Anger: Constructive or Destructive

January 1, 2017

Ephesians 4: 17-32 God’s New Society

The World Economic Forum has estimated that five million jobs will be lost by 2020. A 2013 Oxford study estimated that 47% of U.S. employment is at risk of being computerized. Economist Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, expects that more than one in three men in their prime working years will be out of work in 2050.

The technology world is going through tremendous advances in artificial intelligence that are powering everything from self-driving cars to apps that help diagnose cancer. Many benefits await society. The change is so profound that some have started to call artificial intelligence the new electricity. But like all technologies, it’s a double-edged sword, and a lot of people are about to get shocked.

“It’s going to get worse. The inequality will get worse. There’s going to be more anger and social upheaval,” said Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. “What we’re seeing is in large measure because of technology.”

CNN November 2016.

Anger is understandable in facing the loss of employment. We need to ask ourselves is my frustration helping me or hurting me? Is my anger constructive or destructive?

My purpose is to show that anger can either be the force that destroys a marriage or be the motivation to rebuild it. We need ancient words to understand the scope and intensity of anger. I write from the perspective of the Bible.

Introduction

I have tried to be clear in my reasoning. You must sense I have explained matters in such a way that you feel protected. In my trying to be clear, you are the person who needs to decide if I have protected your freedom of choice. In working through this dense material, you need to say, ‘I understand what he is saying.’ And through my words, feel comforted in any distress you experience when you are angry, or someone is angry with you. Most significantly, you need to sense you are admired in your struggle to come to terms with a difficult experience, and you are not shamed by what you read here.

This paper is tough reading. I write in a very compact way. Perhaps, as some have said, I write too concisely, too briefly. I do so for a reason. I have found that if what I am saying is clear then more words tend to create distractions and unnecessary questions. My suggestion is: if I am unclear, email me, and I will do what I can to be clearer. At least when you ask a question I will know what is confusing for you and I will be better able to explain myself. Above all, if you are confused, please assume it is the brevity of my writing, it is not you.

The Drive for Power Destroys

Jesus came to reunite a world divided by a drive for power at the cost to everyone else.

Adam & Eve wanted the power of God. They lost what they had. Cain wanted the approval Abel received from God. Cain lost God’s approval. Husbands want power over their wives. Wives want their way no matter who suffers. Marriages split apart. Families set against each other trying to get the upper hand. Misusing the power, we have, we lose what we want: A good marriage, a happy family.

Paul wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians to show this drive for power is not necessary, ineffective, and fruitless. It leads to spiritual death. In the mercy of God, He permitted humanity to learn over time how the misuse of power destroys. Cain was the son of Adam & Eve. The injustice he felt was so intense he murdered his brother. Anger, destructive anger, entered our experience all too quickly. Now centuries after this black mark on our history, after centuries of repeated demonstrations of brother turned against brother, greed consuming people, whole peoples wiped out to gain even more power over others. Jesus came to offer the way to peace. What is unique to the Gospel is by surrendering our drive to conquer we gain the power to rebuild our lives, our marriages, our families.

Anger dictated by trying to get the better of our spouse destroys marriages. As we surrender to the wisdom and mercy of Christ, resentment can be a force to rebuild. In being angry at what has ruined our lives and finding the wisdom to depend on the power of God, we are relentless in the pursuit of virtue, goodness, and humility. We rebuild what was destroyed.

Am I Angry?

Anger hurts. It does not matter if we are right to be frustrated, distressed. It hurts all who are touched, stung by it, and it hurts the one who expresses their irritation. Anger hurts.

Even though bitterness is painful, we must recognize when we are angry. We must be angry when we are angry. Resentment is like cancer killing live tissue, killing hope in relationships. We must treat cancer, or it kills us. To treat cancer, we must admit it is there. The medical community is succeeding in the treatment of cancer partly due to the early detection of this malignant disease. Who has not suffered from the ravages of cancer! We must manage our anger or it to will destroy us and our relationships. We call anger by different names: frustration, irritation, resentment, bitterness, impatience, rage, fury. Or, in one unforgettable conversation: Therapist: “I’m sorry to hear you are so angry.” Person: “I’M NOT ANGRY!! … I’M BITTER.” (She was going blind from her negative feelings.)

