Anger — with Dr. Jones
Anger can sometimes feel overwhelming, leaving us wondering about its true origins. What does the Bible say about anger, and is it possible to experience it in a righteous way?
This week, Janet and Jocelyn sit down with Dr. Robert Jones, professor and department chair of Biblical Counseling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. As an accomplished author and adjunct professor at Faith Bible Seminary, Dr. Jones shares his insights on the root of anger, helping us understand where it stems from and where our sinful anger is actually directed.
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Resources
Episode Transcript
Books
Uprooting Anger - Robert Jones
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy - Mark Vroegop
Anger: Calming Your Heart - Robert Jones
Controlling Anger - David Powlison
Good and Angry - David Powlison
Small Book About a Big Problem - Ed Welch
Website
Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling
Handout
2025 Scripture Reading Challenge
Transcript:
Jocelyn: I don't just need to feel better. I need the truth. And ultimately that will make me better.
Janet: I just want to make it as totally simple as possible for ladies to see that the Bible is really applicable to their everyday life.
Jocelyn: When they understand theology, the application flows out of it quickly with joy.
Janet: It is a journey, but even the journey itself is joyful when I'm doing it, holding the hand of my savior and trusting him all along the way. This is the joyful journey podcast, a podcast to inspire and equip women to passionately pursue beautiful biblical truth on their journey as women of God. When you choose truth, you're choosing joy.
Janet: Welcome back. This is Janet here with my trusty co host, Jocelyn.
Jocelyn: Hey friends.
Janet: And today we have a special guest with us. Dr. Robert Jones is here to talk to us about a subject that is incredibly common, but I don't know that we always like to talk about it. So we're going to have him talk to us about anger.
Jocelyn: We're so thankful to have a friend of our ministry in town teaching a seminary class.
Janet: Yes.
Jocelyn: Obviously this podcast is really connected with the seminary class. And so from time to time they have special guest teachers come in and we try to snag them when they're here and get a guest on our episode. It makes it so much better. So since he was here, he graciously agreed to come speak to us today about the topic of anger. So Dr. Jones, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself? help us to get to know you a little bit. We'd love to know about you, your family, your areas of ministry, anything you'd like to share with us.
Robert: Well, I love to be here. This is a great evening for me to be with you all tonight. I'm so thankful for Faith Seminary. And that you all are part of that ministry, and that's exciting. I love to be part of that as well. [00:01:00] So, I grew up in New Jersey. The Lord saved me when I was in high school. I got involved with biblical counseling actually very, very early. I read Competent to counsel as a 17 year old.
Janet: Wow.
Jocelyn: Wow. That's amazing.
Janet: That's not what I was reading at 17. So you go.
Robert: Most of us, yes. Went on from there to Christian Liberal Arts College, to Trinity Divinity School for my MDiv degree.
Janet: In Deerfield?
Robert: In Deerfield, yes.
Janet: Oh, wow.
Robert: Lived there for about four years. And met my wife in college. We got married. We've been married now for 41 years.
Jocelyn: Wow.
Robert: The Lord has given us two sons who are both followers of Jesus, and they're both married. They both married up, and I mean that literally, I really do mean that. They're godly ladies. The oldest has brought forth four granddaughters. So it went from two sons to four granddaughters.
Jocelyn: Girl grandpa.
Robert: Yes, that's right. That's right. From my seminary days, I [00:02:00] pastored in West Virginia, was there for about 19 years. During that time, I did a doctor of ministry degree program through Westminster. So I had the cream of the crop professors studying under David Powlison and Paul Tripp and Ed Welch and John Betler.
Janet: Wonderful.
Robert: From there, I went to Southeastern Seminary. I was there for about 12 years teaching in the biblical counseling program, until about 2016, when I moved to Southern. So now I teach at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I've been there, yeah, since 2016, teaching biblical counseling, practical theology topics, and I absolutely love it there.
Jocelyn: That's awesome.
Robert: I've been doing this school, I've been coming up and helping once a year at Faith, since 2008.
Janet: When we started.
Robert: When you started.
Jocelyn: That's so cool.
Janet: That's amazing. I didn't know that until tonight that you'd been with us from the beginning. That's so great.
Robert: Yeah. I was telling Brent that I love the demographic you have here because I have a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings.
Janet: Oh yes.
