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“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry

Ephesians 4:26

Righteous anger is allowed in the Bible. Jesus himself became angry with the money changers in the temple, and he dealt with the situation. Paul also allows for righteous anger, but his advice is sound. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

But two questions emerge:

1. How do we recognise righteous anger?
2. How do we “not let the sun go down on our anger”?

Anger is an emotional response, and it is an emotional response to one thing in particular. When we become angry it is because we have a goal that has been blocked.

If I want to write a document and I use a Windows based computer, it may crash on me. The document is lost, my goal has been blocked and I become angry.

If I wish to go somewhere and someone stands in my way, or I get stuck in traffic in my car or am otherwise held up, then my goal has been blocked and I become angry.

Not all goals are so evident, but anger is always an emotional response to a blocked goal. If I am engaged in argument, and I am doing so because I want to appear intelligent and thoughtful, and if my argument is then demolished by someone else, then my emotional response may be anger – because my goal to appear intelligent and thoughtful is blocked.

So if anger is always a response to a blocked goal, we have the tools we need to discern righteous anger. We must ask, what is our goal?

Jesus’ goal was the glory of God, and that goal was blocked by the desecration in the temple as priets and moneychangers enriched themselves at the expense of those who came to worship. Thus he was angry, but his anger was righteous. He was zealous for the glory of God.

We can be angry with the same kinds of things in the modern Church. When I received a letter from an American TV evangelist offering to sell me “anointed prayer cloths” over which the evangelist had personally prayed, I was angry. I was angry because the gospel of grace was being turned to a means to line the pockets of a charlatan, and because people would be truned away from God by such things.

Not all my angry responses are so noble, but this is our test for righteous anger. If anger is righteous, let us be angry. If our goal is just wrong, then let us fix the goal instead.

But then how do we deal with these issues? Sometimes we cannot literally resolve an issue in one day. However, Paul’s words tell us that we must take the initiative. We must deal with our anger quickly, and not let it fester.

That is an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to do. But do it we must, or it will be us who suffer.

If someone drives aggressively around us on the roads and we are angry, do we think our anger affects the other party? No, it is us (and perhaps our own driving) that suffers. Don’t hold on to anger. Deal with it, forgive and move on.

Like anything that is difficult in life, practice makes perfect.

I have written articles on Premillennialism and Postmillennialism. To complete this series of articles, I would like to explore what is meant by Amillennialism. I should make clear my bias as I do so. Amillennialism is the doctrine that I subscribe to on this point of Christian eschatology, but I will try to be fair in my presentation.

Firstly on the definition: if “pre millennialism” is the belief that the millennium is still to come, following Christ’s return, and “post millennialism” is the belief that Christ’s return follows the millennium, then doesn’t “amillennialism” mean that there is no millennium?

The answer to that is no, or at least not necessarily. Amillennialism can be translated as “in the millennium ism”, and it equates the millennium with the Church age. However, in this view it is held that there will be no physical reign of Christ on earth, but acknowledges that Christ is already reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of God.

In Pauline theology there is a tension between the already realised kingdom of God presented by Christ’s death and ressurection, and the final fulfillment to come with His second coming. The millennium then equates to this “already, but not yet” period of Christ’s reign. In this reign, Christ remains with his church just as he promised at His ascension. This is why Peter quoted Joel at Pentecost, “in the last days I shall pour out my Spirit on all flesh…” This is the millennium. This is the last days.

Throughout Christ’s ministry he claimed that the kingdom had already come. Likewise Paul saw it this way.

To me, this view of the millennium most accords with scripture, where the second coming of Christ is a single event at the end of the age, and not an event that precedes a thousand year reign. It is not perhaps so very far removed from postmillennialism, although in amillennialism, the thousand year reign is figurative for a perfect period of time, and certainly begins at the start of the Church age.

Amillennialism was taught by Augustine, and was widely held throughout the Church age. There is a belief in some quarters that classical premillennialism was the teaching of the early church, but whilst classical premillennialism (not dispenstational premillennialism) was believed by many, so was amillennialism.

Against amillennialism might be brought the charge that it seems to spiritualise some parts of the Bible (such as the binding of Satan, the thousand years itself). In answer to that charge, I would note that – particularly in the prophetic literature – much of the content is meant to be spiritualised, and we have long understood this. We did not expect Daniel’s statue to be a real statue for instance. The question is how we go about reading and understanding books such as Revelation, without importing our preconceptions over what is literal and what is not into it.

