“But what about righteous anger?”
Download discussion questions: James 1:19-27
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I encourage you to look at the passage in James before you read this Blog entry. What do you see in the text yourself? What questions come to your mind? How would you interpret what the writer says? After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.
Densely Packed
We began our discussion with the recognition that this passage is beyond the scope of a single Sunday morning examination. The depth and scope of topics James raises defy simple clichéd explanations. Admitting we would not exhaust all the meaning in the nine verses freed us to focus on the first paragraph (vss. 19-21). The rest of the passage (maybe including parts of this paragraph) will have to wait for future weeks.
Quick and Slow
Verse 19 is a well-known and often-quoted saying, “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” It’s the kind of verse that everyone agrees with and admits we need to do better at listening and not getting angry. But simple-sounding verses usually have much more to offer if we work a little harder by asking questions. “Raking is easy, but you only get leaves. Digging is hard, but you may find diamonds.”[1]
A question asked at the beginning of our discussion was, “What is the connection between hearing, speaking, and anger?” Someone pointed out that when we are angry, we often speak without thinking and without listening. But another member noted that James doesn’t use that sequence: anger, speaking, hearing. Why not? Why not start with the admonition against anger? Perhaps (from another comment) James is encouraging a more positive approach. Rather than a focus on not getting angry (which seldom works), intentionally listening to another person is a better starting point. Anger often happens when we hear part of what another is saying, and we jump to (wrong) conclusions. Then, based on erroneous understanding, we decide, “I know how to respond” and listening ends.
Being “quick to hear” on the other hand is more than just passively waiting for an opportunity to speak (or “looking for an on-ramp into the conversation”[2]). The adjective that James uses for “quick” (ταχύς, tachus) often occurs in contexts of great enthusiasm and anticipation:
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- Mary meeting Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:29)
- The father preparing for the return of his prodigal son (Luke 15:22)
- Followers of Jesus responding to His resurrection (Matthew 28:7,8)
- Jesus’ second coming (Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 12, 20)
Being “quick to hear” should include a genuine interest and curiosity. One person in our group pointed out that it can include being “reflective” (as used in the Amplified Bible[3]) about what the other person is saying, even while disagreeing. Someone else suggested emphasizing that listening is productive. Offering advice, correcting error, fixing problems are considered productive in our culture (including church culture). Prolonged, patient listening seems passive and pointless.
Transcendent Curiosity
But learning to listen well will help us understand the other person and build the relationship. Listening will reveal what (if anything) we have to offer to move the discussion into a “conversation that matters.”[4] Listening reflectively will bring to mind questions to clarify (and maybe eliminate) points of disagreement. Failing to listen and speaking too quickly will short-circuit all of those benefits. The result is often quick, unproductive anger. On the other hand, genuine listening can be described as “transcendent curiosity … a sense of wonder, a profound intrigue and fascination with the eternal drama that is being played out in someone’s life.”[5] A person commented that listening for what God is doing helps us remember that “quick to hear” does not mean “quick to fix.” Another person connected that idea with James’s opening exhortation. The more we begin to see what God is doing in our lives and the lives of others, the more readily we will “consider it all joy” in various trials (James 1:2).
Decide In Advance
We need to develop a mindset of productive, reflective listening with transcendent curiosity. Then every conversation becomes an opportunity to listen, to be curious, to ask questions, to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Interactions that we expect to be difficult require advanced preparation. Writer Brant Hansen suggests that anger springs when we are offended by another person’s actions or words.
When we choose, ahead of time—before conversations, before meetings, before our day begins—to be unoffendable, we’re simply choosing humility….And while, yes, anger happens, as we discussed earlier, it happens so much less for people whose egos are not inflamed and who have so little to lose or gain from the approval of others. Humility means there’s so much less at stake, so much less to protect. You’ll become difficult to offend simply because there’s so much less of you to defend. When you are headed into a stressful social situation, with difficult, offensive people, and you decide in advance, “I’m not going to let these people offend me; I’m forgiving them in advance,” you are dying to yourself. You are sacrificing yourself on their behalf. You are making yourself less. You’re willingly giving up your own interests and desires, because of your conviction about who Jesus is.[6]
Just as James says in verse 21, being “quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger” is dependent on humility or meekness (πραΰτης, prautēs). As a member of our group said, humility is difficult in the moment of conflict. We must “wrestle long before” with our pride. We must prepare our heart with the reminder, “ I am here to hear.”
Humility (and especially “meekness”) can be misunderstood as a weak or even cowardly attitude. But that’s not the meaning of the word used by James and other New Testament writers.
In Greek, praus is used in one special sense. It is used…for a beast which has been tamed. A horse which was once wild but which has become obedient to the bit and to the bridle is praus.