Robert: And here we've got older people.
Janet: Yes. It's a very different demographic.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Robert: It is. And why else would anyone travel up to Lafayette in January?
Jocelyn: I was just thinking through whether I would make a smart alec comment about how you get to come in Lafayette in January. Lucky.
Robert: Yes, well, and I just I love what I do. And I'm an elder, active elder in my church, and we do a lot of ministry in my church. And yeah, God's been so good to my wife and me.
Jocelyn: That's awesome.
Janet: I know you've also written some books and one of them that I know that has been really influential for us.
Jocelyn: Yes, very.
Janet: Has been the book that you wrote on uprooting anger. So, if we can just dive into talking about that because I think this is such a practical topic that people either say all anger is wrong and so I should never, and I've counseled people who really struggled with immediately believing they have sinned if they feel anger. So I think it's really important. How would you define what is anger from a biblical perspective and why do you think it's so important-- enough that you would write a book on it?
Robert: Yes. Well, I want to say at the start here that it's a very, very common problem.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: As an author, I've researched. And here's my statistical conclusion. Approximately one out of one people deal with anger.
Jocelyn: One hundred percent.
Robert: Now, if you're married, those stats actually double. And you add a couple kids into the mix and it all quadruples. Yeah, I do find that this is common in every culture. I've done a little bit of international travel, mainly to Brazil. I go there frequently.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: And I see the same themes. It looks different in different cultures, different language, different expressions, but it's all there. Here's how I would try to define anger. I would define it as a whole person response. So it's not just some emotional thing. It really has to do with our thinking, our desires, our heart issues. A whole person response of moral judgment against evil that I perceive to be evil. Moral judgment against evil. One of the well respected secular psychologists has called anger the moral emotion. Because, unlike maybe depression or, you know, fear issues, I'm judging you.
Janet: Yes.
Robert: So in many ways, judgmentalism is really at the heart of anger, and good anger too. Righteous anger, God's anger, has a judgment against evil. I in my largely sinful anger have a judgment against evil as well, but I don't do it the way God does.
Janet: And I love how you added, or what we perceive as evil. Because it really might not be evil, but because of how it affects me, I perceive it as evil.
Robert: Sure.
Janet: So that's really helpful to think through.
Robert: Yeah, and I have preferences in my life and my wife doesn't, you know, do it the way I want her to do it. That's not sinful. It's not evil. It's just my preferences get violated because I have a self centered desire for people to do what I want them to do.
Janet: We can't relate in any way to that.
Robert: I didn't think you could.
Jocelyn: So how can you know if your anger is righteous?
Robert: You know, this is an important question, because there's going to be a tendency, I think, for all of us to want to be a bit defensive, and I think the problem of self deception. You can see, you know, the classic case probably is Jonah, who said, my anger is right.
Janet: Yes.
Robert: I can think of other characters in scripture. There's three criteria that I find helpful there, and we write about it in the book there. It's there. Righteous anger is going to react against actual sin, not just my perceptions or my preferences. Righteous anger also has a sense of focusing on God and God's kingdom, God's righteousness, God's mission. And you see this in our Lord Jesus, and we can talk about that tonight too if you'd like. The idea here is that God's kingdom, not my kingdom. I think in many ways sinful anger has that sense of, my kingdom come, my will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that kind of thing. And one other mark that I would suggest for righteous anger over against unrighteous anger. Righteous anger has within it a desire to do what God wants me to do. It's accompanied by godly qualities. Even when you think of our Lord's anger, it wasn't out of control.
Janet: Yeah, it wasn't reactionary.
Robert: That's right. and he achieved the goal, you know, I think of the man with the shriveled hand in Mark chapter 3. Jesus looks at the Pharisees, and he has righteous anger against them, but it didn't stop him from doing the healing job. It didn't you know, sideline him or anything like that, and I think that's one of those qualities of righteous anger. When I look at my anger, it often isn't because of God's ways, it's my ways get violated, and then I can kind of lose control and lose focus. That's not the righteous anger of God or of his son Christ.
Jocelyn: The very few times I have been righteously angry, it's been interesting because I have a lot of energy that builds up inside of me, but I use it to solve the real problem and it is much more controlled and calmer voice, less passion and explosive because my focus is on Christ and his kingdom and using the energy that he gave me to solve this very problem in front of my face instead of just being so mad that someone dared to violate what I think is best.
