One of my favorite scenes from the Marvel Avengers movies is the scene where Bruce Banner turns to Captain America (the greatest avenger, in case you were wondering) and reveals his secret in face of a great threat. As Captain America saw the impending threat, he says, “Dr. Banner, right now might be a good time to get angry.” Banner calmly looks at Captain and declares, “That’s my secret. I’m always angry,” right before turning into the Incredible Hulk. In this case, Banner’s anger was a great benefit to everyone, but what about our anger?
As I prepare to preach from Matthew 5:21-26 this coming Sunday, I ran across this great list of questions from the late David Powlison to help us diagnose whether or not our anger is truly righteous. Here are the seven questions that Powlison suggested:
- Do you get angry about the right things?
- Do you express your anger in the right way?
- How long does your anger last?
- How controlled is your anger?
- What motivates your anger?
- Is your anger “primed and ready” to respond to another person’s habitual sins?
- What is the effect of your anger?
What do you think of these questions? How would you define the “right things” to “get angry” about? Does self-control characterize your anger? What is the aim or goal of your anger? Are you concerned with the same things that God is concerned with? Or is your outraged more impacted by society and culture?
I believe it is important for Christians to evaluate how (if at all) their expressions of anger are in keeping with what God’s Word actually teaches about anger. We must be reminded that the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:20).
CBH
