Slow down. Reaffirm that you put your trust in your Father who judges justly. Pray that the Spirit would anoint you with wisdom and grace, as you remember the grace that you have received from Christ. If you have missed this path, you have yet to find the place that Paul gives to righteous indignation.

Ephesians 4:26–27 makes room for anger that is not sin.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26–27)

The problem is that we are happy to exploit what seems to be a legal loophole. Anger, in its very nature, is self-justifying. My anger is righteous; your anger is not. So if we are to find some righteous wiggle room here, we must proceed very carefully.

Let’s begin with what is clear. The passage names anger as a close neighbor of the devil. At a moment’s notice, anger can drift toward his murderous ways, and we transform into something less than human. With this in mind, Paul also writes, “Let all… anger… be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31). Our anger, therefore, puts us on high alert. Best to put ourselves in chains until it passes.

Since Paul’s words in Ephesians give no specifics on anger without sin, we turn to the illustrations on which he relied. We turn first to Jesus who, indeed, could be angry without sin. He was angry when money changers interfered with the Gentiles’ worship of God (John 2:13–16). He was angry when children were kept away from him (Mark 10:14). He was angry with Pharisees who opposed a healing and preferred to use the law to place a burden on the people (Mark 3:1–6). He was angry when his disciples wanted judgment rained down on a Samaritan village rather than mercy (Luke 9:5–55). Paul, too, could be angry in his rhetoric against those who hoped to put Christians under the law of Moses (Galatians 5:12). What these and similar passages have in common is that this anger was never in response to personal attacks, but it was on behalf of those who had been wronged. What did Jesus do with personal attacks? He followed the ways of the psalmists and entrusted judgment to his Father (1 Peter 2:23).

The Ephesians passage is a quote from Psalm 4:4—a reference that might give more insight.

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