That will never be an easy thing to do, and we may never achieve agreement on these issues, but Amillennialism should certainly not be dismissed simply because of a preconception that, say, the tousand years must be a literal earthly thousand year reign of Christ.

Louis Berkhof is just one reformed Amillennialist among many. His systematic theology covers more on these issues for anyone wanting to read further. A lighter read would be Grier’s “The Momentous Event”, but there are many more books on the subjects. Hopefully readers of this article will comment with their own recommendations.

An amusing document I came across in the course of my work earlier this month – recounting the minutes of the board of a workhouse (as in the Dickensian workhouses of the 19th Century Britain):

Resolved: to raise the privy wall so as to prevent intercourse between males and females therein.

The mind boggles!

(Perhaps I had better add, by means of explanation, that the word “intercourse” here meant chatting).

Whilst quoting Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in my last message, it occurred to me to put the rest of his words in context. The Doctor took a balanced position on the Charismatic gifts of the Spirit, arguing against cessationism, but also against counterfeit experience in the Charismatic movement whipped up by false expectations. On the latter point, he said:

“The second position is that of those who assert that the full and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ought always to abide in the church, and that it is only from want of faith that we do not possess them now. Some of them go further and say that we ought to ‘claim’ these gifts. These people maintain that … [the church] would be thrilling with all these gifts were it not for our lack of faith. They ought always to be present even as they were in the early church.

“I want to suggest to you that this position is also unscriptural and once again finds no warrant in the Scripture itself. The teaching of the Scripture is that these things are to be considered in terms of the lordship of the Spirit. It is he who decides. ‘He giveth to every
man severally as he wills.’ It is he who chooses. That was the whole trouble in Corinth, where they were all claiming ‘all the gifts’, as it were. And the answer to them is that he gives one this and the other one that. It is all entirely within his control. He decides when, how, to whom and where.

“Let me put this argument in the way which has always been the most helpful to me. This is exactly the same as the question of revival. A revival by definition is not something permanent. It is something that comes, and goes, and comes, and goes. The history of the church has been the history of revivals. There have always been people who have taught that you can get a revival whenever you like. All you have to do is pray, or to do certain things and to claim it, and you get a revival. But the simple answer is, You cannot! I have known some of the best, most honest and saintly men who have fallen into that error; you cannot decide when revival comes. It always comes in the sovereignty of the Spirit. It often comes when you least expect it. It can come in the most unlikely quarter, and the man used can be the most unlikely sort of man.

“The same principle applies to the gifts of the Spirit. We must not legislate on one side or the other. We must not say ‘only’ for New Testament times nor must we say ‘always’. The answer is, ‘as he wills’, as the Spirit wills. It is always right to seek the fullness of the Spirit – we are exhorted to do so. But the gifts of the Spirit are to be left in the hands of the Holy Spirit himself. ”

See: “Prove All Things”, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones.

Someone I knew prayed for healing and did not receive it. I recounted this to another Christian and his reply was: “it would seem he never claimed his healing, which would make me totally unsurprised that he didn’t receive it. You can’t receive something you don’t receive. ”

One might suppose that this person passionately believed he knew something about this subject that was not known to myself and my friend, but to me it seemed insensitive – as though we must understand the secret formula required to see God heal.

It may be that Christian TV evangelists and purveyors of “TV dinner” Christianity are to blame for this, making it look as though one can simply turn on blessing from God as though the Holy Spirit were on tap.

Fortunately we can turn to the common (or is it uncommon?) sense of a man such as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who said (when discussing the gifts of the Spirit):

“Secondly, we must never use the word ‘claim’. It is incompatible with sovereignty. People say, ‘Claim this gift; claim healing.’ You cannot claim healing. The Apostle himself claimed healing three times and did not get it. Never claim; never even use the word. We are to submit ourselves – it is the Spirit who gives. The claiming of gifts, or claiming even the baptism of the Spirit, is something that is clearly incompatible with the whole of the New Testament emphasis. No, no, he is Lord, he controls and he gives. You can supplicate but you must never claim. Never!”

The doctrine of Sandemanianism (named for Robert Sandeman) is the view that one can accept Jesus as saviour and later accept him as Lord. More formally, Sandeman maintained that justifying faith is a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus, differing in no way in its character from belief in any ordinary testimony.

Now the Sandemanian sect, dating from about 1730 is now almost totally defunct. There are now no Sandemanian churches, but at one time the teachings of Sandeman were becoming so prevalent that the Welsh preacher Christmas Evans famously had to preach against it after first coming under their influence.