A frightening experience. Anger is an ancient word. In the Hebrew root, it is a picture of a wild bull snorting as it stomps its feet before charging. Anyone who has someone fiercely enraged at them knows the fear of this rage.

Anger can be a friendly emotion like a traffic light. Anger can tell us when something is wrong. Anger like a traffic light is neutral. We decide whether we will stop for a red light or not. Will we slow down for the yellow light? Anger becomes constructive or destructive depending upon our choices. Deliberately running a red light is destructive. Slowing down coming to a busy intersection with a yellow light may be constructive depending upon traffic conditions.

Recognizing the Type of Anger

Anger can be held inside constructively or expressed constructively. In facing my anger, I need to ask:

What is frustrating me?
By focusing on this disturbance, not displacing my feelings elsewhere,
In understanding something of the roots of the perceived or real injustice,
I can constructively decide how I will manage my anger.

But anger as a destructive force in distinction from consecutive anger needs to find a resolution. When the frustration:

Is unclear, or ambiguous to me,
I am hindered in managing my impatience or anger,
Ambiguity contributes to a feeling of threat,
And it becomes destructive.

We do not need to express anger destructively, but it does need to find a resolution:

What frustrates me?
Can I focus on the disturbance, the turbulence?
Do I know something about the roots of this injustice?
Understanding permits me to decide how I will manage my anger constructively.

The Range of Intensity in Anger

Provocation ranges across a continuum from ignoring the frustration to an awareness of resentment. Our feelings can go from destructive anger bottled up within us in passivity through the expression of this outrage either directed at ourselves or others.
It is important to recognize that the intensity we are experiencing is not as much a factor in how destructive anger can be. Passivity can be as destructive as rage. We tend to repress how intense our anger is. This denial is a function of our defense mechanisms protecting us from shaming ourselves in being angry.

The Critical Factor in Anger Is the Intent of Our Anger

Destructive anger does not intend to ‘edify’ or ‘build up’ or is ‘unwholesome.’ Destructive anger is the opposite of these ideals: it fails to help; even though it may not tear someone down. Destructive anger does not intend to ‘edify’ or ‘build up’ or is ‘unwholesome’ using Paul’s definitions. Constructive anger does seek to give help. Destructive anger is the opposite of these ideals: it fails to help; even though it may not tear someone down. In Paul’s thinking, not helping when it is needed is an omission of love. This failure to love is passive but even so destructive. Yes, destructive anger can be in fact harsh, hurtful as it lashes out at someone. But many times, a person does not allow themselves to be so clearly angry. The function of repression is to enable us to feel we are in the ‘right’ even as we passively fail to communicate what is upsetting us.

Two Factors Are Important

I am underscoring here two aspects of anger:

The lack of intensity in our anger can confuse us into feeling it is not destructive.
And our failure to be constructive in being frustrated; our lack of love in our impatience, or our passivity in not being clear about what angers us; this is how our anger becomes destructive.

Healthy anger is an awareness we are angry; ‘be angry… ‘as Paul writes. This knowledge is motivated by a desire to love one another; ‘do not sin… but give help…’ Our desire to seek the good of another person leads us to constructively resolve our differences with someone with whom we disagree; which means we are ‘speaking the truth,’ but it is in love which means speaking only such a word that gives grace to those who hear…’

The Apostle Paul’s Teaching

Paul develops his thinking on destructive and consecutive anger in this chapter. The Apostle’s teaching in contrasting both types of anger provides us with a balanced understanding of this powerful emotion.

Victims of Destructive Anger

Victims of destructive anger: I do not include comments on those subjected to destructive animosity. There are too many variables to include even a hint of what a person needs to do who is confronted with such dominance.

