Anger

There are so many things that the world believes you should know. From the moment you are born, your progress begins to be tracked to make sure you are learning and growing and developing properly. When you begin public schooling, the teachers make sure you know all the skills and knowledge that you should - basic math, shapes and colours, how to count, how to read. And then as you get older, you begin to be taught about history, science, and life skills that you need to know. When you become an adult, you are taught or learn more skills, like filing taxes, budgeting, cooking, and the like. There are so many self help books written with catchy titles about the three things you need to know to blank, or 7 steps to achieve whatever.

The church is no different. If you grew up in church, you probably spent your childhood learning about all these stories from the bible that your sunday school teachers believed you needed to know. There are all these books written to help new christians learn all the things we need to know, and as we learned last week, we are supposed to disciple new believers so that they learn all that they need to know. Every week, someone gets up here and talks about what you need to know about Jesus and God, and Christian life.

There is so much knowledge and information in the world around us, but at the end of the day, somebody has decided what it is that you need to know as you grow and develop. Someone has sat down and decided, you know, all of this information is important, but here are the things you absolutely HAVE to know, you absolutely HAVE to be taught and learn, in order to grow up and be successful in our world. Today we are going to look at one of those NEED to know topics from the bible. The author of James believed that it was so important, that before he taught it to his readers, he wrote this command in Greek: “KNOW this”. The author commands his readers to KNOW what he is about to say with an imperative statement. Everything else he writes is important, but this is something you need to KNOW. Hear it, remember it, follow and do it. LEARN IT AND LIVE IT. KNOW it.

What is this topic that is so important, that this author directly commands the reader to know what it is he is about to say? (Dramatic pause) Anger. IAnd this is such an important subject, because we all get angry. Being angry in the 21st century is probably more common than being happy. Something as simple as driving in town can be enough to send my blood pressure through the roof.. Anger is such an easy emotion to feel, but it is such a difficult emotion to control. Now I know it seems very strange to preach about Anger on VALENTINE’S DAY of ALL Days! But Anger is such a prevalent problem, and it keeps us from being able to love, and that is why I think it is important, because learning to control our anger increases our capacity to love others. The apostle John speaks of Love and Hate on a spectrum, we are either moving towards one end or another. It is similar to how he contrasts Light and Darkness. And while there are times when anger is justified (Which we will talk about), oftentimes our anger is not necessary, not beneficial, and we allow it to control us. And this is why the author believes this is so important. As Christians, we are called to allow God to transform our lives and minds to live more like Jesus, and because of Jesus, we have the freedom to pursue this without fear of punishment if we mess up, which is great because boy, do we mess up. But human anger is controlling, it is evil, and it is incompatible with life in Christ. So to you and to me, the author says, KNOW THIS: Everyone should learn to master their anger because human anger does not achieve the righteousness of God.

Alright, so let's crack open our bibles and turn to James 1:19-21: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” (ESV)

Ok so first let's look at these verses a little deeper. The first thing I want to talk about is the phrase “Know This”, and I already talked about this a little bit. The greek word here “eido” is an active, imperative verb. Imperative is a fancy word for an explicit command in Greek, and we’ve looked at a few imperatives in scripture over the last few weeks. So this is a command, he is not just saying, “This is something you know”, like some versions of the bible translate it. It is a command written with an active verb. So this is something he expects you to actively DO. I am commanding you to KNOW THIS truth I am about io give you. Be aware of it, consider it, have knowledge of it, perceive it, understand it. GET THIS. I specifically picked the ESV translation because of how it translates this part. Some versions translate this as “This you know, but…” and then progress into the next part, which makes it sound like the author is transitioning from the part before. You already know this, but here is something you DON’T know. However, the Greek doesn’t really translate like that. The Greek word used for “but” in this passage is “de”, and it is actually one that is often unexpressed in English, and so it doesn’t translate well here, so most translations plug the word “but” in there. He isn’t contrasting with the previous text, it is actually a type of conjunction that is joining and connecting the command to his thought after. The best way to translate this in english is to not put a word at all, but a colon, which is what the ESV does. KNOW THIS: and then continues on.