But whilst Sandemanianism has vanished in name, it seems that it is with us still. There is a teaching widespread in evangelical churches that one becomes a Christian through a sinners prayer, but that it can be at some later date that one accepts Christ as Lord. I have heard many a testimony of the type: “I accepted Christ as saviour, but it was only after X that I accepted Him as Lord.” To quote Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones : “as if you can accept the Lord in little bits”!

If salvation is not a life changing thing which makes us want to have fellowship with Christians, search out God’s wword and do his will – then it is really not salvation. If the sinner’s prayer does not involve deep repentance and a change of heart, then it is mere words.

“Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD.”

–Joel 1:14

Joel has declared the judgement of the Lord is upon the people. He has called the people to repent of their sins. Now, as a part of that call to repentance he gives practical advice explaining how they must seek the Lord once more.

He has four points here. Firstly he declares, “Sanctify a fast”. Fasting has never been a popular subject. It is one of those areas of our spiritual life that we would like to declare an “optional extra”. We may have fasted once or twice when the church called a specific day of fasting for an outreach meeting, but for the most part we neglect this important area.

Jesus ranked fasting as equally important as prayer. We can also see from church history that all the great men and women of God had grasped this truth. In today’s church we see few people willing to fast, and few great people of God. I wonder sometimes if there might be a connection there.

Of course, the fast in Joel was in response to the aspect of repentance. The people found themselves far from God and thus they needed to repent, and they needed to fast. When Christ was with his disciples we read (in Matthew 9) that Jesus said to those who asked why his disciples were not fasting “Can the children of the bride- chamber mourn when the bridegroom is with them?”

But the bridegroom is not amongst us. Nor is His Spirit present in His Church in power. If He were then we would not need to fast, but we must fast because everywhere there is the travesty of the lifeless church on the one hand and the soul-less church on the other.

Joel’s second point was the need to call a solemn assembly. This, I think, would translate to a prayer meeting today. Not a happy-clappy and exuberant praise “party”, but a solemn assembly calling God in His infinite grace to have mercy upon His people. Praise, of course, is never absent from prayer. What I am trying to say is that we can often get lost in an exuberant excitement which obscures our real purpose which is to wrestle with God over the state of the church, and to ask Him in His mercy to send forth His Spirit once more.

But is prayer alone enough? This brings us to Joel’s third point: “gather … all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD”.

You see, the people of Judah had neglected their attendance at the temple, and in so doing they had neither prayed, nor had they heard the word of God. Because they had not heard the word of God they knew not the law, and thus they sinned.

God has given us the Bible that we might know the right way to go. He has given us a light to our path. Shall we do less then follow it?

One man was asked why he constantly read his Bible. “To know all God’s commandments to me, that I may follow them.” He replied.

Christ set us free from the bondage of the law, but the royal law of scripture is still there for all of us to follow, only out of love for our Lord, and not in order to earn our salvation. Scripture tells us how God wants us to live our lives.

Before Joshua and the people of Israel could cross the Jordan they had to consecrate themselves. When they were consecrated, and they had made real effort to change and to conform to God’s will for them, then they were able to cross into the promised land.

Lastly Joel calls us to weep. I sincerely believe that weeping should be an integral part of our prayer lives. We should weep over the injustice in the church. We should cry over the lack of God’s presence amongst us and we should mourn for those people who are lost and dying without Christ.

Our Christianity needs to get beyond our heads and our lips and touch our hearts. Our souls should be zealous for God and our hearts should be broken over the fact that we know so little of Him.

I don’t suppose it is a universal truth, but as a guiding principle I think there is something to be said for the thesis that crisis is required to bring about genuine and radical change.

Why should this be the case?

Well very often when we are involved in an endeavor, we are involved with others and we develop a process that is comfortable. This builds up an internal pressure that sustains the process unless the external pressure to change is so great that it causes the process to collapse.

I think we can broadly apply this principle. In our churches we do things a certain way. I knew one church which had a youth group meeting. The oldest member of the youth group was in his forties, and the youngest was 23. The group had grown older together, and they had just gone on and on with their comfortable process – year in and year out, without thinking that maybe that group had outlived its purpose.

We can see the same in higher education, where lectures are still a major means of delivery, despite the fact that they are the type of delivery students claim to least enjoy, and from which students may gain the least benefit (unless delivered in some manner that broadens the educational offering beyond a simple discourse by someone in front of a very large class).

We can see the same in politics, where we are caged in the same tired old systems, choosing between two sides of a Janus faced political elite. (For some reason I always think of lizards when I write political elite… Douglas Adams has a lot to answer for!)

