Matthew 5:21-26

Jesus Teaches About Anger And Personal Relationships

22 "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

23 "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

25 "Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

26 "Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.

Anger And Relationship Issues

Would you commit murder? Neither would I ... but, according to these passages Jesus says that, if we become angry enough to murder someone, we have already committed the crime in our hearts.

So, the question comes again, have we ever committed murder? The Pharisees did when they became angry enough to kill Jesus, or at least have him killed.

Now, the physical act of killing another person is against what most humans believe and is a terrible thing to do. I'm not sure of the direct quote but the act of killing was explained in a Clint Eastwood movie where he explained that killing takes away everything a person has, or ever will have. A bit chilling when you think about it.

But, what about anger? Is the sin of anger just as great as the sin of murder? As stated above, we would never murder anyone but we are capable of becoming extremely angry with them.

This is dangerous not only on the physical level where anger can cause a person to lose control but also is a killer of relationships.

Many marriages have ended in divorce because of anger--Arguments over petty things such as money, priorities or the want for power. If those couples would have turned to God, learned the meaning of his law, and forgave each other the marriage might have been reconciled.

Lastly, anger moves us further away from God. His commandment is to love one another so how can we do this in anger? Human relationships are important but, even more, is our relationship with God.

Controlling anger is a real challenge for me and is right at the top of my list of sins but, with God's help, I am making leaps of progress in this area.

We can many times keep from lashing out in anger at another person by keeping our thoughts to ourselves but Jesus teaches that we work on controlling even our thoughts about others. No easy task but something we can work on starting today.

If this is one of your weaknesses as it is with me, pray and ask God to help you overcome this destructive emotion. Self control works in many cases but God control is always best!

Love in Christ

- Bob

Matthew 5:17-18;19-20 - Jesus Teaches about the Law - In this lesson from Baptist Bible study in the book of Matthew, Jesus makes it very clear that he is not implying that his followers break the laws of the prophets (ten commandments and others) but that he came to fulfill them.

Comments are welcome. Please email me with any questions or comments you may have.