A Soft Answer - Pt 5

A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression. One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. (Proverbs 29:22-23 ESV).

The fifth principle in developing the use of a “soft answer” as we find ourselves resolving conflict is keeping our anger under control. In any conflict, anger is like gasoline, and when anger is expressed inappropriately, minor conflicts can become volatile arguments. Our reading today is warning us that when we lose our temper, we end up committing more and more sins. We hurl words of abuse and insult on the person. We cut and slash with words of sarcasm. We destroy the person’s reputation with other people, passing our side of the story to anyone who will listen, sometimes under the guise of a prayer request. We might even make up lies about the person to get back at them. Returning to Peanuts for an illustration we see Lucy raging. Shaking her fist she yells, “Here are five good reasons not to bother me today!” Truthfully there isn’t even one reason not to resolve conflict in an appropriate, positive way. If we want to be wise in conflict, we need to learn to control our anger. That doesn’t mean stuffing the anger down deep inside ourselves so we don’t feel it anymore. We express our anger appropriately by having a conversation about it. Instead of shouting, instead of throwing things and punching the wall, we express it with appropriate words. The Apostle Paul said it this way: Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil (Ephesians 4:26-27 ESV). That’s so much easier to say than it is to do. But our best example is in Jesus’ reaction to the religious leaders when he healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (cf. Mark 3:1-6). Here it says he looked around upon them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. The inference is that Jesus saw the sin rather than the personal offense. That is what grieved him. So it seems to me that, if we're angry, what we should be angry at is sin. We shouldn't be angry at circumstances that are frustrating or off-putting; we shouldn’t be angry at the stuff of life. Jonathan Edwards made a resolution never to get angry at an inanimate object, because ultimately it would be anger against God who is in control in inanimate objects, and they don't have any will to commit an immorality with which to get angry. So we should get angry with sin, but that anger should be so mingled with heart-sorrows for the people sinning. We must be intentional in keeping our anger properly focused. That will help produce a soft answer.