We can see it in our personal lives perhaps. Certainly in my own, the times when I have made the most radical changes in my ideas, beliefs, attitudes and such like have been in the response to crisis. Something that caused me to set aside beliefs held because they were comfortable, and made me come face to face with issues I had previously ignored.

In particular, many years ago I held to some beliefs – and most notably the belief that I knew better than the vast majority of Christians on certain things – because I was encouraged to think that way by someone. The crisis that caused me to realise that this person’s own faith was defective caused me to take a long hard look at my own.

It is only when the external pressure is great enough to overcome the internal pressure we have generated to remain the same that we are forced to change.

So what do we do? Manufacture crisis? Probably not the wisest of moves, but we can embrace it when it comes.

On a personal level, perhaps we should also attempt change daily, so as to avoid the need for crisis. If we could ensure our internal pressure to settle down, sit back and not change never built up, it would not take a crisis to change us.

And then there are those things over which we may feel we have little control. There is the Church service that hasn’t changed format since 1924, or the bible study which no one wants to go to, because two people always take it over to discuss single versus double predestination – and have done for the last 20 years.

There is the political system that will not change. The party that will not die, or the coalition that has run local politics for a quarter of the century. We cannot change these things, but a crisis – when it comes – will change them. And it will change them quickly.

The question is, what will we do when the crisis comes? Can we plausibly foresee a crisis, and know what we must do if we want to bring change for the better?

Robin Hobb wrote an excellent series of books about the “Farseers” based around a character known as “the catalyst”. This character either precipitated crisis, or else it followed him around in the magical manner of such stories. But in these stories it is the White Prophet who (with the benefit of knowledge of the future) uses the catalyst to jump the world from the rut it is in into a new rut, which brings about improvements for all.

We don’t have the benefit of knowledge of the future, but we can know now how we would see the world to be a better place (whether on the global scale or the very local scale). We can also predict some crises, simply because they are inevitable (eventually). If we put these together, we too could seize the opportunity of crisis when it comes, to see genuine change.

Since Alan Dershowitz has been brought up as an authority in the comments in this blog, I thought perhaps we should look at this more closely, as it is instructive with respect to my post on dealing with an appeal to authority in debate.

To recap, I have argued that Israel have repaid the evil of Hezbollah terrorism with war criminality, by targetting civilians (and the U.N., and the Red Cross and indeed, the whole nation of Lebanon). I have defended my argument with the facts as we have them, but David commented that I was not competent to present the analysis because of lack of training in International Law, and then he quoted this piece, making much of his credentials as a Harvard academic:

When terrorists use civilians as human shields, it is the terrorists who are criminally responsible for the “foreseeable” deaths of the civilian shields

Military targets located in cities can be attacked so long as reasonable efforts are made to minimize civilian casualties. Indiscriminate carpet bombing of cities with no military targets is prohibited, except possibly in instances of belligerent reprisal for attacks on one’s own cities

Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard

This then is a classic appeal to authority. Yesterday, I proposed some tests that may be applied to an appeal to authority, so let us analyse this case:

1. Has the argument of that authority been properly quoted and represented? If not, we reject it.

The quoted argument comes from Dershowitz’s opinion piece which has been widely quoted. Some parts that David did not quote are “International law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules … are now being used as shields”. Also the piece opens with “The absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law was proven…”

Dershowitz is complaining in his opinion piece that International Law is inflexible and being used as a shield, and that we should revise it (recognising a new sliding scale of civilianity! Although I presume even Dershowitz would acknowledge the civilianity of the one third of Lebanese casualties who are children). What he is not denying is that Israel have broken International Law as it stands – his thesis is that the law should be changed to accommodate his understanding.

So he has not been quoted correctly as an authority, although there are arguments in his piece that seem to pertain (even if they are easily refuted. His argument that a policeman is innocent if he kills a hostage in preventing the hostage taker shooting anyone else is relevant if Israel kills civilians near active terrorists – say when launching or preparing to launch missiles. It is irrelevent if Israel bomb the people in their beds because Hezbollah terrorists may be present. That is akin to a policeman knowing his criminal is asleep in a residence, and so bombing the house. In such a case, the police most certainly would be guilty of murder).

So whilst we should reject the appeal to authority at this step, we will let it proceed (primarily because it is instructive to do so).

2. Do we need the appeal to authority, or can we decide on this issue without it? If we can, we should.

We have the facts before us, and the ability to understand International Law. If we want to be competent thinkers, it is incumbent on us to examine the issues carefully in face of the facts, and not someone’s opinion.

