Anger: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
– Elie Wiesel

When we first started sheltering in place and the kids were around each other constantly, it seemed like they were fighting all the time. We resorted to our secret technique for success in any situation: bribery. If they could make it thirty minutes without fighting, they could put an orbeez in a jar. Once the jar was full, they got a reward. Eventually they fought less and the jar was phased out, but along the way we had lots of opportunities to talk about anger. 

I was reminded of all that today when reading Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” What are we supposed to make of anger from this verse—is it a sin, or not? Is it something we should seek, or avoid? Do we always have to resolve conflict before going to sleep?

There are three Greek words used for anger in the New Testament:

• orge: a settled or abiding condition of the mind, a fixed opposition. Less sudden in rise, more lasting in nature

• thymos: an agitated condition of the feelings, an outburst

• paraorgismos: the prefix para means “close beside,” stresses a nearness, implies an intimate participation

We know that anger is not a sin from the New Testament alone because Jesus was angry. The scene most people think of is from John 2:13-17, when he drove the sellers from the temple—interestingly, although that qualifies as an example, the word “anger” never appears there. In only one place is Jesus explicitly described as feeling “anger,” in Mark 3:5:

And he looked around at them with anger [orge], grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

The word used in Mark is orge—Jesus’ anger was a sustained opposition to the hearts of the Jews who cared more about their own ends than the suffering of a man with a withered hand. It was accompanied by grief—grief not for the disabled man, but for the very people he was angry at. Jesus’ anger came with a paucity of words, and led to an action of healing and justice. 

That is not how our kids get angry. Their anger is a thymos anger, rising up in an outburst of feelings. Their anger acts not to deliberately right the situation, but to vent those feelings in ways they often don’t even remember doing afterwards. Their anger is in response to selfish desires, not the brokenness or suffering of others. Their anger is accompanied by many words. And my anger is often the same way.

In fact, the verse in Ephesians is both a distinction and a warning. These are the words it uses for anger:

Be angry [orgizo] and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger [parorgismus]. 

Paul is saying, there is an orgizo, a good-anger. In the sentence right before this one, he writes, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor.” In Zechariah 8:16, the same first enjoinder is given: “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace.” It is impossible to love righteousness and not be bothered by unrighteousness, to love truth and not be opposed to falsehood. Part of loving the ones around us is being good-angry at the sin and brokenness we see in them.

But there is a warning here. Good-anger must be distinguished from parorgismus, the things that come close beside it, which Paul describes simply as sin. Our anger is often sinful in both object and degree. We are angry at the wrong things—we are angry because people inconvenience or embarrass us, for example, rather than because they are disobeying or grieving God. We are angry to the wrong degree—our response is often disproportionate and/or uncontrolled, raging like a fire that leaves destruction in its wake, rather than the restoration we in Mark or the peace-making we see in Zechariah.

I must learn to examine my anger until I can distinguish, in motive and degree, between good-anger and sinful-anger. I should love God and people enough not to turn away from, or become apathetic towards, what would grieve God’s heart. But I also should be very, very careful of sinful-anger—and what Paul is bringing out here is that sinful-anger is time sensitive. It is always better to nip it in the bud before it flames out of control.

Does this mean I have to make up every fight with my husband before I go to sleep? Not necessarily. Paul doesn’t say, “do not let the sun go down on your disagreement.” He says, don’t let time fester your sinful-anger—you don’t necessarily have to resolve every conflict or solve every problem before going to bed, but if you know you are feeling in motive or degree a sinful kind of anger, get rid of it as quickly as you reasonably can, because Satan will take advantage of that foothold in your relationship.

I like to think that when Paul wrote this verse, he had Psalm 4:4 in mind:

Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.

The first six words of Psalm 4:4 are the same as the first six words of Ephesians 4:26: be angry and do not sin. It is possible to do both. To be angry, and not to sin. But in order to do so, we generally have to be far more paced in our anger than we are naturally inclined to be. It is better to ponder longer and speak less. It is better to think in our hearts on our beds, rather than let the sun set on our sin.