time to ourselves."  Let’s look at the life of our example and teacher.

We don’t know much about the first 30 years of Jesus’ life.  We do know that after the brief view we are given of the 12 year old boy Jesus, he grew in favor with men.[3]  That indicates at least that he was not a boring preacher who was always serious about everything.

 

During the first miracle that John recorded, Jesus was at a wedding feast[4] and he attended several other feasts.[5]  He invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner,[6]  he was chastised for eating and drinking with sinners,[7] and he often used feasts in his illustrations.[8]   But at the parties that found their way into the record, he did something significant with regard to his ministry.  For example we would assume that he went to Zacchaeus' house to continue the discussion about the Spirit and baptism. 

If we truly adopt Bill Hybels' "Just Walk Across the Room" strategy[9], we can go anywhere there are other people and assume that the Spirit will use us to help him move someone a little closer to the Lord that day.

So what about sitting under a tree or on a beach just thinking, or even choosing not to think?  Or reading a novel?   I really want to justify this one, because I love to be alone some of the time.  I guess I'm technically an introvert because I get my energy more from being alone than from being with others.  But as I searched the scripture I did not have to go far to discover this passage: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”[10]  And this one: "Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?"[11]

Most Bible references to people being alone are of negative situations and being alone is a part of the negative situation.  Jesus was alone a lot, but he was usually praying.  And he said: “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. [A negative connotation to being alone.]  Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me."

The Bible seems to say that we should not strive to be alone.  At least not for the long term or consistently.  God intends for us, with the help of the Spirit, to be a support and a help for others. 

On the other hand, if we are alone, God wants us to know that we are not alone.  God is with us: "For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.  If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."

It is okay to "recharge" from time to time by being alone, but to seek to be alone through most of our lives is a waste of what God has given us.  He intends for us to share with others.

What about Facebook and Twitter and other such means of interacting with people?  If you are truly being interactive and not just spouting out your own thoughts, I would guess that God is okay with that, as long as it is in the context of a holy life.

Similar Worries

Reproduced here are other responses from Christians about what bothers them.  Many of them are serious concerns related to how we represent the church and God to the world around us.  My answer to most of them is "God bless you for thinking about these things, and may his Spirit guide you as you work to improve in the areas you have identified.  Please pray that I may be as serious as you have been in thinking about these things."

My message to you about these concerns is a hope that they will trigger in you a similar look inside your soul, an examination of your motivations, and a resolve to become more like Jesus day by day.[12]

1.  “I worry most often that I am not representing Christ as a positive ambassador that will draw people to him. I am disturbed by my tendency toward legalism instead of love."

2.  “All the things the Lord tells us not to worry about.  Mostly mammon.  The economy, the environment, our health and health care, inflation and interest rates.  For boomers - retirement; mostly stuff related to our own interests and wants.   I would include the decline of morals and religious sentiment. Stagnation in our churches.   Politics and the future of our nation.”

3.  “I have been thinking about your question. I assume (perhaps wrongly) you want the questions we are asking about our lives. In which case mine would be, ”Am I where I am supposed to be or should I have already moved on? Should I be taking more initiative in determining what comes next in my life?  Or should I sit back expecting that God will do with me what he wills?”

4.  "Church-wise there is something that disturbs me much. While your question is a good one, I read in several of our magazines the question and answer sections and note that the questions we seem consumed with and I am concerned that they reveal a non-flattering perception of the Lord. I remember the question, Should a teenager with purple hair be allowed to wait on the Lord's Table? The questions that are put forward assume a God that is legalistic, expecting us to jump through a plethora of hoops to receive his blessings, rather than the God described in the Bible who is love and desires that all men be saved.”

5.  "Do I take myself too seriously?  It seems that the more serious we take our selves the less we can understand grace and the absurdity of the world."