Now herein lies the secret of the meaning of praus. There is a gentleness in praus but behind the gentleness there is the strength of steel, for the supreme characteristic of the man who is praus is that he is the man who is under prefect control. It is not a spineless gentleness, a sentimental fondness, a passive quietism. It is a strength under control.
…
It would be wrong to say that the man who is praus is perfectly self-controlled. He is perfectly God-controlled, for only God can give him that perfect mastery. It should be our prayer that God will make us praus, master of ourselves, for only then can we be the servants of others.[7]
That control requires self-awareness. A mark of meekness is recognizing our natural tendencies to speak too soon or to listen too little. The suggestion to “decide in advance” may not avoid every instance of anger, but it will at least be a start in “putting away” that aspect of rampant wickedness.
Righteous Anger
Our group raised a natural question. “What about ‘righteous anger’? More specifically, what about the apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:26: ‘Be angry and do not sin?’ Isn’t Paul encouraging the Ephesians to embrace anger prompted by righteous reasons?”
We agreed that even if there is such a thing as “righteous” anger, that righteous portion is a tiny part of most anger. Do we feed our anger, as someone asked, dwelling on the problem and justifying ourself? Our anger typically consists more of the self-obsessed “filthiness and rampant wickedness” (v. 21) that James prohibits.
Grammatically, both of Paul’s instructions are imperatives or commands. One suggestion was that Paul is recognizing the reality of our fallen nature. He knew the Ephesians (and all of us) will experience anger, but it is our response to that emotion that is critical.
Paul was saying, clearly, that, yes, we will get angry; that happens; we’re human. But then we have to get rid of it. So deal with it. Now. We have no right to it.[8]
Paul’s third admonition in Ephesians 4:26 is also an imperative: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” He is not affirming or encouraging “righteous” anger. He is prescribing limits on what he knows most people will experience. Paul is not contradicting James’s assertion that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” He is offering practical limits (like sunset) on anger. If we take seriously the sunset limit, we know we need to deal with anger early in the day. Anger won’t switch off when the sun goes down. We need to deal with our anger “now,” as soon as we recognize it.
Actually, Paul himself refutes the idea that verse 26 is permitting or affirming or advocating “righteous” anger. A few sentences later the apostle includes anger in a list of relational responses to be resisted:
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26)
…
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (Ephesians 4:31)
Instead of trying to excuse or rationalize our anger as somehow “righteous,” both James and Paul would exhort us to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.” We can pray for the meekness that will enable the “transcendent curiosity” that is quick to hear.
The Implanted Word
Another question addressed the idea of the “implanted” word (verse 21). Does James have an evangelistic motive? Was he addressing unbelievers and calling them to accept the gospel that is “able to save your souls”? The fact that he calls his readers “my beloved brothers” (earlier in verse 16 and here in verse 19, and again in James 2:5) indicates he is addressing believers. One scholar suggests, “James likely draws this striking conception of the implanted word from the famous new covenant prophecy of Jeremiah 31.”[9]
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
Then the question becomes, “What does it mean for believers, God’s people, to ‘receive’ the word that is already implanted?”
The word used for “receive” (δέχομαι, dechomai) is frequently translated “accept” or “welcome.”[10] It is defined as “to receive by deliberate and ready reception of what is offered” and “a welcoming or an appropriating reception.”[11]
For one person, the word “implanted” brought to mind a field already sown with seed. The word has already been sown in believers. Perhaps James’s exhortation is to recognize what is there, to welcome it even during trials that make it difficult to understand or to obey. Someone suggested that we can be too proud to welcome the word of truth when it corrects us, when we have to repent. Once again humility or meekness, mentioned above, is central to understanding and obeying the instructions from James.
“Receiving the implanted word” may also be James’s way of introducing his next topic, being doers and not just hearers of the word. We are to be “quick to hear” other people (v. 19), but that command may also imply being quick to hear God’s Word. Receiving or welcoming the word (v. 21b) may be a transition from hearing to doing (v. 22). That transitional idea can be the starting point of next week’s discussion.
[1] John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory; Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1998), 29.
[2] A very descriptive phrase I read recently but, unfortunately, cannot remember the source.
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%201:18-20&version=AMP
[4] Larry Crabb, Real Church: Does it Exist? Can I Find It? (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 116.
[5] Larry Crabb, Soul Talk (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 154.
[6] Brant Hansen, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2015), 191-192; emphasis added.
[7] William Barclay, New Testament Words (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), 241-242; emphasis in the original.
[8] Brant Hansen, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2015), 4.
[9] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 87.
[10] John R. Kohlenberger III, Edward W. Goodrick, James A Swanson, The Greek-English Concordance to the New Testament With The New International Version (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 1312.
[11] W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr., “Receive, Receiving,” Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996), 511.