Alba 12-24-2025
LOVE IS NOT EASILY PROVOKED
I Corinthians 13:5
There was an advertisement in the paper: WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE, NEVER WORN. WILL TRADE FOR A .38 CALIBER PISTOL. Do you think someone was angry here? I would say its likely.
Depending on what Bible version you have, First Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5 says this about love: “Love is not provoked”, “isn't irritable”, “is not easily angered”, “isn't quick-tempered”. Is it possible to control your anger, your irritable response even when provoked? Sure it is.
It is not beyond our control; we do it all the time for fear of legal or social consequences. Consider: a mother who has a terrible day. The washer leaks on the floor, kids fight, supper burns, she breaks her favorite bowl, kids track mud on her clean floor. So she explodes, screams at the kids and threatens them. Then the phone rings and its her husband's boss. Suddenly she is quite capable of carrying on a polite conversation.
Dad works on the car. The dealer gives him a wrong part, it won't go together right, then it won't run, and a wrench slips and splits his knuckle. He's screaming and using profanity. Then a car pulls in the driveway; it's the preacher's wife come for a visit. Suddenly he is calm and polite. We have all had some experience, maybe not like these examples, but where we also we made some quick changes in our behavior.
But is it always wrong to be provoked and get angry? One could argue that God gets angry. Read through scripture and you will see a number of times when God expresses His anger. And even Jesus showed His anger. Mark 3:1-5 tells how Jesus was angry at the hardness of the Pharisee’s hearts concerning the man with a withered hand who needed to be healed. And John 2:13-17 tells how Jesus was angry with the money changers who were desecrating the Temple which was to be a house of prayer, and He poured out the coins of the money changers and turned over their tables. Jesus was not always meek and mild.
Do these examples give us the right to express anger whenever we wish to do so? Well, before we do, we should ask another question. When we get angry, is it because we are upset with some evil thing that is happening that we want to correct? That is the example we see in the anger expressed by God and by Jesus Christ. I am afraid that the times we get angry are more often caused by frustration, unmet expectations, or times when we feel devalued, hurt, pushed aside, unappreciated, neglected, or disrespected.
If we want to use God's anger against sin as an excuse for us to express anger any time we feel frustrated or hurt, remember Psalm 145:8 says, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.” So God is not easily provoked or easily angered. His anger comes out of His love for us, to protect us from sin.
So what are we to do? We need God's guidance. Again and again we are given instruction in the Bible about anger. Ecclesiastes 7:9 says, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools” (NIV). And Proverbs 29:11 says, “Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back” (NLT). And Ephesians 4:31 says that as Christians we should, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you..”
Now we all know that this is not easy. There seems to be too many times when something happens that catches us in a moment, too quick to think about ahead of time, and we spout off something that we should not have said. Anger can cloud our thinking and cause us to do foolish things. Things, that later, we often regret. That is all the more reason to follow biblical guidelines and do our best to control anger. Ephesians 4:26 tells us “Be angry, and do not sin”. So if we handle things correctly, our anger will not be sinful. But if we do not have some control over our anger, we will do what the next verse says. We will “give place to the devil”. The devil will take advantage of us and we will not be doing things with love.
As we near the time for celebrating Christmas, there is someone who had every reason to be provoked, to get angry. His name is Joseph. He was a man who had his own business and it was time for him to settle down. Whether an arrangement had been made ahead of time, or if he had seen this young girl and was attracted to her and asked her to marry him, we don't know.
What we do know is that he expected this one that he was going to marry, would come into the marriage without any negative baggage. And certainly not be already pregnant! But she was! So what was he to do? He could have a fit! He could rant and rave at her, belittle her, condemn her. He could expose her situation and bring her before the counsel, and she would be judged. Under Old Testament laws, she could be stoned to death for sexual misconduct and infidelity.
But Joseph is described as a just man, a righteous man who didn't allow this situation, which must have frustrated him and definitely did not meet his expectation, it did not cause him to express uncontrolled anger. Whether out of love for Mary, or to avoid any personal embarrassment, scripture says he decided to break the engagement quietly and not disgrace Mary publicly.
