EquippedMama

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls. 

James 1:19-21, NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved. Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

How many people have a habitually impulsive friend?

Celebrated in literature, movies, and a plethora of advertisements, people who are prone to make emotion-based decisions are often venerated for their dramatic- even theatrical ways. In contrast to our overly-emotionally-charged culture, James warns his readers that Christ-followers must live with temperance, with carefully measured words, emotions, and actions.

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.

James 1:19-20, NET

How often are our words and attitudes weighed with a desire to live in holiness? In these few verses, James introduces the importance of tempered emotions and words for the sake of our testimony.

Quick to listen, slow to speak. What a difficult concept James introduces- one that we are often too quick to implement in reverse! Yet the expectation that James sets is that Christians should have guarded and thoughtful speech. This concept of verbal purity is best modeled in the life of Christ, who “Committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Jesus warned against making impulsive promises in his sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37) and commanded his disciples to not be preoccupied with how they would defend themselves when persecuted for the “Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.” (Luke 12:12, b).

The concept is clear: Christ followers ought to demonstrate wisdom in their speech, relying on the Holy Spirit for direction, and mindful of the importance of their words upon their testimony.

Slow to Anger.

This original word which James uses to articulate anger- or wrath in the King James Version of the Bible- carried a meaning of violent passion and came to carry the meaning of anger as the strongest of all passions. * Although different original words, it carries striking similarities to the way Cain’s anger is described in Genesis 4. In this passage, the Lord chastises Cain for his anger toward Abel when Abel’s animal sacrifice was accepted, and his produce offering was not. The Lord, knowing Cain’s heart, warned him of his need to deal with his angry spirit;

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why is your expression downcast? Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.”

Genesis 4:6-7, NET

Those familiar with Cain’s life know that he chose to disregard the Lord’s warning, and obtained the shameful designation of being the first murderer in history. The necessity for a tamed temper is repeated throughout the Bible, specifically exhorted in the Proverbs (16:32) and Epistles. Paul writes to his readers on this matter when he says;

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity.

Ephesians 4:26-27, NET

and again in Galatians:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!

Galatians 5:19-21 NET, emphasis added.

So how are we to live lives of temperance, characterized as those who have “put away all filth and evil excess”? (James 1:21 b).

This concept is addressed in Galatians 5 where Paul writs that those who belong to Christ have:

“Crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit. 

Galatians 5:24b-25

To live a life free from fleshly self-gratification, we cannot live in the flesh. As humans, nothing in us desires to be quick to listen, slow to speak, or slow to anger! However, if we have trusted in the message that is able to save our souls- that is- the Gospel of Jesus Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, then we are not given liberty to live life how we like. This message calls us to holiness, and grants us the gift of salvation saves our souls. So what is our response? To live life by the Spirit. In daily dependence upon the Spirit, and in daily obedience to the Spirit, that we reject our natural desires to speak and react in a way displeasing to the Lord that our lives might please Him.

Notes:

*Information regarding the Greek word for anger (orge) comes from James Strong. The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Greek Dictionary, Entry 3709.

Homework: Re-read the book of James with special attention to the attitudes and emotions which should characterize a Christ follower. What other emotions are mentioned? Are there other places in the text where temperance is mentioned? Record your findings. Below you can download a printer-friendly version of the epistle of James (NET) if you wish.

Next Week Focus Passage: James 1:22-27