Why Angry People Never Think They're Angry (And What the Bible Says About It)

You probably don't think of yourself as an angry person. Most angry people don't. But the Bible paints a more uncomfortable picture — and a more hopeful one. In this episode, we dig into what anger actually is, why it's so easy to justify, and what God's Word says about the heart behind it. This isn't about anger management. It's about the gospel applied to one of the church's most tolerated sins.

The Recovering Pharisee exists to equip the church in sound doctrine and practical theology — for pastors, church leaders, and anyone who wants to take God's Word seriously.

Transcript

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Everyone struggles with anger, sinful anger to be exact. It might manifest itself in various ways in different people. We all have different temperaments and so on and so forth. But it's one of those sin struggles none of us is exempt from as long as the remaining corruption of sin is in us. And even when we have these types of conversations, many of us would rarely identify as an angry person. But we can be very quick to think of someone who we know is an angry person. But we almost nobody thinks of themselves as an angry person. And that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about, you know, a whole lot of stuff, but mainly, what is sinful anger? What is righteous anger? Is that a legitimate thing? What are the various ways that sinful anger manifests itself in our hearts and in our behavior and in our thinking as well? Because I don't think anger is like a black and white cookie-cutter type of sin. It shows up in very, in varied ways. And it's a very destructive sin that causes a lot of collateral damage in our sphere of influence. And so you have the anger that is more of the external, loud, boisterous anger. And then you have the more subtle, quiet, you know, private, sinful anger in the heart kind of a thing. And I want to talk about all that because it causes a lot of effects, you know. So the person who is angry, wrestles with sinful anger, can cause others around them to learn how to reorganize their lives around the angry person, to walk on eggshells, or hey, let's avoid certain topics so that we don't provoke, you know, Joe Bob or Sally, because we know that they tend to, you know, blow up if you talk about this or say this or whatever it may be. Like anger manifests in various ways. And it is one of the most destructive forces in a home, in a marriage, and in a church community. And somehow it's also one of those sin struggles that is not often confronted. I think we're quick to confront the loud, boisterous anger, the yelling, the malice kind of anger. But other forms of anger, I think, are are least confronted by Christians in the life of the church. And so here's what we're gonna do. I want to define a sinful anger or just anger in general, define anger, look at the various forms it takes, but then talk about how does God's word and the gospel speak to our sinful anger? How does it identify it, but then also give us the remedy to actually change and try to have uh self-control. But let me just give this this nuance, this disclaimer before we start this conversation, and that's this not all anger is sinful anger. Not all anger is is sinful. So Paul in Ephesians 4.26, he gives this charge be angry and do not sin. Paul does not say never be angry. He assumes that there's a form of legitimate righteous anger that is appropriate within the Christian life. So that's good to know. But, you know, keep in mind when we talk about righteous anger, I think our default, because we all have like a inner defense attorney that's quick to come out to defend ourselves and always hold us into a more righteous light. We got to be careful not to quickly put our anger in the righteous category just because we are convinced it's righteous. But before we get into that, let me let me just give a helpful definition from Robert Jones, who is a professor at Southern Seminary, a biblical counselor and pastor. In his book, Uprooting Anger, which I would highly commend to you, he defines anger as this Our anger is our whole-personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil. Our anger is our whole personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil. So when the evil around us is real and the response is proportionate, anger is a moral response, not a moral failure. Now, as I said earlier though, but here's the warning: we have to be careful not to be so quick to instantly be convinced, well, my anger is a righteous response to, you know, moral, a moral issue that I feel is unjust. Therefore, my my anger is righteous indignation. Righteous anger does exist, but I would suggest that it is far rarer in us than we tend to claim. And the rest of this episode is about the kind of anger that we're far more familiar with, unfortunately, and that is sinful anger. So let's let's talk about sinful anger because the people who most need this conversation are sometimes the ones who are least likely to know it. But we all wrestle with this, so we all can benefit from this conversation. So I would say, you know, have an open heart, have an open hand. Don't think about, you know, like when you're in church sometimes and you hear a good sermon that's convicting, and your thought is