Anger

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” – Proverbs 14:29

In the last few weeks, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I still struggle with anger. About four or five years ago, I confronted and worked through having angry outbursts, explosive episodes that happened after we first got married and then after we had our first child—those have pretty much disappeared, but I’m coming to realize I still don’t know how to handle anger right. My anger flares up in response to chronic misbehavior, and manifests as berating, yelling, going to my room and slamming the door. It’s not as extreme or consuming as before, but the damage is still done: I’ve lost my ability to accurately perceive the situation or my kids; I’ve reacted in emotion instead of instructed through discipline; I’m said or implied things I regret; I’ve created fear or an unsafe feeling at home; ultimately, I’ve harmed a relationship.

I listened again to a Keller sermon on anger, to a few words from Piper, did a serious word study. Here are the thoughts that captured my attention this time:

1. I have to be aware of my anger. Anger has this strange, hidden quality—have you noticed that, when it’s got a grip on you, it’s one of the hardest emotions to admit to having? It’s the emotion you feel most defensive of when someone points it out in you? Keller claims it’s the emotion that is most like an addictive substance: there is a strong element of denial, then in order to maintain that denial you have to get even angrier, feed the anger with even more destructive thoughts. I will never be able to control or use my anger in the right way if I am not aware that I have it, so this is the first thing.

2. Anger is destructive by nature; thus I have to make sure it is not disordered in cause (angry about sin, not my ego), proportion (not to a disproportionate degree lest it start to distort my very perception and ability to see if it’s disproportionate—hard one), duration (not allowed to fester into bitterness), or goal (against sin, not the sinner; never to tear down, hurt, seek revenge against the person; never not in love—also hard).

3. The ideal is not the absence of anger, or uncontrolled anger, but slow anger: what is slow anger? What does it look like; what is it really? How do we have it, or is it even possible to have? This is the part Keller didn’t go into as much, so to figure this out I looked up all the instances I could find of Jesus being angry, did a word study for “anger” in the New Testament, and looked up all the direct commands regarding anger for believers (which overlapped with the word study, thankfully).

Instances of Jesus being angry: the first remarkable thing is that I couldn’t really find many—definitively, only two. In only one of those is the word anger actually used (Mark 3:5), when he heals a man with a withered hand; the other instance he is widely accepted as acting in anger (John 2:15), when he cleanses the temple, though the adjective used there is actually “zeal.” What stands out? He reacted to sin, in one case eradicating evil, in the other case with grief and a demonstration of truth. It wasn’t selfish or personal; in fact, what stands out are the many times he could have gotten angry, when betrayed or tired or hurt, but didn’t. In John, he rebuked but it doesn’t say he yelled it; in Mark, he didn’t say anything at all, not to blame or even teach.

There are basically two Greek words for anger in the New Testament. Orge (noun) or orgizo (verb), literally “to be provoked,” refers to a “settled or abiding opposition.” Thymos, literally “to kill, breathe hard, consume by fire,” refers to impulsive outbursts, anger that boils up and soon subsides again. It is worth mentioning the Greek prefix para, which means “close beside, alongside” and stresses a nearness and intimate participation of the verb to which it is affixed.

God has both types of anger. Jesus was orge in Mark. Orge describes the anger of masters and kings in three of Jesus’ parables (Mt 18:34, Mt 22:7, Lk 14:21). Of the 18 times thymos is used, 10 of them are in Revelation, referring to the anger of Satan, Babylon, or (more frequently) God. The two words are used together only twice, in Revelation, describing God: “the fierceness (thymos) of His wrath (orge)” (Rev 16:19).

It’s different for us, though. As you can probably guess, the other 8 times thymos is used is in direct command not to have it (ex. Eph 4:31, Col 3:8), or to describe an instance in which it was bad (Acts 19:28; Luke 4:28). In both those instances, thymos riled up the crowds to drive out good, hurt others, and remove reason, a far contrast to the two instances of Jesus’ anger. Thymos is never okay; it describes God at the end times, not us now.

For us, orge is more complicated. In only one place are we commanded, expected to have it: “Be angry (orgizo) and yet do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger (parorgismus)” (Eph 4:26). We should be provoked into an orge-anger, yet most of the verse is devoted to warning us against letting it stay too near us (parorgismus). I particularly loved the verse that Paul seems to be quoting, Psalm 4:4, which is in Hebrew: “Be angry (ragaz- lit. to tremble, be violently disturbed) and do not sin (chata). Meditate (amar- lit. to say in one’s heart, to command) in your heart (lebab- lit. mind, will, understanding, soul) upon your bed (mishkab) and be still (damam- lit. to be silent, to wait, to not speak).” Six words, that tell us what it means to have and recognize anger, to control and reflect upon it, and to slow it down.

In two places, we are warned against orge: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger (orge), for the anger (orge) of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (Ja 1:19-20). Matthew 5:22 warns us that everyone who is angry (orge) with a brother is liable to judgment. Again, orge is not a sin, but we should be slow to it, and wary of it.

So, what is slow anger? What is the anger we are supposed to have? What I come to is that it’s actually a very different thing than what most of us experience day-to-day as anger. It is never an emotional flare-up. It is used like a scalpel, a dangerous and destructive instrument to oppose sin and eradicate evil. It is used only rarely, accompanied sometimes by verbal rebuke but more often by silence. It is always focused on sin, not selfish frustration.

Frankly, it is more silent, more controlled, more settled, more grieved, ultimately more loving than anything I have experienced. The anger we commonly know is loud, uncontrolled and distorting, momentary, full of malice or selfishness. This slow-anger, this orge-anger: it is a good thing, and I think sometimes I capture a bit of it. But it easily turns into thymos-anger, or para-orge-anger, so practically speaking for me right now, I think slow-anger means to let that initial provocation point me to the sin, then just to stop. To not act or speak immediately. To take measured action, to rebuke or instruct, but with the patience of Galatians 5:22, a word that is in Greek makrothymia, lit. macro-thymos: a forbearant temper, long-suffering. Sometimes, orge-anger, but more often makrothymos-patience. Good place to start.