6.  "In our materialistic, self-centered society do I look any different?  Am I just "playing" safe church without ever getting drastically, radically, passionately serious about saving souls and doing the hard stuff to make that happen.
What disturbs me is trying to fit God into my world instead of me fitting into His."

7.  "I guess I worry about developing poor health--I think none of us want to be a burden to others [this is probably an age thing].  I think, mainly, I worry about not recognizing opportunities to be of service to others or share with them about our God."

8.  “You asked, 'What are Christians uptight about? What worries us?  Disturbs us?'  There are so many places to start, but I will start with this: Most Christians are uptight with the way the world system has taken over the control of the
universe.  But this does not have to be, because God promised if we would humble ourselves, turn from our sinful ways, He will hear from heaven and will heal our land.  Most Christians do not want to take the time to build a relationship with God to the point that no matter what is going on in his or her life, they know that they are not alone and help is only a prayer a way.  Christians are worried about the economic situation and what will happen to their future.  Again, God promised that he would take care of his children no matter what is going on around us.  Most Christians try to deal with God on a human level and forget that God is spirit and you must worship him in spirit and truth.  As Christians, we are disturbed because we don't get answers to our problems and circumstances right away, so we begin to doubt God and his word.  No matter what happens now or in the future, we must stay true to God and our position as a Christian, we are God's examples to who he really is.  If we fold and give up, some people in the world will never get to know who God is.  Hope I did not go too far off the track of what you were asking for.  :-)"  [Not at all - DMM]

9.  "The worries that we communicate to the world at large are about abortion, gay marriage, evolution, and negative influences on young people (sex, drugs, etc.).  In settings where Christians are sharing their behind-the-scenes worries with each other, I also hear about church growth and - occasionally - Muslims taking over the world.  I'm hoping though that Christians who worry are also concerned about more personal things like sin in their own lives and whether their friends and family are walking with God, but unfortunately, those aren't the ones that are usually expressed."

10.  "I was thinking about this as I fell asleep last night.  I’m not sure if you are doing this by age group, but I would think that matters.  So for the record, I will be 53 in a few weeks.  Here are a few big things that try to bog me down on a daily basis:

a.  We worry about health issues both for ourselves and parents.  Healthcare for aging and dying parents are huge issues for me and my peers.   

b.  Grief and loss.  Doing it and doing it well. 

c.  As Christians, we are confronted with ugly battles.  I think particularly for those of us in any kind of ministry, Satan is working overtime to discourage, threaten, and defeat us. 

d.  I also believe that Satan works overtime on trying to isolate us….he will do anything to destroy relationships especially in the church. 

e.  If you are a member of the church of Christ, then you are constantly aware of the differing opinions about worship.  This wears me out. "

11.  "That the world will end soon and we need to have the sense of urgency to share and live the Gospel message. Another, that Seeking and saving the lost must be the work of the church; its primary work, as it was for Jesus. Another, to restore the New Testament church."

12.  "I've tried very hard to give up worrying.  It's a waste of time and usually the things people worry about don't happen ... something else happens that they didn't even think to worry about.  I don't know that worry is the right word for me.  It's more of a "concern" that I do my best to turn over to God since I have no control of the matter ... but it would be the faithfulness of my children and grandchildren that will ultimately lead them to salvation and keep them in a saved state.  I preface the next statement with the understanding that God is in control and whatever happens in our country, God will ultimately cause good to result.  But the state of our country and the world is worrisome.  If I catch myself worrying (or being concerned) about something, I'll let you know."

13.  "After reading the list….now I am really worried.  I should have mentioned that I worry that I won’t have the energy that I want and need on mission trips!!!"

14  "Some of my concerns are: "Am I doing enough?"; "Will my children be faithful?"; "Am I planting enough 'seeds' that will germinate & grow?".  It is truly difficult to "be anxious for nothing".