Destructive Anger Is Complex

Understanding destructive anger is like viewing light refracted through a prism. The wave of light in passing through the lens is ‘broken up’ into the multiple bands making up the apparently single wave of light. Also in being angry, we find ourselves facing a complexity painful and difficult to comprehend. In experiencing this anger, our range of emotions can move from shock to an all too bitter familiarity. We have been here before.
As hurtful as it is to feel anger or to be outraged towards someone, it is more frightening to look for a way to stop being infuriated. When we attempt to resolve being provoked, we come face to face with a feeling of helplessness that opens as a void under our feet, and we feel ourselves sinking into a place too dark to let ourselves stay there. We run from this frustration. We avoid it at all costs. As we exhaust ourselves in our futile attempts to resolve our feelings, we find ourselves deeper in despair than when we started. The prism, the complexity of destructive anger has overcome us, and we are alone.

Detachment Hides the Reality of Destructive Anger

Emotional detachment hides the reality of destructive bitterness: Aloneness or isolation is driven by one function of destructive frustration. We emotionally detach from the person we are angry with- even if that person is ourselves. In emotionally detaching, we unknowingly push away what we most need.

We need to be kept safe from harm;
We need to be able to express ourselves freely,
We need to understand ourselves and be understood;
We stand in need of consoling words and emotional support;
We need to be affirmed as we strive to live up to our ambitions.

In emotionally detaching, we deny ourselves the resources we need. We place ourselves at risk to be injured more from ourselves or by another. We do not allow ourselves to affirm what we need. We deny others to offer us what we need. We ignore our thoughts or believe another knows better than we do. We look futilely for comfort. We are shamed or hold ourselves guilty when we are not.
We say and feel emotions we regret so deeply but discover we cannot seem to stop our outpouring of hurtful words or deeds. Nor can we protect ourselves from another person doing the same to us. Destructive anger can only exist if we emotionally detach ourselves from the person we are angry with or who is frustrated with us. We numb ourselves to what is painfully familiar. We diminish what we are ‘hearing.’ We develop such a high tolerance for mistreatment we no longer know we are hurt. How else can we feel what we feel so intensely towards ourselves or others? Denying this anger, we become passive: ‘it is not me it is them.’ So I do not have to face my avoidance or being actively destructive: ‘it is useless’; ‘I give up’; reaching to the emotional depths of: ‘I can kill myself, or I will kill you.’ These are extremes, yes, but expressions like this point to the painful emotions of destructive anger. It is this intense detaching ourselves from the reality of our self-worth or the reality of another person’s importance to us which allows us to express this destructive anger or repress it in passivity.

We Can Turn to The Scriptures and Find Hope

In this complexity of anger, we can turn to the Scriptures and find hope.
The apostle Paul in writing to the church at Ephesus is laying out the blueprint for the new people of God. It is an awe-inspiring vision of individuals gathered from all cultures, races, and faiths. People who are known for intensely hating and antagonistic to each other. Drawn together by Jesus as one people affirming new life coming from one source: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
It is in this context that Paul raises the question of how will we relate to one another? What is the answer to the complexity of social issues presented by such a diverse gathering of peoples? What is the answer to these deep antagonisms history so vividly underscores in blood? It is on this bloody canvas that the Apostle paints his graphic picture for us in Ephesians chapter 4.
These people alienated from each other are to be God’s ‘New Society’ as John Scott titles his commentary on Ephesians. Chapter 4 lays out God’s blueprint for reuniting a ‘World Split Apart’ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Harvard Commencement speech 1978.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Ephesians 4:1)

The apostle sees individuals as distorting the Image of God within them. We have fallen from grace. This Biblical construct, the Image of God, can be expressed as but not limited to:

To be kept safe from harm;
To be able to express ourselves freely,
To understand ourselves and be understood;
To stand in need of consoling words and emotional support;
To be affirmed as we strive to live up to our ambitions.

It is this awareness which I have found in Paul’s writings and elsewhere in the Scriptures that is my North Star: fostering the Image of God in families and individuals. My focus is for people to gain a clearer acceptance of and commitment to this biblical construct. We are created to reflect the very Image of God Himself.
The absence of a clear and confident perception of this reality in America drives my approach to the need for change in individuals. Gaining confidence in this awareness is what it means to ‘live a life worthy of the calling you have received.’ Be aware that God created us and inherent to our reality we have these basic needs:

To be kept safe from harm;
To be able to express ourselves freely,
To understand ourselves and be understood;
To stand in need of consoling words and emotional support;
To be affirmed as we strive to live up to our ambitions.