immediately, I hope my spouse is listening, or I hope this person's listening. Make sure you're listening because this applies to all of us, and you'll be better equipped to help the other person who might wrestle with anger as well. But like I said, angry people are almost always completely convinced that the problem is not inside of them, it is outside of them. It's the other person they're in conflict with, it's the circumstance they find themselves in, it's the perceived injustice that they are witnessing, but it's rarely first beginning with in their own heart. It's always an external problem. There's an old story about a man who went to the doctor complaining that everywhere he touched was in just pain and agony. He pressed on his shoulder, pain. He pressed on his knee, pain. He pressed on his stomach and his chest, and he shouts out to the doctor, I am in pain and agony. And the doctor decides to run some tests and comes back and says, Sir, your finger is broken. That's a good illustration of how anger can manifest sometimes. Angry people are like that patient where they're certain that the problem is everywhere they happen to be pointing when the real issue is the one who's doing the pointing. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying all anger is automatically sinful and the person who is angry is the guilty party, but that is most often the case. This is what makes anger so resistant to change, because if you're genuinely convinced that you're responding to something that's real, some real perceived evil, well, then you might be convinced that there's nothing to repent of because my anger is righteous. I'm in the right. I should feel angry about this or that thing. James 1, 19 through 20 gives us the warning that everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God. How many of us have been guilty of that verse, right? The anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. And yet we tell God, well, maybe it will this time. Let me let me give it a shot, Lord. Like maybe if I respond by yelling at my kids, then they'll finally obey and do what I'm asking them to do. Maybe if I disrespectfully raise my voice and use an unloving tone towards my spouse, maybe they'll finally listen to what I'm trying to get them to uh to do or stop doing. But James is saying, hey, our default, our default posture toward our own anger should be one of suspicion, not permission. Assume it is, assume your anger isn't righteous until proven otherwise, not the other way around. So when you feel provoked, when you feel that anger brooding in you, we should by default be suspicious of it and get to the root of it and say, what is stirring this anger? Am I concerned about God and his holiness, or am I concerned about my kingdom and convenience that has been provoked and rocked a little bit here? But before going any further, I think the most useful thing, you know, any of you can do right now who are listening is to reserve resist the urge to think about somebody else right now. Just be willing to let this episode be about you, your heart, your understanding of anger, and your walk with Jesus. So you can be a more faithful disciple and reflect the heart of Christ and, Lord willing, do a better job of reflecting righteous anger in appropriate settings. But let's just talk about how anger does manifest itself in various ways. So the most obvious version of anger is going to be the raised voice, the loud blow up, the eruption, so to speak. This is what people picture, I think, when they hear anger problem. And it's the version that is most likely in Christian communities, churches, homes. It's the form of sinful anger that's most often going to be confronted and receive some pushback because it's also one of the most destructive forms of anger. But there's also the quiet anger that's also very dangerous. So it's not the, you know, the loud, boisterous anger. No, the quiet version of sinful anger is like that's grumbling, the low-grade complaining that has calcified into a personality trait, you know, when someone says, Hey, this is just how I am, or this is my culture, or this is just how I grew up. This is my family. Like we yell at each other and we fight, we go back and forth, but then, you know, we sweep it under the rug and we're straight. That's that can be a form of some quiet, you know, anger. But then there's also like the seething silent, the sinful anger, where, you know, maybe a married couple has a conflict and one spouse decides to give the other the cold shoulder or the one-word response or the emotional withdrawal that functions as punishment without technically doing anything wrong externally through their actions, but rather they're withholding something, they're giving the cold shoulder to punish. You know, that this is the person who never maybe raises their voice, but they simply turn away from the other person. They shut down, they stonewall, they remove the warmth and love from the room kind of a thing. This is a silence, like still anger that's just it's sinful anger, just dressed up differently. And there's also, you know, the version of anger out there today in in modern times with platforms like what I'm doing right now, you know, podcasts and YouTube channels and blogs where people feel, you know, that they are doing the church a service by calling out everybody on