---

[1] Matthew 11:28-30

[2] Luke 10:27

[3] Luke 2:52

[4] John 2:1-11

[5] e.g. Luke 14:1

[6] Luke 19:1-5

[7] Luke 5:30

[8] e.g. Luke 14:7-21

[9] Bill Hybels: "Just Walk Across the Room, Zondervan, 2006

[10] Genesis 2:18

[11] Ecclesiastes 4:11

[12] 2 Corinthians 4:16: 

Set the Tone; Live in the Moment (Chapter 7)

CHAPTER 7

Set the Tone; Live in the Moment

"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” [1]

I was recently at the funeral of an 18 year old girl.  She was severely handicapped from birth and had not been expected to see her first birthday.  The Rabbi conducting the service, her dad, and others who spoke mentioned the fact that Louise lived “in the moment” and they encouraged us to do the same.  Louise had no choice.  She never worried about what happened or didn’t happen yesterday, nor was she concerned about what might happen tomorrow.  She communicated with her caretakers and others through her huge smiles and her grunts and disagreeable looks.

The message to us was that we would gain by setting aside our concerns about the past and the future.  Our friend Roberta has lived that way for the 17 years she has been working in Haiti.  The motto she has lived by has been “God will provide.”  [2]  She tells the story about sitting down to dinner with the children she had taken into her home to provide for them.  There was no food in the house and one of the children asked. “What will we eat?”  Her response was consistent with her life style, “God will provide.”  Soon there was a knock on the door and a neighbor was there with a live chicken – dinner!

I am sure there have been similar times in your life when you got to the end of your rope, tied a knot to hold on, waited for God, and nothing happened.  Those are the hardest.  But he did promise.  And he does sometimes take an opportunity to teach us patience and perseverance - though we wish he wouldn’t bother.  During the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught that we shouldn’t worry about what to eat, drink, or wear, but that we should seek his kingdom.[3]  These are not metaphors about our next promotion.  He is writing to Haitians who have good reason to be concerned about what to feed their children tonight.  He is telling them not to worry about it; he will take care of it.  And they look around and see their neighbors with nothing to put on the table.  And he says to be concerned for their souls and for our own.  Either we believe in a God who is in charge and who is able to keep promises and who will keep them, or we don’t.

“And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span?  If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?”[4]  The answer is, “Because we can.”  And maybe, “Because we must.” 

Imagine “being concerned” about the health of a family member, on a situation at work, or a relationship issue and someone says, “Just relax; it will all work out for the best.”  Is that a relaxing direction, or doesn’t it just add to our consternation?  "Oh bother, now not only do I have to deal with all these issues in my life, but in addition I have to do it in a peaceful way!”  I don’t recommend going around telling people to relax.  It probably won’t help.   But that is what God wants of us.

God wants us to love him and trust him and to know that he will take care of us in the long run.  And knowing that and trusting him to keep his promises is what it takes to become a confident, peaceful representative of the truth and of the good news here on this earth.

---

[1] Matthew 6:34

[2] Genesis 22:8

[3]Matthew 6:31-34

[4] Luke 12:25-26

Take a Break and Let the Spirit Get Back in Front.

“He leadeth me, He leadeth me,

By His own hand He leadeth me,

His faithful follower I would be,

For by His hand, He leadeth me.”[1]

I am sure you have heard this old story.  There is a small group of hikers eating their lunch beside a mountain trail.  Soon a man comes huffing and puffing up the trail and they invite him to stop for a rest.  He says he can’t and asks if they saw a group of Boy Scouts go up the mountain awhile ago.  “I have to catch up with them,” he explains, “I am their leader.”

The story is often used to introduce a discussion of the nature of leadership, but I think it illustrates our relationship with the Spirit as well.  Like the energetic young scouts, we want to run out in front.  We don’t need a leader – until we get into trouble that is.

The Spirit leads us quietly

We do so want to direct our own steps, to plan our own course, to map our own way.  It is the American way.  It is the American story.  We start with the cards we are dealt and we play our way to the top.  And we get to define the top: the top of our profession, the manager`s job at work, the nicest house or car or boat in the neighborhood,  the biggest TV among our friends. 

