Making Peace With Anger: The Source of Anger

    Hey, welcome everyone! We're starting off a new 6-week study group called "Making Peace With Anger" this week. We're going to be going over various topics from the source of anger, which we're covering today, to controlling anger, to consequences or the results of anger, some examples of God's anger and mankind's anger and finally making peace or reconciliation with anger, from which this study group gets its title.
   First, how would you define anger? An emotion? A reaction? A decision? Would you characterize it by rage? By seething, cold fury? Personally, I don't find the dictionary's definition of anger to be that compelling or useful, so we're going to use this definition instead:

Anger is the natural response to a perceived wrong. 

   This is going to be the working definition (working because we're going to add and shape this definition as the study group continues) we'll be working with. We say natural because you don't need to teach your children to be angry. Children only months old can get angry in response outside stimuli. Take away their food, toy, sleep, etc. and watch their reactions. Where does this anger come from? It's naturally a part of mankind. Anger is not a learned response.

  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. I Corinthians 2:14-16

   Let's contrast a natural person to a spiritual person. In class the responses to a natural man were things like: impulsive, temporal, lacking wisdom and discernment, and unspiritual thus lacking the gift of self-control. These are good examples. Their opposites should be true of a spiritual person. How about when it comes to anger?  Let's look at a biblical example.
   Genesis 4 lays out the story of Cain and Abel. Now in Genesis 3 we read about the fall of man and the promise of a redeemer who would crush the head of the serpent. It can be interpreted by how Eve names Cain in Genesis 4 that she believed Cain would be just such a redeemer. Cain means to possess or grasp. Did Eve think that Cain would be a winner grasp the promise God laid out in Genesis 3? Well by the time Abel came around Eve had lost just such a hope. Abel's name means meaningless or vanity. It's the same word used in Ecclesiastes 1:1. If Eve had the hope for Cain (whom we'll call Winner) before, she lost it by the time Abel (we'll call him Loser) came by. Cain/Winner was set up to be the champ. He was the firstborn, was expected to be the winner/redeemer of mankind. His job (in the minds of men) was to recreate the relationship lost between God and men in the Garden of Eden. Abel/Loser on the other hand was given no such expectations. He was the second son who was just expected to keep his flocks and be mediocre.
   When it came time to give the sacrifices in Genesis 4, Cain/Winner just expected his to be the best. He was a Winner after all. He just grabbed some of his fruit and presented them. Abel/Loser, on the other hand, in verse 4 brings forth the firstlings of his flock and the fat portions, literally the best he could do. In response to their efforts in giving, God responds favorably to Abel's offering, not Cain's. This makes Cain angry.
   It is at this moment when Cain/Winner has a choice. God tells Cain that sin is crouching at his door to overtake him, but Cain must master his sin. Picture this scenario:

Cain is in his house angry (probably at both God and Abel). He hasn't sinned yet. Sin is like a monster outside waiting to devour Cain. Unless Cain can put up some defenses and master his anger before he goes outside, the anger-monster will eat him. 

Well, spoiler alert!, Cain doesn't master his anger. instead he slays his brother Abel. This type of anger, which we'll call distorted anger, is a result of the Fall in Genesis 3. This type of anger is self-centered. Rather than being the type of sin that is in response to true evil and injustice, it is based upon the perception of a wrongdoing. In this case, Cain/Winner is feeling wronged and slighted because God didn't look fondly on his offering, but rather Abel's/Loser's. Didn't God know who Cain was? Did God not realize that Cain was a winner? Why would God accept a loser's offering over his!!!? This type of anger can turn sinful quickly because it is steeped in pride. When the Fall took place, the perfect relationship between man and God in the garden was lost. Due to this falling apart and separation mankind began to grow further apart from God and this made us lose focus of who He really is. In so doing, we began to forget just how important God is. Literally we switched God from being the center of the universe (which He truly is in importance) and put ourselves in His place. We began to think that everything revolved around us! This distorted way of thinking causes us to make mountains out of ant hills. Any perceived wrong to use we take as a wrong to our entire being. This is what Cain/Winner believed about God's refusal of his sacrifice.
   So this leads us to the question: Is anger sinful? Well, inherently, no anger is not sinful.

 Be angry, and yetdo not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger Ephesians 4:26

This passage proves that it is possible to be angry and not to sin. Rather, it is your response to that anger that determines sin and the outcome. Anger is meant to be a tool in our hands to guide us towards causing repentance or changing our world back to the original state God intended when He declared creation "good." It is when we distort our anger and make it's use for us and fly off the handle into rage that it becomes sinful.
   So next week we'll discuss controlling anger from a biblical view. God Bless