These requirements are the skeleton of the self onto which we give expression to our individuality: whom we see ourselves to be; what our gifts and talents call forth from us; what our ambitions are in this life; how we find comfort, forgiveness for our failings. So Paul appeals to us “to live worthy of your calling.”

The Purpose Of Christ

Knowing the intent of Christ our questions become, can we be vulnerable to these diverse cultures? Can we be open to the freedom others need to possess? Can we be willing to protect them from harm including what risk our anger may visit upon them? Can we embrace our differences in family background or in our expectations of how we live our lives?

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3)

How does Paul see the antagonisms of these diverse cultures in finding God’s grace; living out this ‘calling’? How does Paul see us being constructively angry and not turning our anger against rebuilding our relationship?

By regarding the equality of each other;
Given new life, we have no right to expect-
To have such honesty about who we truly are as individuals and
As failing desperately before the kindness and righteousness of God.
This awareness drives our knees to the ground – the earth given to us by our Creator.
This awareness is humility.

‘Be completely humble.’ This recognition is the attitude we need to have to. ‘bear with’ others: ‘be patient, bearing with one another in love’; to strive to live in honesty and peace with each other.’

Paul’s Speaks from Personal Experience

Listen to Paul’s story: He was not always this humble and gentle man. He was furiously opposed to Jesus Christ and his followers. Luke tells Paul’s story in the Acts of the Apostles relating the early history of Jesus’ followers. Paul was involved in the legal stoning of a man named Phillip. Phillip’s crime was opposing the civil authorities. The Roman government gave them this authority. They made it a crime to follow Jesus. Peter and John protested this law by saying: we must obey God, not man (Acts 4:1-22). Phillip believed this. Paul, then known as Saul, was an official of the local authorities. The punishment for the crime of following Jesus was death by stoning. Saul approved of stoning Phillip in (Acts 6:8-15; 7:1-60; 8:1-3). A short time later, Jesus from heaven touched Saul so deeply Saul embraced Jesus (Acts 9). Saul’s conversion was so profound his named was changed to Paul. It is this power Paul speaks of when he says we are raised from spiritual death to life. And it is this life given to all who follow Jesus that Paul is here showing the actual consequences. It is this spiritual life that turned the world around and is our hope today for the world far from peace. In fact, torn apart by war in the name of religion.

What Are We Most Concerned About?

How can we have this attitude with our spouse? Paul offers one motivation and one resource. The motivation is love. A love rooted in our confident and heartfelt gratitude to Christ for giving us life. This motivation is the first place we need to look if we are struggling to redirect our anger from being destructive to being consecutive. Can we say we love our spouse as Christ loves us? This attitude is a critical question. It is not one to skip over too quickly. Many American Christians have a distorted understanding of being loved by God. We are not alone in this confusion. Two major epistles- Galatians and Colossians- were written because 1st-century believers were also distorting this vital awareness: how does Jesus receive us? How does God accept us? In what way, does he love us? A commentary by Tim Keller on Galatians offers a clear explanation of this confusion and helps us gain clarity.

If You Feel God Loves You Conditionally Then You Will Also Love Your Spouse Conditionally

What will the end of that spiral of distortions gain you? The resource Jesus offers us is the empowering grace of the Holy Spirit. There are two aspects to the work of the Spirit. First, we are to redirect our anger so that the oneness we have with our spouse is maintained. Yes, it is ‘on’ us. Second, it is a unity brought about by the Spirit Himself. This oneness, as Paul will write elsewhere, is a great mystery. It is this bond that sustains our relationship when we are at the end of our rope. There are times when we do not want to seek a divorce, but we wonder how we can go one more day. We turn to Christ in prayer, and we find the confidence to go forward. Going forward not by repressing the difficulties but going forward confident the hard times can be faced and resolved. The mystery is why am I now willing when before I was not? The answer is:

We Are a New Person. We Have Resources We Did Not Have Before. We Are Loved In A Way We Have Not Been Loved Before. Paul Writes:

There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to one hope when you were called — Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. (Ephesians 4:4, 15-17)

Paul gives expression here to the vanity, emptiness of personal discovery that does not integrate into its perspective the ‘calling’ we have in Christ; the creation in the Image of God that has so formed our existence.