But God says it is not in us.[2]  That is not a put down.  He is not saying we are not capable of developing a business plan and carrying it out.  He is just saying that our vision is too limited to direct our spiritual lives.  We cannot see what he can see.

On to peace

But his spirit will lead us to peace if we get out of the way.  Peace is one of his promised fruits.[3]  We need to quit being concerned about who and what people think we are.  Isn’t that a major part of what concerns us?  What will my coworkers and friends think of me?

Who are we really?

We need to figure out first of all who we really are.  Some of us don’t really know.  We are so concerned with our image, so focused on what others think of us that we have not spent any time figuring out who we really are.  We need to do that.  We should be able to put it in a few words and know that it makes sense.  And we need to put it in the context of what role God is calling us to play in his kingdom.  What does he want us to accomplish for his work in our workplace, in our family, in our neighborhood, in our church and civic club, among our golf or fishing partners?  Once we have defined those roles, we have figured out who we really are – and who we are not.

That may be the hardest and most important part – figuring out who we are not.  We are not defined by the roles we have been assigned at work or in the family, church or neighborhood.  We are not the manager of so-and-so or the deacon of whatever.  We are not the “head of the house” or the secretary of the board of such-and-such.  We are instead ambassadors of God,[4] each of us with a separate set of good deeds programmed for us from the beginning of our time here on earth.[5]

“Be still and know”

How do we do that?  How can we know what role God wants for us?  Remember the story of Elijah?  God wanted to speak to him.  But God was not in the strong wind that passed by.  Then an earthquake came, but God was not in the earthquake either.  Then there was a fire, but God was not there either.  As Elijah waited for God he was able to find him only in a still small voice.[6]

You see that is what we must do to find what God wants us to do.  We must be still and listen.[7]  We will have to know the scriptures because if we conclude that something is God’s will for us but it is contrary to the written word of God, we can know that it is a thought that was planted by Satan. [8]

This will likely be some agonizing work and might take quite some time.  Be patient.  One of the fruits of the Spirit is patience.[9]

And pray.  These are answers you cannot work out on your own.  God’s spirit has to show you the way.  And work really hard at getting yourself out of the way.   This is not about you.  It is about your neighbors in the broadest, Biblical sense of that term.[10]

Resign from the cast of the play

Once we have figured out who God wants us to be, and we have it firmly in our mind, and we are diligently working toward really being who we want to be and should be, we need to admit it to ourselves and others.  Quit trying to appear to be who you are not.  That will be a hard thing for some of us.  We have worked so hard, so long on our image that it has become a part of who we are.  Breaking the habits connected with being someone else may be as hard as breaking a smoking or drinking habit.  But with God’s help, we can do it.

I need to pause here to ask you to think about your church family as well as your personal family, co-workers, neighbors, and friends.  What is the image you have been trying to convey to your church?  Who is it that you have wanted them to think you are?  That may be an even harder role to break out of than the image you have been trying to convey at work.

We are all just people, but God loves us anyway.  We all slip up.  None of us has a right to claim salvation by our own doing.  We are no better than those we seek to teach about the good news.  Once we can own that fact, God can put us to work, and not until then.

Move your feet

But at that point, we need to be ready to move our feet.  God can’t use us very effectively if we are just sitting in a pew or if we are sitting on our couch at home with the doors locked.  We need to plan how we are going to meet people in our neighborhoods and at our workplace.  Someone has suggested that we should be doing things like being a repeat customer at the same establishments so we can get to know the clerks, joining a civic group or a hobby club, taking a class.  That is, we need to be strategic about how we get to know people and about how best to represent God’s love to those around us.  Our prayer each morning should include something about how God will use us that day to show his love to others and to help someone who needs help.

