The “Versus” Verses: Week 7

THE “VERSUS” VERSES (WEEK 7): THE SHORT-TEMPERED VS THE PEACEMAKER

• Today: The Short-Tempered vs. The Peacemaker

  Proverbs 14:29 NLT: People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness.

  Proverbs 29:22NLT: An angry person starts fights; a hot-tempered person commits all kinds of sin.

• “In its uncorrupted origin, anger is actually a form of love. It’s the emotion we feel when something we care about is threatened.”  -Tim Keller (1950–2023)

  Exodus 22:21-23 ESV: "You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry."

  Isaiah 10:1-2 NIV: "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people."

• "Let anger be guarded against. If it cannot, however, be averted, let it be kept within bounds. For indignation is a terrible incentive to sin. It disorders the mind to such an extent as to leave no room for reason." -Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397 AD)

• "Listen, you whose heart does not pardon, you who practise vengeance as a virtue; see what you resemble when you keep your anger for so long against your neighbour like a spark, hidden in the ashes, and only waiting for fuel to set your heart ablaze!" -Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379 AD)

• "He who is resentful works the same iniquity every day, and never brings it to an end. In the former case the deed is over, and the sin completed; but here the sin is perpetrated every day… You suppose that you are paying him back the injury; but you are first tormenting yourself, and setting up your rage as an executioner within you in every part, and tearing up your own bowels. For what can be more wretched than a man perpetually angry?" -John Chrysostom (c. 347–407 AD)

  Ephesians 4:26–27 NIV: 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.

• "Christianity came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all. We must be much more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. There was room for wrath and love to run wild." G.K. Chesterton (AD 1874–1936)

• "There are other ways of fighting than the sword or the fist. If we are disposed to avoid every kind of contentions and fighting, let us learn, first, to moderate many things by gentleness, and next to bear with many things." – John Calvin (1509–1564 AD)

• "The followers of Christ have been called to peace. They must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945 AD)

  Proverbs 16:32 ESV: Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

  Proverbs 15:18 NLT — A hot-tempered person starts fights; a cool-tempered person stops them.

  Romans 12:18 NIV: If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone

  James 1:19–2 NLT: Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

  Closing Prayer: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. – St. Francis