Janet: Right.
Jocelyn: So it is definitely, it looks much different than anger at my perceived wrongs.
Janet: It makes me think about even, you know, sometimes even what I'm angry at might be something that makes God angry too. And so then that part is right, but my response to it, is still, then I will fix it, then I will make sure this never happens again, and now I'm not responding God's way and under God, even in my response. I'm going to try to control and be God.
Robert: Yeah, in many ways any kind of righteousness, whether it's righteous anger or something else is going to be marked by a trust in God to do what God is calling us to do and trusting him to bring about the results. So even when we're righteously angry about something, we might find that there's ways in which the the solution is to trust God and not to try to bring it about ourselves.
Jocelyn: Yeah. Like so manipulative. Sinful anger is so manipulative. Use that energy to accomplish what you think has to happen.
Janet: Which kind of leads me to the next question. So How would you answer what is really at the heart of anger?
Robert: Well, if I had to really pick a kind of key theme here, it would be judgment.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: I'm discerning in my mind what seems to be wrong, and I'm responding to it. And this is where for many of us, and I think this would be familiar to many in your audience, a passage like James chapter four really brings out a lot of insight for us here. Because James is asking this important question. What causes fights and quarrels among you? James is not a behaviorist. He's not just concerned about the behavior. I can think of many times when I've been at home with my kids when they were growing up and you know they would just be fighting about something and I would just say stop it. Instead of like Lord what do you want me to do to try to help them get to the heart of their anger.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: And that's kind of what James 4 addresses. And it goes on to talk about how the cause of anger are these desires that become demands, these passions in the heart. And many times they're for very good things. Even James is there holding out this possibility that God might give you the desired thing if you ask, and if you ask with right motives, which sort of implies that the thing itself isn't the problem.
Janet: Right.
Robert: It's the demandingness to get that thing. These are desires that are warring in our hearts.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: And that's the real root of anger, I think.
So, what would it look like to repent from sinful anger?
Robert: Yeah. I find it most helpful in terms of my counseling ministry to help a person understand what are these things that you're desiring. Often I can affirm them. Those desires are good things. But the problem is, you are letting your desires, I use an illustration in another book, the Pursuing Peace book that I wrote, of a throne staircase where your Desires are not staying under the throne of the Lord, but they're climbing up the throne. They're ascending. Desires are sprouting legs, if you will, and they're becoming, you know, steroidal desires. These are Dolby sound desires.
Janet: Mutant.
Robert: Yeah, exactly. And these things are beginning to control my heart. So I think the repentance component comes as we help a person identify what those desires are. And how you're allowing those desires to control you. And instead, learning how do you trust God to care for you? How do you learn to live in light of his promises? His provisions for us. And realizing that these things that you think you need I think we have that dangerous word, need, at this point.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: I think it's much better to talk about desires that are good desires, but I can live without these things. And then you have to look at the fruit that's coming out of this. You're yelling, you're attacking, or you're pulling away, you're abandoning. And that's a kind of anger also that's going on, kind of more of that passive or concealed anger.
Janet: So I just, even think about an example, because I know that always helps me when I'm trying to put something into practice in my life. So, I'm a mom, and my child comes home and I find out my child is being bullied at school. And it makes me mad. not necessarily a wrong thing, because it, that's wrong.
Jocelyn: That shouldn't be happening.
Robert: That's right.
Janet: That's not a right thing to do. so far, okay. But when you talk about, you know, so now what is the desire that I have? Is it I want to honor the Lord in how I respond. I want to teach my child how to honor the Lord in unjust suffering. I want to talk to the appropriate people. Or is it, I don't ever want my child to hurt. And that's not fair. And how dare they? I want my pound of flesh. Somebody better do something. They better do it yesterday. And if the guy's not expelled immediately--
Jocelyn: yeah.
Janet: You know, so I think, okay, how can I then be able to parse that out, which is sometimes when we need counseling, when we need somebody to help us do that
Jocelyn: Right. When we need outside help. Yeah.
Janet: To see, because I think I could easily justify, well, it should make me mad. But what's coming out of me is not the fruit of the spirit.