---

[1][1] J. H. Gilmore, 1862

[2] Jeremiah 10:23

[3] Galatians 5: 22-23

[4] 2 Corinthians 5:19-20

[5] Ephesians 2:19

[6] 1 Kings 19:11-13

[7] Psalms 46:10

[8] 1 John 4:1-3

[9] Galatians 5:22-23

[10] Luke 10:25-37

FEAR

Another excerpt from "Peace on Earth?" By David May

CHAPTER 5

What is the Proper Place for Fear in our Lives?

Check out the whole book here

“God is bigger than the boogie man,

He’s bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV,

Oh, God is bigger than the boogie man,

And he’s watching out for you and me- ee-ee, hey!”

-          Junior Asparagus[1]

Enough said.  God is indeed bigger than anything in this world that we might choose to be afraid of.  Jesus has overcome the world.  He said so.[2]  And he tied that directly to his desire that we be at peace in the world.  He was not talking about some esoteric peace in the sky bye and bye.  In the same verse where he spoke of us having peace, he mentioned our troubles in the world and then affirmed that he has overcome the world.  That is where our peace comes from.  He is our shepherd and our guardian and he is in charge!

In 1 John the author is talking about contrary spirits, those who would deny the divinity of Christ.  In the middle of that conversation he confirmed that because we are from God we have overcome those spirits, “because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”[3]  That has to be the text for Junior Asparagus’ little reassuring song about God being bigger than the boogie man.  Junior, by the way is one of the characters in the Veggie Tales series.  I’d love to watch those writers at work some day.  They must have a great time.

We are overcomers!

One chapter after the “Greater is he” quote, John reiterates: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.  Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”[4]

We are believers and we have nothing to be afraid of.  But sometimes we act in ways that deny the truth of that fact.  Particularly to outsiders, we tend to look very afraid.  We are afraid someone is taking our country in the wrong direction.  We are afraid of the collapse of the American dream.  We are afraid of Al- Qaeda and other terrorists.  We are afraid that immigrants will ruin the good deal we’ve got – a better deal than most anyone else in the world.  What we fail to understand is that God is bigger than all of that and more.  And he is on our side.  He has our back.

Why are we afraid?

Why are we afraid?  Because we don’t trust.  And because of how we view this world in which we live.  Have we never really sung and believed the old song “This world is not my home”?  We have put down roots here; unlike Abraham who just packed up and moved when God said “Go” without even knowing where he was headed.[5]

I love this nation.  It is the best deal we could find or build on this earth.  Could it be better?  For sure.  Could it be worse?  Are you kidding?  Have you read a newspaper or watched the news in the last ten years?  In fact that’s what we are afraid of, isn’t it?  That we will become what we read about in the rest of the world.  Yet we need to understand that America is a part of the material world.  Sisters and brothers, America is not our home.  We are ”…Just a passing through.  Our treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.”[6] 

We have been commissioned to make America as loving a place as we possibly can, but we are not charged with preventing its financial or military collapse.  If we finish our lives sneaking around on Sundays to meet with other Christians for worship in order to avoid arrest by the ruling Muslim powers, we should understand that God is still in charge.  And we can continue being his loving people is spite of what else is going on around us.  Just like the little bird, singing away in the middle of the cat 5 storm.

Do not be afraid

For us not to be afraid must be one of the most persistent parts of God’s message to us.  He must have understood the difficulty of that request.  Over 60 times in the Old Testament he said to mankind, “Do not be afraid.”  And again in the New Testament he kept saying it, “Do not be afraid.”  Whether it was through Moses speaking to the people as they were preparing to go in and take the promised land,[7]  or through an angel appearing to Mary to tell her of her future[8] the message was the same: we are not to be a fearful people.  Reassuring the Israelites, Moses, speaking for God said, “He will not fail you or forsake you.”  That is still his reassurance to us today and his reminder of why it is that we are afraid.  We are afraid because we do not trust that God will truly take all of what is happening in our horrible lives right now and will work it together for our good.[9]  But he will.  He promised.  And he keeps his promises.