their theology or whatever it may be, but using, you know, various means of media to uh, you know, I mean, you have a whole category now nowadays of discernment bloggers, right? Not that all of discernment blogging is is bad or unhelpful, but where people kind of like find joy in just pointing the finger and self-righteously correcting people, villainizing people, calling them out. That could also be a form of sinful anger. I mean, it is deeply discouraging to see how a lot of Christians, especially pastors. I mean, I'm a pastor, so I have a heart for pastors, but to see how a lot of ministry leaders conduct themselves over social media, degrading people, speaking poorly of people, slandering people, I would say these are forms of sinful anger that are destructive and dishonoring to the Lord. But I would also throw out there cynicism is a form of sinful anger, where you are viewing people in a negative light, where you are, you know, dishonoring the Lord and how you approach and think about people in your heart and mind. But another manifestation of sinful anger is one of manipulation and control, abuse of authority and influence. Anger can be a form of manipulative control where you express sinful anger to instill fear in others or to manipulate and cohorce people to do something you want them to do, or whatever it may be, but that that is a form of sinful anger. You're weaponizing anger as a tool to get what you want, which is self-serving. It's a form of self-centered anger, which is also dishonoring to the Lord when you're using sinful anger to leverage the anger to get something you want. And you know, anger causes all sorts of just damaging effects, right? So, like one explosion in a home can cause the family to walk on eggshells for days, for weeks and months, and then the family starts learning to respond to you in a certain way because they they don't want to see that happen again. And so now there's like this this undergirding fear in everyone's hearts and how they relate to you because of your sinful anger. And this type of anger, this type of manipulation and temper has no place in a Christian home, in a church community. And the fact that, you know, it's common is is really sad and devastating. You know, there's there's also, like I said, the danger of being convinced of righteous indignation. This is this can be sophisticated a little bit. And what I mean by that is we can like put some theological costuming on our perceived righteous indignation, where what I'm getting at here is someone is convinced, I am positive you sinned against me or you've you've wronged me, you've provoked me. Therefore, my angry response is justified. This is why, for instance, when I counsel individuals to confess sin, you know, I encourage them, when you confess your sin thoroughly in a God-honoring way, do not add if and but statements. So if you say, sweetheart, I am, I am sorry that I raised my voice and I was disrespectful towards you, but you know when you do this, the second you say but or when you add an if, you have just deleted the confession and the apology because you are blaming the other person. And so you're saying, hey, I know my anger hurt you and offended you. However, when you really think about it, my anger was righteous because of what you did. Well, friends, responding to sin, even if that's true, if the person on the other end has sinned against you, responding to sin with sin is never justifiable. Or you have people who say, you know, hey, I'm not, I'm not angry. I'm just, I'm concerned for this person. And that's why I talk about them the way I do. Or, you know, I'm not bitter. I'm just, I'm being discerning. That's why I'm stiff arming them and giving them the cold shoulder. Or I'm not punishing them with my words. I'm just being honest. I just say it how it is. And even that can be an excuse, a license for sin, where people say, Well, you know, in my culture, in my household, this is just how we kind of do things. And if that's the case, then I would say, repent. There is nothing in scripture that says when we stand before Jesus, he's gonna say, you know what, all these sins over here, I'm going to ignore those because, you know, you're you're African-American, you're Latina, you're whatever, or you grew up in this type of household and your family just did this. And so that's not sinful. That's just your context. And so I will take that into account. No, there is nothing in the Bible that says that our sin are is either sinful or it is righteous. There is no hybrid, nuanced third, a third option. But righteous anger, you know, when it is genuine, I think it should, it should bring some type of desire to pursue restoration and reconciliation, not to energize anger or conflict or malice in any kind of way. So this is important to just give all these foundational bullet points here before we we go any further. Like there is a thing called righteous anger, and then there's sinful anger. But we tend to gravitate towards defining or categorizing our anger as righteous way more than we likely should be. And so let's just do some some diagnostics here, as far as, you know, according to the Lord and in his word, how should we think through our anger to just decipher whether or not it's righteous or unrighteous anger? Well, it never hurts to remember that Jesus is our savior and our