“Speaking the Truth in Love”
In anger, we find ourselves deeply convinced of the rightness of our way of seeing a disagreement and remain closed to considering other viewpoints. Hence left to our perceptions and with not being open to dialogue with others we remain convinced we are right- only to find our anger deepening. Speaking the truth is necessary if I am to understand and communicate the anger I feel. Paul limits the expression of anger, the truth we believe needs to be expressed; he restricts our communication to speaking in love. In another place, I have written about the differences in how we express ourselves: assertive, complaint, aggressive, resistant, and passive.

Distorted by the “futility of their thinking,” our destructive anger surfaces in us. It is important to communicate with a clear insight into ourselves. Words have power. As I reflect on how emotionally frail we are, how crippled we find ourselves in reaching these insights, how all too often we betray even our best interests: how fallen we are as a people. I ask individuals to discover how they think about themselves. Are they clear about the degree of emotional risk they can experience? Are they aware of how quickly they can affirm their ideas; how free they find themselves from the dominance of others; to what degree they can say they understand their distortions? What I am asking is, to what extent is an individual conceptually aware of their basic psychological needs:

To be kept safe from harm;
To be able to express ourselves freely,
To understand ourselves and to be understood by another;
To stand in need of consoling words and emotional support;
To be affirmed as we strive to live up to our ambitions.

Without clarity regarding these constructs, we risk distorting what frustrates us and then expressing this distortion in our communication.
Eph.4;22 You were taught, about your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The Work of God Goes Deeper Than Any Developmental Experience We Have Suffered.
Paul offers the hope that lasting change with deeply rooted anger can be ours. The work of God goes deeper than any developmental experience we have suffered. This depth of change is the presence of the Spirit of God making clear what is confusing, giving us comfort when we are most distressed, offering us hope in ways we do not understand. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “The God of all comfort comes alongside us when we go through a hard time.” As we act with faith in His work in us; we can put aside our past beliefs and embrace these new ideas; fostering the Image of God in us as Paul expresses through this chapter.

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:25-28)

An Important Reason for Being Angry

“In your anger, do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,” Paul’s concern here is to diminish intensifying an important reason for being angry. And that reason is avoidance of engaging the person we hold something ‘against.’ There is an echo here of Jesus’ teaching that if you are in worship or His words ‘at the altar ‘ and there remember ‘your brother has something against you go. Leave worship. And be reconciled with your brother’. There are multiple reasons for this urgency. In the context of what I am discussing one such reason is the loss of intimacy in marriage. How painful is it to feel alienated from the one you love? Why would we want to endure a day without the closeness and support of our husband or wife? It is a tragic commentary on our commitment to Christ when we allow moments, hours or days to go by while we are separated from each other. In our broader relationships within the Church, the loss of consensus within the work of the Church due to our avoidance of engaging in meaningful conflict resolution. The effect of anger in the Church’s mission plays in the hands of Satan where we fail to address the pressing needs of the “watching world” drifting month to month wrapped in our Christian cocoon unaware of those alienated by our inability to resolve our differences.
So, for Paul to encourage us to be angry and yet not to sin would mean we need to think through as best we can what it is that we have ‘against our brother’. Paul is not saying ignore the reality of what we believe we are experiencing. Nor, is he saying ‘just get it out.’ He is saying try to understand yourself, try to see what angers you from the other person’s perspective and when uncertain or confused speak urgently to the other person about what is between you.
There have been those who hear in this a prohibition against anger. Rather the sin is in not allowing ourselves to fully experience what we are feeling: “In your anger” rests the assumption that we are experiencing something that can be a sin against our brother by not expressing what it is that angers us.

“And Do Not Give the Devil a Foothold”

It is important to underscore what Paul says about the activity of Satan. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask not to be lead into temptation. Satan intensifies our feeling of unfairness, he blinds our insight to the truth, and he exaggerates our feelings of ‘rightness.’ In these and many other ways, he finds an opportunity to tempt us to sin in our anger. Here again, we are faced with those sources of evil that will undercut our efforts to live worthy of our calling in Christ: the world- ‘Let it out’; the flesh- ‘You hurt me.’ and here the devil – ‘it’s the others fault.’