But of course, that would not be God's plan for either him or for Mary. So in a dream, an angel appeared to him, called him by name and told him that the child in Mary's womb came by miraculous means – specifically, by the Holy Spirit. Then the angel gave Joseph the responsibility to name this child. Matthew 1:21 says the angel told Joseph, “She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
There is purpose in that name. The name Jesus means “Yahweh saves” or “the Lord is Salvation” Yes, this Jesus who was to be born would be the One who could save us! God's anger against sin would now have a remedy. His judgment, His justice and His mercy would all be met in this One called Jesus! The devil must have been very disappointed in Joseph. Satan likely hoped that Joseph would react in anger and, if not have Mary stoned to death, at least make her an unwelcome member of the community, shaming her, taking away any reason for her to be believed.
But that was not the case. Acting in love and not in anger, Joseph became what God intended for the earthly father who would raise the only begotten Son of God. Matthew chapter one tells us that Joseph awoke from the dream in which the angel appeared to him. And it simply says he, “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:24-25)
What a different scenario it would have been if Joseph's reaction was one of anger and not love and obedience. How many times could something have turned out so much better if we had reacted to some situation in our lives better than we did? Maybe God had something in mind that we missed because our reaction was not what it should have been. When we speak in anger, all we usually do is get into trouble.
Proverbs 14:17 warns us that “A quick-tempered man acts foolishly.” Do you know when the first time anger is mentioned in the Bible? In Genesis 4:5, the Bible says, “So Cain was very angry.” Angry indeed. Angry enough to kill.
This word in our text here in I Corinthians 13:5 means to be easily angered, irritated, incited, or stirred up to anger. It means something between irritation and anger which takes offense because one’s self-regard has been dented, wounded, or punctured by some sharp point. In this context it speaks of love’s ability not to be led into sinful reactions toward others, even when persistently pestered.
Proverbs 22:24-25 says, “Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go, Lest you learn his ways And set a snare for your soul.” So is anger contagious? Yes it is highly infectious! If someone starts yelling at you, eventually you start yelling at them. It’s contagious.
But scientific studies have proven you can calm the swell of anger with the tone and volume of your voice. Which proves the truth of Proverbs 15:1. It says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.”
A lady once came to the famous preacher Billy Sunday and tried to rationalize her angry outbursts. She said, “There’s nothing wrong with losing my temper. I blow up, and then it’s all over.” Billy Sunday replied, “So does a shotgun and look at the damage it leaves behind.”
Now perhaps you’ve heard or even have said something like this; “That’s just the way I am… I’m Italian, I’m Irish, I’m Latin, it’s the way I was raised -- I can’t change.” But that’s not true. Because if it was, then the gospel of Jesus Christ would not be true. Because the gospel says that we can change; that we can be transformed, that we are a new creation, that we don’t have to be the same anymore (that’s why the Gospel is called good news).
One reason we get angry is because we don’t always see things as they really are. That’s why we, like the Lord, must be very slow to get angry and then be slow to act on our anger. And it helps if we keep in mind how God has been slow to be angry with us. Even though we give God plenty of reasons to be angry, God keeps His anger under control, and so should we.
God was righteously angry about our sin, it had to be punished. But God loves you and me so much that He allowed His sinless Son to absorb His anger by dying in our place on the cross. Romans 5:9 says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” The righteous anger of God was absorbed by the sacrificial love of God.
It is this fact that separates Christianity from all other religions. The gods of other religions require their followers to pay for their own offenses. In contrast, our God looks over the judgment bench, pronounces us guilty deserving of the death sentence, then gets up, walks around to the other side of the bench and pays the death penalty in our stead.
Think about it, a holy God requires the death penalty to be paid to atone for our sins, and then makes the sacrifice so we could be forgiven. He has a love for us that is not easily provoked. And when it was expressed, it worked on our behalf to bring salvation that would not be possible otherwise.
May we handle our anger with love like God does: Be slow to anger, be angry about what is sinful and wrong, take action to correct those wrongs and not be easily provoked by those little annoyances and daily issues that should be dealt with love.
CLOSE:
When Abraham Lincoln had to write a letter to someone who had irritated him, he would often write two letters. The first letter was deliberately insulting. Then, having gotten those feelings out of his system, he would tear it up and write a second letter, this one tactful and discreet.
Aren't you glad that because of the blood that Jesus shed on that cross and His death, burial and resurrection, the negative things God could say about us are like the letter Abraham Lincoln tore up and threw away.
We know that is true because Colossians 2:13-14 tells us that is what has happened. It says:
“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
