Is Getting Angry Sinful?

"Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah" - Psalm 4:4

Anger is a tough topic. One of the biggest issues with anger can be it's propensity to lead towards violence. Anger can be incredibly hard to deal with for most people. I've met people with extreme anger issues. They fly off the handle at the smallest of things. And the Bible is clear in many other places that we should just avoid anger altogether.

"But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth." - Colossians 3:8

Paul says that these are the marks of your old life and our duty as believers is to put these things away. This wasn't a new teaching from Paul either, the Psalmist says we need to refrain from anger in Psalm 37:8. But here, David says to be angry and sin not. Paul evidently thought this was good advice as well as he quotes this verse in his letter to the church in Ephesus.

So which is it? Are we allowed to get angry or are we not? Is it sinful to get angry? Is the Bible confused here? The short answer to that last question is no. The Bible isn't confused. I believe there are two ditches people tend to fall into though. The first ditch is that they have no self-control. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit. It's what rises up in us when anger tries to take control of us and it fights it back down.

God desires for us to have self-control and anger is something that can easily put us out-of-control. Anger in this way is most certainly sinful. When we lack self-control, our emotions run wild and we end up hurting people in the process. For some of us, this is our struggle.

For others, our struggle is not that we get angry, but that we don't. David says here be angry. There are certain things in life that we should get angry about. When we see justice denied, that should raise up a righteous anger in us. When we see the wicked prevail, that should raise up healthy anger in us. It should motivate us to act. For you see some of us don't struggle with self-control, but rather apathy.

Our country is bathed in apathy right now. When you see people who would rather record someone getting beat up rather than helping them, you know there is a problem. When you see people celebrating abortions and the church remaining silent, that's an issue. When we see these things, a righteous anger should rise up in us and cause us to take action - not an uncontrolled action, but we should seek God's justice in these situations.

Prayer - Father, we recognize that many of us struggle with anger. Some of us are too angry and others of us are too apathetic. Help us to see where we land and free us from this bondage. We long to live balanced lives with self-control and godly passion. Thank you for helping us see the truth in your word. Amen.