From: Randall M. Rueff
Taylorsville
One might ask oneself how can anger be a Christian’s weapon. With headlines in the news of people who get angry and then do bad things, it’s a good question.
I recently read an article in a newspaper where a man got fired from a high-profile job and then came back in anger and killed several former co-workers, and a young couple got mad at their crying newborn child and ended up doing some very bad things that led to the infant’s fatality. So how can anger be a good thing?
How can a Christian in today’s world use anger as a tool in the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ and make the world a better place? Well the problem isn’t anger. It’s what we do with that anger that determines if our actions are pleasing and useful in service to God’s kingdom.
One day during a Bible lesson, we were discussing anger. Our youth minister Jim Estep refuted what one of the girls in class had said about knowing that anger was a sin. He explained that anger itself isn’t a sin, but rather what we do when angry can be sinful. If we take that anger and then disobey the 10 commandments or the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s then that we sin and fall short of the glory of God and bad things happen.
Looking at history, I can easily list three times when anger, used in a godly manner, has been very good.
Jesus Christ got angry. When Jesus saw the people in the temple selling animals to be sold as sacrifices he became angry and overturned the tables. He was angry because they had turned a place of worship into a marketplace. What Jesus Christ did was perfectly right and just because he never sinned.
Another example is the story of Christian and British politician William Wilberforce who, after discovering the horrors of the slave trade, became an abolitionist and dedicated his life to the destruction of the slave trade. His anger for a particular situation helped to lead an entire county to abolish the selling of slaves.
In America when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became angry about the treatment of people based on race, what did he do? He turned to God’s word to lead the civil rights movement. He knew if you want to make the world a better place you have to do it the way that Jesus Christ taught.
The world is a better place because of the life and actions of our lord and savior Jesus Christ, and by Christians who took their anger and used it constructively.
So, when one becomes angry how will one react? Will a person use their anger for good or evil? People should look to the Bible and Jesus Christ’s example to help themselves and others and make a better world.
I hope people do what’s right and encourage others to do the same.