example to follow. So watch Jesus in the Gospels. Read your Bible with an observant eye and pay attention to a few things. When you read the gospels, ask yourself when Jesus is insulted, when he's tested, when he's provoked, mocked, falsely accused, slandered, betrayed, how does he respond? He never responds in sinful anger. But when you survey the gospels, ask those questions. How does Jesus respond? When Jesus is angry, it is consistently about injustices being done to others, particularly injustices that keep people from God. So the temple wasn't cleared when Jesus, you know, flips the tables with a whip. Uh that, you know, they weren't cleared because Jesus was having a bad day or because he was provoked in his flesh. It was the tables were cleared because the poor were being robbed in the place where they came to meet and worship God, his father. And he took great offense to God's holiness being defamed. He is never angry on his own behalf. That that becomes a clarifying question for the rest of us. I mean, just let's just be honest here. Here's a here's a sobering self-examination question. When we find ourselves provoked to anger, we can ask, hey, is my anger about something being done to others and the Lord, or something being done to me? Am I provoked because God's holiness is being defamed, or because God's people who are made in his image are being um, you know, defamed or injustice is inflicted upon them, or am I focused on myself? Now, that question does need a qualification, right? That doesn't mean that when someone sins against you, that you're supposed to just absorb it in silence and call that holiness, right? You can and should address a real wrong done to you. So let me be clear about that. The question isn't whether, you know, you were sinned against. Sometimes you genuinely will be sinned against, but the question is what's driving your response? Is it a a desire to see the relationship restored and the wrong made right? Or is it about making sure that they feel what you felt, kind of a thing? An eye for an eye, you know, you made me angry by you responding to me in a certain manner. And so I'm going to reciprocate with my anger towards you. So we got to be careful with our anger, you know, and recognize is it first focused godwardly, where I'm looking up and saying, I'm provoked because this defames my God and his holiness and people made in his image. Because here's what anger, you know, reveals about the heart. Anger is never just anger, is it? It's always a like a signal. It's always showing something more that's under the surface. And at times, it's often protecting something as well. So another diagnostic question isn't, you know, we shouldn't ask, did you get angry? It's a better question is what does your anger reveal about what you love, what you think you need, and what you're not willing to lose? Because often we sin in our anger to get something we want. So we have to ask ourselves, what does my anger reveal about what I love, what I think I need in this moment, and what I'm not willing to lose. Most sinful anger is standing guard over something that's important to us. It can be comfort, it can be reputation, it can be a perception of control, it can be the deep desire to be right to the point where we're making it a need, like I need to be right, or the even deeper need or perceived need to be seen as righteous and mature or something else in someone else's eyes. But underneath, most of it is just plain old pride. It's of a quieter disguise, this sinful pride, right? Where we start thinking things like, you know, I deserve better than this, and show I shouldn't have to deal with this. How dare they treat me this way? And when we start thinking this way, anger is often just wounded pride that found legs and started running. And so this is why behavioral correction alone does not work. As Christians, as a biblical counselor, I am never interested in mere behavior modification. You know why? Because you can learn to manage your expressions, to develop better coping strategies, to count the 10 before you respond and snap on somebody and cuss them out, or to just leave the room or whatever you come up with, but none of those things addresses the heart issue that leads to the manifestation of the sinful anger that comes out in our words and our deeds. And that's what the Lord is most concerned about. The Lord is always concerned with our hearts because from the heart comes evil actions and words and beliefs. And so, how does the gospel, God's word, speak to the remedy for our sinful anger? Well, scripture doesn't treat unresolved anger as a personal a personality flaw to manage, does it? Ephesians 4 27 says it gives the devil a foothold. Who wants to give, think about that? Who would voluntarily say they want to give the devil a foothold into their heart and life? And James connects it directly to something demonic in the book of James. And that's not meant to be dramatic, it's meant to be clarifying. He's saying anger isn't a cork, it is a territory being handed over, and it needs something stronger than self-help to remedy your heart. So the cross is the ground on which a Christian can absorb offense. Not because the offense doesn't matter, but because we have been forgiven a debt so large that it reorders every other debt we're owed. The things that anger was standing