Not Being Provoked into Anger

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

NOT BEING PROVOKED INTO ANGER

1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

NIV

Who likes to get angered? This is what this Greek word does mean in a sense, although the more direct meaning is to make sharp, but is used as to provoke or irritate or arouse to anger. So this translation is fairly good in expressing to allow someone to easily provoke us to become angry, and this would most likely be at the provoker. This is very akin to self-seeking as to be provoked to angry would mean we are very much thinking more about ourselves than others. This is not being angry about something that comes from within, which could be righteous anger as when Jesus went into the temple and drove out the animals and upset the tables of the money changers. This is being provoked by someone externally. This is someone doing something, either on purpose or just by saying or doing something specifically to get under our skin, or by just being who they are, one of those irregular people. The point is that we have to be in control of our self, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit, self-control. If we are living or walking in the Spirit and because He is working in our lives, if we allow him to, then His fruit will be evident in our lives and that includes being in control of self. This then would also mean that we would love and in so doing, we would not permit anyone to provoke us to become angry, except of course, unless it was righteous anger. To be filled with righteous anger regarding how the church has become a business rather than a house of prayer, or the house of God would seem appropriate. To watch the folly, or the frolicking around within the sanctuary, the almost disrespect for a holy place, a place we are expecting to meet, expected to prepare ourselves to meet with the living God would seem right to be filled with righteous anger. But this being easily angered is not that, it is a fit of wrong anger, an anger that is akin to rage, to being irritated, or exasperated, incensed, inflamed by what someone says to us, or does that we do not like. This is allowing someone else to have full control of our emotions. This is submitting ourselves to the will of another person of evil purposes. This being easily angered has nothing to do with love.