The book of James is found in the New Testament and is only five chapters long with a total of 108 verses. Within this book, we find great truth on hardships, temptations we face, the danger of showing favoritism, taming the tongue, surrendering and being obedient to God, and warnings to not let riches keep us from faith in Jesus. Within this letter written to Jewish Christians, we come across a verse about human anger.
To understand what this verse means, it is important to look at the surrounding passage to make sense of what James was teaching. This will help us better comprehend what James was referring to and how we can apply this to our own hearts and lives.
The early church and ongoing tradition holds that the author of this letter is James, the brother of Jesus. Jesus’ brother James is mentioned in places like Mark 6:3 and Galatians 1:19. In the first verse of the Book of James, it states that James wrote this to the twelve tribes scattered around the nations. We can assume that James is writing primarily to Jewish converts to Christianity, however, this letter is most assuredly for the teaching of all believers.
It can be easy to read this verse and conclude that Christians must never be angry. In fact, some people do their best to deny their anger or stuff it down. This is an unhealthy and unbiblical view on anger. We find in Scripture examples of what has been termed, “righteous anger” which is anger that is OK to feel because it is not sinful.
Being righteous means to live, think, and act in line with God’s character. This is different than self-righteousness because we know that we cannot earn our own redemption or ever pay the debt of sin, which is why Jesus went to the cross. God makes us righteous. From the context of this verse, we know that righteousness includes being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. It means putting off all evil and immoral things so that we can humbly live by the word of God. The righteousness that God desires is about being hearers and doers of the word, not merely listening and forgetting what God has instructed.
When we let our anger go unchecked, it will consume our hearts and guide our thoughts, reactions, and decisions to sinful behaviors. We will surely miss out on the goodness God has for us. Sinning in our anger keeps out righteousness and delays our spiritual growth. Human anger can lead to all sorts of problems – bitterness, estrangement, unforgiveness, and eventually, a disconnection from God. God wants better for His beloved children.
Instead of entertaining and fueling evil things like human anger, we should be concerned about living like Christ to produce the righteousness of God.
He is a cross pendant.
He is engraved with a unique Number.
He will mail it out from Jerusalem.
He will be sent to your Side.
Emmanuel
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