guard over have already been settled on the cross. This is what I appreciate about the Apostle Paul in his epistles. When you notice Paul is writing some letters from a Roman prison cell, he's facing persecution, he's you know on the verge of being executed for simply preaching the gospel and planting churches. And yet, Paul had this perspective of you know, I am a prisoner of Christ. Him suffering for Christ and his church. And he found full contentment in that. He didn't respond in sinful anger. He didn't condemn his enemies or anything like that. But rather, he had a God-centered perspective of his circumstance that helped keep him from giving in to sinful anger. Now, don't get me wrong, Paul was a human just like you. He breathed the same air that we breathe. He was a flawed sinner just like you and I. But that's pretty insightful to see if anyone had a reason to give in to sinful anger, to have a strong provocation to give into sinful anger. Certainly would be a man who is innocently suffering in a prison cell for doing no wrong, but yet having wrong done unto him. But here's where we get to, we need to get into the weeds here a little bit. So the gospel isn't only a theological argument, friends, against anger. It is the story of a God who is actively moving toward you, the angry person and me. Like God moves towards those who are experiencing and wrestling and battling against the brokenness of their own sinful anger and all the consequences that have resulted from that sinful anger. The angry person doesn't need another reason to feel condemned. They usually already, you know, have a long list of reasons they can condemn themselves and feel guilty and wallow in self-pity and shame. But what they need is someone to know what God's word says, to encourage them in the scriptures and to point them to the hope and help that they can find in Jesus. Not to feel disgusted with themselves or to feel that God is disgusted with them in their sinful anger, but rather to understand, no, no, no, no. The Father knows your heart, he knows the brokenness you're experiencing, and he pursues you. Think about that for a moment. The person whose anger, who has maybe cost them relationships, whose temper has done real damage in the relationships, who has the person who has said things that, you know, they can't unsay, those words are etched in people's minds for forever. That person is not beyond the reach of a God who himself absorbed the greatest offense in history without retaliating, without manipulating others, without performing his righteousness for an audience. That savior is the one who pursues those who wrestle with sinful anger and the consequences that result. That is that is the only thing that reaches the root of our sinful anger. Not anger management, not a book, not a podcast, but an encounter with a God who went to the cross for the angry person and who promises to complete the work he has begun in them. So keep in mind, sinful anger is something we all wrestle with, but it is something that Jesus addresses in his word and gives us hope that we truly can change. We can grow in the fruits of the spirit to be more gentle, to have self-control, to be more loving and patient and kind. And keep in mind, godliness is demonstrated in repentance. Godliness isn't always getting everything right. It's also recognizing when you get it wrong and having the courage and the maturity to say, I was wrong. Like that was sinful anger. Will you forgive me for how I spoke to you? Will you forgive me for what I did to you in my anger when I was provoked and not making any excuses for it? Laying down on your sword, confessing your sin. And you know, pride is a subtle sin as well that I think kind of goes hand in hand at times with our sinful anger. If you truly understand the gospel, that the creator of the universe, whose eternal wrath was hanging over you, his condemnation justly hung over you, and he sent his innocent, righteous, holy son to die on your behalf, to redeem you by the blood of Jesus Christ. And now the Father calls you justified and adopts you as a son or a daughter, and you forever stand in that justified status, that should destroy our pride. What I mean by that is sometimes we manifest sinful anger because we feel some kind of like false righteousness, righteousness about wanting to defend ourselves or defend our own honor. And so we might lash out at others to defend ourselves, to make sure that we correct somebody. But friends, why waste your time? If the God of the universe calls you his son or daughter, who cares what other people think about you? Why defend yourself when Jesus has slammed down the gavel in the courtroom of heaven and said, you are justified. Do not waste your time giving in to sinful anger, trying to defend your own honor. Let God do that. So I hope this was helpful to you. I could say so much more, but I'm trying to keep this somewhat short. But hey, if you found this helpful, if something landed on your heart in a way that convicted you in a good way or encouraged you as well, I would encourage you to share this with somebody who you think would be benefited from this conversation. And make sure you like and subscribe. And so that way you stay up to date with future episodes and yeah, help share this content to help others be encouraged in the faith as well. God bless.