Helping Others Understand Us

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:29-32)

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” I have felt for a long time that this is the best description of how to communicate our feelings whether those are feelings of anger or fear or anxiety.
So, I feel that whatever I write is redundant. But let me try to say again at least what I feel Paul is writing and perhaps elaborate and add another perspective to help foster an understanding of this constructive way to work through conflict with each other.
I find it interesting he starts with a negative. “Do not let…”, After all, he is asking us to communicate what we see wrong between each other. He gives us the strongest encouragement to speak the truth, but here when it comes to the point of expressing ourselves, Paul limits what we should say. Why would Paul require us to hesitate before we speak? Anger is a strong, intense belief that I have been wronged, or injured. There is a recent experiment that shows a direct relationship between feeling physical pain and emotional pain. The researchers could identify the same neurological receptors for physical pain and emotional pain. So the impulse to vent our anger is real, but as Paul cautions here it may lead to unintended consequences: we do not get our point across. Instead, we are tearing down a relationship we were hoping to rebuild or to improve.
A critical question is: what does it mean to ‘speak the truth, avoiding unwholesome expressions, being helpful, constructive to the person I am angry with? The answer is subjective and relative to the relationship.

Subjective: It requires that we give thought to what in fact has injured us.
Relative to the relationship: How we understand the other person will experience what we must say. A tall order!

But Paul Does Require Us to Speak

He does not intend for us to be passive or to ignore the truth. In fact, to take seriously this subjective and relative criterion can be an arduous task in seeking to understand the complexity of what I am experiencing in this relationship and what another person is aware of in their relationship with me. It requires that we gain insight into our life story and be open to the journey of the other person before we say anything about what has upset me with the other person.
Going back to what Paul’s foundational concern is: ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ He is seeking to bring together these people from diverse cultures, ideologies, genders, religions uniting them in One Body- the Church of Christ. So how can this meaningfully occur without being open to who each one is and how they came to embrace the Christ of history? The criteria must be subjective and relative because the cultural, ideological, religious differences are unique to these people groups. There must be a responsibility to reach across this chasm that separates us if we are to understand each other. This responsibility is we are to recognize what matters so much that one person is angered by the other person. In the city of Ephesus in the 1st-century it was for the Gentile Christian husband to take responsibility to understand his Jewish Christian wife and likewise the Jewish Christian wife to understand her Gentile Christian husband. Today in the 21st Century, for a quiet, passive husband to take responsibility to understand what his wife is hearing him say. Active listening teaches us to paraphrase what we think we heard: “What I hear you saying is?” Active listening and other techniques fail because we are unwilling or unaware we have this responsibility to reach outside our pain and be vulnerable to our spouse. On a more practical note: the injuries, hurts that separate us as husband and wife; or brother and sister; families; friends; members of a church—whoever for whatever reason we find ourselves ‘against’ our brother. We can find hope in this responsibility to reach through our pain being vulnerable to each other. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30)
Paul contrasts the devious efforts of Satan with the quality of our relationship with God the Spirit. What is so curious for me is how comfortable Paul is in relating back and forth with these spiritual beings. I do not see this level of comfort in individuals. I ask myself why this might be? I don’t think it is much of a stretch to realize we just do not experience ourselves relating God the Holy Spirit as Paul does.

Why Be Concerned with How God Feels?

Why are we motivated to not ‘grieve’ the Spirit? When we are destructively angry, we are not inclined to be too concerned with how anyone is feeling except ourselves. Here Paul is asking us to reach beyond our immediate relationships to be concerned about God’s feelings! For me, it is rather interesting and curious that he finds this helpful.

I suggest this shows how deeply anger runs through our life. We find we cannot lift our heads out of our troubles to be concerned about the person we are hurting. And Paul’s concern is to point out we are not even concerned with the Jesus who freely brought us into a relationship with Himself. Nor do we value our closest human relationship: our marriage. He is asking us to recognize just how angry we feel. He is seeking to help us in showing us where our heart lies.
I suggest a simple, profound way is to pray sincerely – not merely say- the Lord’s Prayer. When you find, yourself praying ‘forgive me as I forgive…’ if your heart is turning back to the Spirit you will find yourself pausing. And perhaps discover where your feelings are about ‘grieving’ the Spirit. And hurting the person you are angry with. You can see why Paul then continues in the following verses.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

‘Just as in Christ God Forgave You’

Paul’s appeal to us in this instance is the critical turning point in his reasoning in this epistle. It is wise to step back for a moment to review the place this whole chapter has in the larger setting of Paul’s letter to this church.

