What Does the Bible Say about Anger? How to Deal with Anger in Constructive Ways

Any number of things can happen in a day or a week that can make a person angry. From bad service, backed-up traffic, broken garbage disposal, betrayal by a friend, unmet expectations at work, losing a match, finding out that child trafficking is still happening, and so much more. There is no end, really, to the number and types of things that can elicit an angry response.

Anger is a powerful emotion that can make us gird our loins for action and fire us up to change the world for the better. On the other hand, it can fire us up and burn everything around us if it gets out of control – relationships and property damage can become casualties if anger is given its head.

Anger is like any other emotion; we have them, but it matters how we deal with them. There are healthy and constructive ways to express it, and there are also unhealthy and destructive ways to express it too.

And so, it matters that we gain a clear-eyed understanding of anger and its effects on our lives. One place where we can gain such guidance is in the Bible, where we are given down-to-earth wisdom about the perils of indulging anger, and how to deal with it in constructive ways. In this article, we’ll seek to answer the question, “What does the Bible say about anger?”

What Does the Bible Say about Anger?

God’s character

As beings made in God’s image, it should come as no surprise that we get our emotional capacity and ability to get angry from God. The difference is that often what makes us angry and what we do with our anger is different from what God does.

The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. – Exodus 34:6-7

This passage gives us a good glimpse into God’s character. Compassion and grace, patience, love, and faithfulness are at the core of who God is, as is justice. So, while God gets angry, he is “slow to anger.” In other words, God doesn’t have a temper that’s triggered at the slightest provocation.

Where there is repentance, he is willing to forgive wickedness, but he also won’t let evil go unpunished. God is patient and gracious, and when God does get angry, it’s for good reason, and it’s measured and controlled. This theme is repeated in the Bible when it talks about God, and when it challenges us to become more and more like God in our character.

Loving others well

In keeping with God’s character, who is loving and patient with us and our many failings, when Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Corinth about love, he spoke words that should be familiar to most. At plenty of weddings, there’s a reading of 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. That letter was written to a community to guide them in how they lived with one another.

Love was to be the foundation of how they related to one another, and that love “…is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth”.

While giving latitude to the beloved, and thus not getting angered easily when they do something wrong, love will nonetheless not celebrate what is wrong. Love will pursue accountability without blowing up at people when they make a mistake. It’s a very delicate balance, one which challenges us to be self-controlled and keep a check on anger even in the face of obvious shenanigans.

Walking by the Spirit

All of us want freedom. One of the things that the Bible says is that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). God wants us to be free from the things that can destroy our joy, our relationships, and our sense of peace. And so, we are reminded that if we live according to the old way of life, according to our instincts, that results in “impurity…debauchery; idolatry…hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition…” and so much more (Galatians 5:19-21).

Rather than walking in bondage to these, God has given us the Holy Spirit so that we are characterized by “love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). This fruit of the Spirit in our lives indicates the freedom that we have. When something upsetting happens, we don’t have to descend into a fit of rage over it.

We can deal with the issue patiently, resting in our confidence that God is in control. As we will pick up later, being angry isn’t wrong in itself – what matters is what you do with that anger, and if that anger has control over you. If we walk in the Spirit, anger doesn’t have the best of us – we are in control of it, and we don’t let it overwhelm us.

Anger and sin

Some people fall into the mistake of thinking that being angry is an ungodly thing to do. To be sure, anger often does lead people into all sorts of trouble – in a fit of rage, people slander others, they resort to verbal and physical violence, and much else. So, it is understandable why anger is to be handled with a ten-foot pole.

But we’ve seen already that God does get angry, and that means perhaps we need to recalibrate a little. Ephesians 4:26 makes a critical point – “In your anger do not sin.” Being angry and sinning aren’t the same thing. Anger is an emotion; it’s not good or bad. Good or bad begins with what you decide to do with the emotion if you’re able to keep it in check and so on.

People who are quick to get angry have the problem of lack of self-control – they struggle to slow down on the route to anger, and they often lack the self-control to slow down when that anger shows up and wants to direct them toward ungodly reactions and responses.

There are many things in the world that we ought to get angry about. Feeling that anger is an altogether human thing. But we must be careful that our anger doesn’t lead us, but we keep it in check and are thoughtful about our responses so that we don’t end up sinning.

Anger and communication

“I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing”, writes the apostle Paul (1 Timothy 2:8). This verse was addressed to men while Paul was writing to the whole church about worship. It’s a good reminder to us that sometimes prayers can be ineffective because they are made accompanied by anger and disputing.

Anger and disputes disrupt human relationships. We often forget in our relationship with God that God cares about the relationships we have with the people around us. It’s hard to pray for others while consumed by anger.

While prayer is mainly talking with God, anger also affects communication among people too. James 1:19-20 reads, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, for human anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”

If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with someone while you, they, or both of you were angry, you know that anger doesn’t promote effective communication skills. When we’re angry, we’re far less likely to practice good listening skills such as empathy, reflecting, asking questions for clarity, withholding judgment, and so on.

Being able to serve wholeheartedly, extend patience, charity, and goodwill to others (living out the righteous life God requires of us). Instead of letting anger take the lead and prevent us from hearing one another well, God encourages us to exercise self-control over our anger so that we can be for others in meaningful ways.

Conclusion

While anger is a normal reaction to many things we meet in our world, the Bible reminds us to be cautious of our anger because it may be guided by our instincts rooted in the old way of life before Jesus. Rather than being controlled by anger, we are to exercise self-control, be slow to anger so that we can respond in godly ways to our anger and the situation. That way, when we express our anger, it doesn’t destroy relationships or damage others.