Thank you for your wonderful answers. I find them truly helpful and enlightening and I agree almost all the time. However, I saw one exception in an answer on sin. Quote: “This is one of the illustrations Jesus used in Matt. 5-6 to show us the need for a Savior, because it’s impossible for us always avoid doing things like this. And the same is true of an angry thought, or an envious one, or an untruthful one.”
Are we to somehow try to resist angry thoughts and is there such a thing as righteous anger? Doesn’t the scripture say ” be angry and don’t sin” and “don’t let the sun go down on your anger”? Did Jesus sin when he overturned the money changer’s tables? Was He angry?
The passage to which I was referring is Matt. 5:21-22. It reads,
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.
That means being angry with a brother is as bad as murdering him.
Ephesians 4:26 says “In your anger do not sin.” Connect it to the previous verse and you’ll see it means don’t let an angry thought turn into a falsehood against a brother. It also says that letting the sun go down on your anger gives the devil a foothold. That means we should resolve our differences with each other each day before going to bed, so the enemy can’t use them to attack us.
As for righteous anger, that’s the kind Jesus displayed in cleansing the Temple, but remember, He’s God and we’re not.
We all get angry. What the Lord wants us to see is that when we do it’s a sin, and we should immediately ask Him to forgive us for it, whether we feel we’re justified or not.