When the disciples woke Jesus up on the boat to calm the stormy sea, he had to calm his students first.  “Why are you afraid?” he asked.  And he accused them of being of little faith.[10]  You see that is the answer.  We are afraid because our faith is weak. Our trust is weak.  And when we are afraid, whether it is because of big scheme political reasons, or over the potential loss of a loved one to sickness or divorce, or because of the potential for financial loss or loss of face among our friends or coworkers, we need to ask God to increase our faith.  And we should ask our friends to pray the same prayer for us. 

Courage has to be a major part of the peace Jesus wanted to leave us with.   But it is not a courage that comes from being sure of ourselves and our own abilities.  When Moses spoke to Israel just before they went in to conquer the promised land, he told them to be strong and courageous, not because they were a powerful army or because the enemy was weak, but because God was going with them.  He told them not to be afraid or tremble at their enemy.  “He will not fail you or forsake you,” Moses said.  God says we don’t have anything to be afraid of because he has our back.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Asparagus#Junior_Asparagus

[2] John 16:33

[3] 1 John 4:4

[4] 1 John 5:4-5

[5] Hebrews 11:8

[6]Words and Music by Albert E. Brumley
© 1965 -

[7] Deuteronomy 31:6

[8] Luke 1:30

[9] Romans 8:28

[10] Matthew 8:25-27

Chapter 3 - Peace on Earth?

CHAPTER 4

The proper place for anger

“For the churning of milk produces butter,
And pressing the nose brings forth blood;
So the churning of anger produces strife.”[1]

What makes you angry?

Is your anger most related to how the boss treats you? The insensitivity of your coworkers? The lack of understanding your spouse has for you? Your kids’ lack of respect or their laziness? Traffic? I am guessing it is mostly about how other people treat you.

Our anger is closely related to our fear.  Often we are angry about whatever we are afraid of.  Anger covers the fear.  We come on strong and push back on the situation or person who scares us and it protects us from confronting our fear.  In that way, anger is destructive to the person who exhibits it, because it covers the underlying emotion and prevents us from having to deal with it.  Without the anger, we could meet our fears head on, but anger prevents us from doing so.

Did you ever flare up at someone you love, quickly and without warning; and then be amazed at yourself? “Where did that come from?” you wonder. And when you examine the situation, the anger rose from something the other person did or said that triggered old fears – maybe honest fears for how the person will turn out, or that they will stop loving you, or that they will not find their way into heaven or that their attitude toward you will embarrass you in the eyes of others. And those fears in turn triggered the anger.

A little or a lot makes no difference

Some of us go through life showing very little anger.  For whatever reason, temperament maybe, it just takes a lot to make us mad.  And when the door to our anger is opened, it is often sudden, loud, maybe out of control.  But it is short lived.  Then we are under control again.  Our burst of anger itself scares us.  It is inconsistent with our view of ourselves and we hurry to bury it again.

Others of us wear our anger on our sleeves.  Anything, it seems can touch it off and no one is safe from its consequences.  But whichever category describes our anger, or whether we are somewhere in between, it is still not a part of who God calls us to be.

Now that is a powerful statement: “God does not call us to be angry.”  But I believe it to be true.  If we can begin to understand how God calls us to deal with fear and anger, we will begin to take our places as effective citizens in his kingdom.  We need to eliminate these barriers to our service to him.

“Be angry and sin not.”

Okay so Ephesians 4:26 says to be angry.  How can we argue with that?  Well, the context is a call to righteousness.  In the larger passage we are called to quit lying and stealing.  Paul does give us enough leeway to get legitimately angry if we must, but then he says in the same verse not to go to bed angry.  Then in verses 31 and 32 he says we should put away from us all bitterness, wrath, and anger, and we should instead be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.  So this passage is clearly not a call to anger.

Was Jesus’ clearing of the moneychangers from the temple and act of anger?

