I don’t understand why everyone here goes back and forth about this. Anger is a normal human emotion. The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ get angry all the time. At our actions, at the actions of the world, when they hear a false teaching in any church, they get angry. We are built in God’s image, and so there’s healthy anger. As humans we also have traumas we work through, those traumas create much anger in our minds. Before I looked at this thread I was angry in my mind at a person I once knew. I’m still angry to this day at this person. I still know why I despise this person. But it’s not like I’ll strike him in the face, even if I could. This person is a fool. I remember why I judged him to be one. Till this day, 11 years later, with all that I have learned I still dislike this person. But, if he was to apologize, that anger in me would go away. Anger and hatred are two different things. To tell people anger is a sin is clearly a lie. Neither is hatred a sin depending on the reason. Anger when left unchecked can turn into sin through violence. That is the point we must never reach. That is what’s forbidden.
To tell people they are not allowed to be angry even in their hearts is overstepping our boundaries. Our hearts have a mind of their own, specially with trauma. Much of the back and forth I see going on in this board is due to the inability to see the difference between what goes on in the mind and what we do with our actions. It is wrong to tell others anger is a sin. Anger is just an emotion. Hatred is a heavier form of it. But it only becomes sin when we work unrighteous violence through it. There are also people that I will never befriend because they refuse to get angry when they see something that must produce anger. Even God said in the last days He will mark all those who are not upset at the injustices around them. Yes, God judges us when we do not show anger toward injustices. There is no righteousness without anger in it’s proper place. Jesus’ anger in the temple was rightouse. Many here would consider it a violent rage, a serious sin. Reality is not as simple as many here want it to be. The Truth is not black and white. In acts there’s a chapter that speaks of Paul and Barnubus involved in a ‘sharp burst of anger’. Did they sin? No. It never says they struck each other. Even if they sinned, that would teach us that it’s impossible to control that sin sometimes. Why would any mature Christian force an ideology on anyone that the saints, while performing miracles in city to city, couldn’t uphold themselves? Anger a sin? What proof is there of this? None. Ideally, it would be nice to not get angry. But God never told us not to have anger. He only told us to not get angry at specific things. What is definitely wrong is when our anger gives birth to violence. Even that is not all black and white, depending on the event that causes that anger.
I don’t understand many of you and where you get these ‘hollier than thou’ ideas. A lot of you sound like Pharisees, and I don’t say that out of anger. I say that from my perspective. From many of your perspectives I am a lost Christian, if you would even call me that. But listening to some of you, judging normal human emotions, gets me no closer to God than before I entered into debates with you all. In fact, if I were to doubt my own ability to hear The Holy Spirit’s voice on much of these matters and listen to you people instead, I wouldn’t want to worship God at all. Much of what many of you say sounds much more like the laws of the Pharisees, laws that all men are guilty under. Should I be angry at those of you that are are modern day Pharisees? Am I allowed to have free will? Do we not all get angry? First you people say we can’t be violent, then you say we can’t be angry, tomorrow you’ll say we can’t be annoyed. If I am on a wrong path in life then practically none of you are helping me at all. The way you all debate over the simplest imperfection makes our God look very unjust and cruel.
Here’s what The Holy Spirit tells me, “Get angry when needed, go ahead and hate when needed, when the situation calls for it get violent, when in the midsts of foolish people, be hardheaded. Do not love everybody, do not love all people who come in the name of Christ. Hate the sinner because he is who he is because of those sins. Don’t judge people on what they do in their minds, judge them on what they do to others”.
I rather listen to this voice. Frankly, many of the voices here are engaged in nothing but empty talk. I wish for all of you the same gift I have. Many here do not believe I have The Holy Spirit. That is because your as confused about the requirements of having it as you are of everything else.