However, we can argue that Dershowitz’s opinion is instructive. We reject the appeal per se at this point but acknowledge the benefit of considering Dershowitz’s views alongside the views of other commentators.

So to proceed.

3. Is the authority actually an expert on the matter at hand?

Dershowitz often weighs in on this subject, but his area of expertise is civil liberties, and American criminal law. However, we acknowledge that this is a good basis from which to have an understanding in International Law. We should give him a pass on this point.

To proceed:

4. Is the authority unbiased?

The answer here is a resounding no. Dershowitz is the son of Orthodox Jews. He frequently weighs in on issues regarding Israel, and always from the pro Israel side. He is not an impartial commentator, and he has been criticised in the past both for the positions he has taken and for the manner in which he dismisses his critics (sometimes citing anti-semitism against valid academic criticism)

That is not to say we can dismiss his point of view simply because he is a Jew. That would be ad hominem. However, we acknowledge his bias and thus rightly treat his opinions with caution. If we had not already twice rejected this appeal to authority, we would rightly reject it here.

5. Is the authority actually in sync with the consensus of expert opinion in the field?

Well it is hard to evaluate this one, as we have noted that the opinion of Dershowitz is that international law is too inflexible, not that Israel have not committed war crimes. But on the latter point, it is clear that other experts (such as the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) are in sharp disagreement with Dershowitz – which is why he directs his attack at her.

As we have seen in the material I posted in the debate with David, there is plenty of expert opinion against Dershowitz (The International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. being three notables), and Dershowitz himself seems to feel that the consensus is against him (he sees this as part of the problem). There are certainly many people who have objected to Dershowitz’s whole thesis.

So this appeal to authority fails on four out of five points. The argument that because Dershowitz says it, we should believe it is fallacious.

Have you noticed how our current world wants qualifications for everything? These days if you are to be a minister of religion, you need to have a degree or some such qualification (despite the fact that perhaps the greatest preacher of the 20th Century had no such qualifications, neither did many of the methodist, nor indeed did the ministers of the early church).

And it does not stop there. If someone is asked to give comment on a subject then they need to have a degree or qualification. Stephen L Gibson, on his truth driven thinking podcast seems to feel it is important to list his contributers qualifications before they begin, as though the acquisition of post nominals is a good guide to someone’s ability to discern truth.

Of course, this is not entirely foolish. If I need medical advice I would rather ask a doctor than a first aider, and we understand that in any profession, people who have trained in a subject and continue to work in that subject to understand it will have a better handle on the subject matter then a mere dabbler.

But it is fallacious to suggest that because someone has a qualification in a subject, that we should accept any proposition of theirs on that basis alone.

Indeed this is the fallacy of appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). If someone introduces an appeal to authority in an argument, there are certain steps that we really must take before accepting what that authority says:

1. Has the argument of that authority been properly quoted and represented? If not, we reject it.
2. Do we need the appeal to authority, or can we decide on this issue without it? If we can, we should.
3. Is the authority actually an expert on the matter at hand?
4. Is the authority unbiased? Microsoft manages to commission plenty of “independent” reports that reveal how good its products are! But will that independent researcher really bite the hand that feeds him?
5. Is the authority actually in sync with the consensus of expert opinion in the field? It is certainly possible that the expert is right and the consensus is wrong, but we are back to relying on evaluation of the case on its merits if the expert is disagreeing with the consensus on the issue.

So those are some ideas on avoiding the fallacy of the appeal to authority. So why do we want everyone to be experts before we will even listen to them?

Is it that it is too hard to think for ourselves on an issue if an expert is not available to guide us? Look at point 2 again. If we can determine an issue ourselves, then we should.

Like when we look at the war in the middle east. Two sides hurling bombs at each other. Are we to listen to what we are told to think by an appropriate expert? In a comment last night on this blog, David suggested that one should have a qualification in International Law, or be an International Human Rights Lawyer before being able to comment on war crimes perpetrated by the two parties.

This is the trap that leads to a misplaced appeal to authority. We need to judge these issues for ourselves, rather than rely on experts to do so for us. What, should we let our governments decide these issues (by exercising a veto in the UN)? It should now be clear from the discussion above what is wrong with that notion.

No, the onus is on us to impartially consider the facts, and unpalatable as that may be, to come to a rational judgement on the issue.

A rational judgement is open to challenge – but not by appeal to authority. By reassessment of the facts at issue.