Another Biblical passage sometimes used to justify anger is Jesus’ clearing of the temple.[2]   But if you read the passages carefully, clearing the temple follows immediately after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  The people were crying out “Hosanna!  Hosanna!”  And when he got into town he went directly to the temple.  Nowhere in the three accounts does it say he saw the money changers and got angry. 

In the Mark account it says he went in one day and looked around and saw everything that was there.  He then left the temple, went to Bethany to spend the night, and came back and cleaned it out the next day.

The John account says he made a whip of cords before he cleaned it out.  Some commentators believe there were two events when Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple.  That discussion is not relevant to our purposes here.  Whether it was once or twice, it seems very deliberate – going in and seeing it one day and coming back to clean it out the next – taking time to make a whip.  Neither of these events reads like he saw something that made him lose his temper.  They seem very deliberate.

Yes cleaning the money changers out of the temple was an authoritative act on behalf of his father, who owned the place, but it does not really read like an act of anger.

Hebrews 3:17 says God was angry with his people for 40 years, but we are called on to turn loose of our anger by nightfall.  That is okay with me.  God has a right to be angry with whomever he chooses.  He was angry at sin.[3]  If we are angry at a brother (the implication is that we harbor ongoing anger) we are in danger of the judgment.[4]  I get the impression that anger is primarily God’s job and we are to be peacemakers.

Jesus angry at the Pharisees

But Jesus is our example and we do know that he was angry at least once – at the Pharisees.[5]  He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath and a man was there with a withered hand.  Jesus, as he frequently did when he met someone who had some infirmity, wanted to heal the man.  But the Pharisees were watching to see if he would heal on the Sabbath.  If he did, they would accuse him of violating one of their rules.  Yes the Sabbath was God’s rule, but they had interpreted it very narrowly, and then forced that interpretation on the people.  They interpreted this “religious rule” in such a way as to prevent people (Jesus in this case) from doing what was really God’s overall, summary rule – helping someone who needed help.

Jesus did not secretly heal the man’s hand; he called him to the front of the room.   Once Jesus and the man were standing together, in front of all the people, Jesus asked the crowd whether it was “lawful” under their law to do good or evil on the Sabbath.  No one gave an answer.  At that point John records that Jesus was both angry at them and grieved because of their hard hearts.  Jesus loved even these hypocritical religious leaders who set out to trap him and eventually to kill him.  He was grieved because they would not understand what he was teaching.  And he was angry.  What did he do with his anger?  He did what he would have done anyway.  He healed the man – so everyone could see.  He asked whether it was lawful to do good or evil, then he did good.  That looks like an example of how we can “be angry and sin not.”[6]  We should continue to love the person we are angry with (he was grieved) and we should turn our anger into energy to do the right thing.

Anger gives us energy

Anger triggers the “fight or flight” response in us.  It releases chemicals to prepare our bodies for action.  Our job at that point is to direct that readiness toward something good – toward helping someone as Jesus did.  If we are angry because someone cut us off in traffic, we can redirect that energy not only toward letting him or her into our lane, but also letting in the next two or three people.

God acknowledged that the emotional makeup he created for us includes the anger response just as it does the sexual response and fear.  But he asks us to be in control of it and not vice versa.  We are to be known as people of peace.

If we follow Jesus' example, our anger will be directed at injustice, and as Isaiah wrote, we can aim that energy at correcting unfairness:

“Is this not the fast which I choose, 
To loosen the bonds of wickedness, 
To undo the bands of the yoke, 
And to let the oppressed go free 
And break every yoke?" 
“Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry 
And bring the homeless poor into the house; 
When you see the naked, to cover him; 
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?"[7]

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[1] Proverbs 30:33

[2] Matthew 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-47; John 2:13-17

[3] Hebrews 3:17

[4] Matthew 5:22

[5] Mark 3:1-6

[6] Ephesians 4:26

[7] Isaiah 58:6-7