Book Review: Uprooting Anger

"Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity"(Eph. 4:26-27; NASB).

This pair of verses is familiar. Very familiar. To parents (who use the verses in exhorting their children). And husbands and wives (who use them to attempt to resolve their differences). And pastors (who instruct with them when people in their church [sometimes the pastors themselves!] remain stuck in conflict with others). And friends (who may attempt to disciple others who struggle with anger).

Yet for their familiarity, the instruction in these verses too often eludes us. We know there is righteous anger and unrighteous anger, and that most of what we demonstrate is unrighteous anger. (I won't say that all our anger is unrighteous, but I know my own heart and what I have seen in it and what I have observed superficially with others is that righteous anger is rare — very rare.)

So do we just give up? Do we just reckon that we are stuck in sin and that one day God will remove the sin when we arrive in glory, but until then we will just have to succumb to it? May it never be!

In his book, Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem, Robert Jones provides not only sound Biblical instruction, but also offers hope and helpful exhortation to those who remain stuck in their sinful and ungodly wrath and anger.

Sometimes help comes just in an honest appraisal of what something is. So in the first chapter, Jones identifies the nature of anger with this definition: "our anger is our whole-personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil." What was striking to me in his explanation was that the sin of unrighteous anger is often based on the sin of a critical spirit and judgmentalism and the perception of superiority and self-importance by the one who is angry. If I am unrighteously angry, is it because I am supposing moral and spiritual superiority over another and passing judgment on him (the judgment could be of either a believer or an unbeliever)? This is a significant thrust at getting to the root of the sin.

Jones also covers topics like:

• Is your anger really righteous?
• The role of repentance and confession in ridding our hearts of anger
• How anger is expressed in two different manners: public revelations (outbursts, hostile words, etc…) and private concealment (bearing grudges, private rebukes and judgments, and failing to bless others)
• Is anger against God ever appropriate? (the short answer is, "no")
• What about anger against yourself (either for genuine sin or "missed opportunities)?
• How to help others with their anger.

I have often been struck by the connection that Paul seems to make in his discussion of the mortification of sin in Colossians 3 between anger (and related sins of the tongue) and sexual sin. I've never made the full connection between the two, other than to make the interesting observation that the two dominate the discussion of what kinds of sin demand mortification. But what the exact connection between the two was had eluded me to some degree.

Jones makes the observation that those trapped by anger "must realize that uncontrolled venting invites invasions from their spiritual enemies. The angry man or woman is easy prey for the world, the flesh, and the devil." In other words, the sin of anger not only impacts the lives of those surrounding me, but it also bears the "fruit" of further sin in my own life. Anger is not a solitary sin. It sins in pairs and triplicate!

While this may not be the completely definitive book on anger, it is one that is very helpful in beginning the process of identifying underlying, root sins in our anger, and helping us to remove those sins by the grace and strength of God.