Anger in the Bible

A lot of good Christians have been brought up on the not so good notion that anger is a sin. Not surprisingly, they struggle not only with their angry feelings, but also with guilt about having the feelings in the first place. Things usually go better when they get a sense of what the Bible as a whole says about anger and discover that having it isn't something to feel guilty about.

The really big text for Christians on the subject has always been Matthew 5:22. This is the passage that the greatest teachers in the church keep coming back to in their own sermons and discourses on the subject. My favorite version of the New Testament, the Revised English, translates the verse this way: "Anyone who nurses anger against his brother must be brought to justice." The REB's distinctive reference to "nursing" anger is delicious. But how it expresses the main point is more problematic: don't be angry --- ever. All of the most widely used modern translations of the New Testament concur with this reading of Matthew 5:22.

My own thinking about anger has been influenced by a quite different rendering of this verse, that of the old King James Bible: "whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment." The underlining is mine. Only rarely do I go with the KJV in order to decide questions of substantial import for faith. (Style is another matter; only the REB comes even close on this front.) But here is one time that it makes sense to depart from all the up-to-date translations of Matthew 5:22, and to follow the KJV's lead instead. Why? Because otherwise we will be left with a message allegedly from Jesus that simply cannot be his. Let me put the point in the sharpest possible way: Jesus cannot have condemned unconditionally any and all forms of anger.

Of all the newer translations of the New Testament --- that in most places are indeed more accurate than the KJV --- only one even hints that there might be any problem translating this particular Matthean passage. And that one (The New English Bible) buries its acknowledgement in an easily missed footnote: "Some witnesses insert without good cause." Indeed they do. From a long time back. And these witnesses have had a far more profound influence on Christian preaching and teaching about anger than have those which leave us with a Jesus who flogs us for every angry feeling, thought, or deed, no matter how fleeting or inconsequential.

The decision that modern translators have made about rendering Matthew 5:22 minus the "without good cause" clause is generally based upon a prior assumption that certain fourth century manuscripts of the New Testament are better than others and that therefore we should follow those consistently, no matter what. The problem with this otherwise helpful rule of thumb is that it can leave us with a rendering of a particular teaching of Jesus that is impossible to reconcile with what we know of the whole of Jesus' witness. This is certainly what has happened in the case of Jesus' so-called words on anger. Come under judgment for being angry at all? We are supposed to take these words from a man who got angry enough to call people fools, whited sepulchers, serpents and vipers (Matthew 23:19, 27,33), and to lay waste the Temple courtyard in a fit of righteous pique?

For Christians who feel guilt over feeling angry, there is a lot at stake in what we make of the quite different renderings of Matthew 5:22 in the ancient New Testament manuscripts from which we are always having to choose. One rendering locks you right into your guilt and grinds you into the dust with an impossible to fulfill command never, ever to get angry. The other tells you to direct your anger to the right cause.

How do we decide between the two? By comparing both with the whole witness of the Bible on the subject. Probably you've already noticed that the Bible is really a very angry book. The God who inspired it comes across in it as chronically hacked off, as do the prophets who speak for Him. What are they mad about? Primarily, about us. They are angry about our failures to live as we say we are going to live, and even more importantly, they are angry about our failures to show unconditional grace, mercy, and love in God's name to everyone we meet. When we get angry about these failings, rather than about our failures to get what we think we deserve every minute of a wasted life, then the Kingdom will be a lot closer than it is now.

REB is the Revised English Bible from Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1989