As I mentioned in my introduction, “The apostle Paul in writing to the church at Ephesus is laying out the blueprint for the new people of God. It is a remarkable vision of individuals gathered from all cultures, races, faiths, people with deep hatreds, and antagonisms for each other. Drawn together as one people we affirm life is coming from one source: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It is in this context that Paul raises the question of how will we relate to one another? What is the answer to the complexity of social issues presented by such a diverse gathering of peoples? And my concern here: what is the answer to these deep antagonisms history so vividly underscores in blood? This opportunity is the canvas that the Apostle writes to us on in Ephesians chapter 4.”

To this point, I have tried to elaborate on how Paul sees the answer to this question working its way out in our communication. But here at this stage, he explains how it is possible to put aside our anger, our commitments to other ideas, our loyalty to our other relationships, our needs to push for our agenda, our apparently reasonable demands that within the context of our priorities seem right.

Why should we be concerned to live a life worthy of the calling we have received? Why should we be concerned if someone is injured? If in pushing for what we see is right, we antagonize someone else? Why should we bear with someone we know is wrong? Why take the time to understand them and their culture, their history, their pain, their loyalties?

In a word, we stand as a person who has sought and gained the forgiveness of God. We have found ourselves facing God. And we know we need His forgiveness. We find that we are a person who cannot live without this relationship with our Creator, our Lord. As angry as we are with the one who has offended us, we do not want to offend Christ. We may diminish the importance Christ has to us in our anger with someone else. We think we find in the teachings of Jesus justification for our anger. But when we finally allow ourselves to face Him, we desire above all else His acceptance and care.

And what we find as we face Him are these words, just as in Christ, God forgave you. We must ask ourselves exactly what has He forgiven us for? Why has He forgiven us? Is there any way He has held back His desire to let our failure, our betrayal of Him and others, our frailty in following Him? Is there any way He holds this over our head? Is there any way He expects us to pay Him back for lifting this obligation off our shoulders? To be honest with Paul’s teaching in this letter, the only answer we can give to these questions is: No. God holds nothing back in giving us life, in lifting this obligation, in committing to us to remain loyal to us throughout our days on this earth.

Paul then asks can we do the same for the one we are angry with? Can we then live worthy of such a commitment God has made to us? This reality, this commitment of God to us, then gives us a way, to be honest with our anger, to speak the truth in love. We then can hold on to what we find is wrong but being vulnerable in pursuing a practical answer to our difficulty. We can rebuild our marriage by the grace of God.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

How will these diverse cultures, these ancient antagonisms, the striving for dominance between male and female; between those in power and those subservient to that power. How will this one body find expression in Christ and grow up into His Church; His Bride? The distortions that have surrounded this one ideal echo down through the centuries of time finding renewed energy, destructive force saying: ‘Do what I say! I am the head of this house.’ ‘I have the right I am the Boss.’ ‘I am the Bishop, submit’ ‘I am the expert, Listen to me.’

I ask again to what degree are we confident that
I can be kept safe from harm;
I can express myself freely;
As I understand myself and another understands me;
I stand in need of consoling words and emotional support;
I need to be affirmed as I strive to live up to my ambitions.

As we are clear about being formed in the Image of our God, as each one of us comes closer to this reality, as we live this out in our lives. Helping each other becomes an act of respect for myself as much as an equal respect for others. Working together to rebuild our relationship becomes possible.

Our only hope of resolving destructive anger is in Paul’s vision of new people; One Body; One Faith; One Hope. Our liberation from destructive anger which is committed only in the rightness of our beliefs. We are not humbled before the worth of another formed in God’s Image. We grind down all opposition as we hold fast to our way; diminishing the ideas, value of others to maintain our importance is embracing in faith Paul’s appeal: As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.