Jocelyn: And I appreciate that you just talked about the two ways that anger that's sinful can look. Like, it's easy to say blowing up is obviously sinful anger, but there's an equally sinful way to be angry. That is, you know, internalizing it and getting bitter,
Janet: Yeah. Simmering.
Jocelyn: Being jealous, being irritated under our skin. And it looks so much more under control, but it's just as sinful. And so I appreciate that both ends of the spectrum need to be discussed when we're talking about sinful anger.
Robert: Yeah. I think you can see that with the older brother in the prodigal son story there. I think you see it in a passage like Leviticus 19 where there's this sense in which you're warned against kind of holding that anger inside and not learning how to deal with it. One of the little memory aids that helps me is when you have this kind of anger temptation, you either have to learn to cover over the sin of someone else or confront it. Like you talked about, maybe I need to go to the authorities on this.
Janet: Right.
Robert: But you can't cook it. You can't, you know,
Janet: I love it.
Robert: Cover, confront, but don't cook it. Don't let it stew and steam. You have to make a decision when you see offenses going on there. And I think, you know, in terms of helping with our children when these things happen, we also, I like what you said, your summary, Janet. I think we also want to keep that big picture of, Lord, how are you going to be using this in my child's life? Because trying to rescue or pull her out of the school.
Janet: Yes.
Robert: Or try to get a pound of flesh like you were talking about, is not going to be in the best interest of our children. So that's part of what being a mom and entails.
Janet: And it goes back to what you said. Is this about my kingdom which is my child will never hurt.
Jocelyn: Right?
Janet: Or is this about God's kingdom and I'm trying to teach my child the beauty of living God's way in God's kingdom.
Jocelyn: And your judgment is
Janet: And that's hard.
Jocelyn: Your judgment is that pain is wrong.
Janet: Yes. That's what I'm saying at that point.
Jocelyn: Like, that's what you've judged. Pain is wrong, my kid should never have to deal with it.
Janet: Yes.
Robert: I think it's important for us in ministries with each other, and I'm thinking of the one another care within the church at this point, is that we can really sit down and listen to the person who's struggling with anger.
Janet: Yeah.
Robert: It's easy for us to, you know, throw verses and be quick fixers on that. I think it's important that we learn to enter their world, really understand what's going on. Certainly sympathize with those feelings of, yeah, I understand you would feel very angry about this when your child is treated the way he or she is being treated. But let's talk about what it looks like to respond in a Christlike way, in a wise way. I think that's our task in our ministry with one another.
Janet: Yeah. I love that. So what are some ways that we can sinfully conceal or reveal our anger? I know Jocelyn mentioned that. You've kind of mentioned it. If a listener's going, what does that look like?
Robert: I think the revealing of the anger is going to come out in our words and actions and even our facial expressions, you know, you can just see those eyes. Jesus looked at them in anger in Mark 3, verse 5,
Janet: And they knew.
Robert: And they, yeah, there's eyes there. I think the one that gets more challenging, as we mentioned, was the idea of concealed anger. I think what that can look like, and it can then kind of surface in a lot of, You know, anxiety worry you know, the researchers will talk about the various kind of psychosomatic bodily effects upon you. There's connections of anger with high blood pressure, hypertension, kinds of things. All sorts of GI and colitis type things can happen. Even connections, some researchers would argue, for the common cold. And it's just our whole body, you know, our whole body can be affected. And the scripture is all about that. The scripture understands the psychosomatic effects of these areas of fear, worry, you know, anger within our soul. I think it can come out as often just avoidance, avoiding relationships. You know, when you're in a church setting there, you have a, you know, I'm joking with our class today, you know, churches that have two doors, two entry doors,
Jocelyn: So you can avoid each other.
Robert: You just come through one place and just sit on that side of the pews. You know, there's ways you can just avoid and pull out of relationships. I think even within our families, with our siblings. With our parents, a lot of the in law struggles, where there's anger by either the parents or the adult children here, in law struggles are often marked by anger, and there's often, you know, their person's not going to talk about it, not going to confront, they're just going to stew, and they're going to avoid. So, that's kind of what we're talking about with that section in the book on concealed Anger.
Jocelyn: It's so interesting because like, when you think about someone being bitter because they're not going to explode all over the place, but they're willing to carry it around with them and rehearse it to themselves all the time. Scripture talks about that being a root that causes all sorts of other problems, and it's so true. When you're working with someone who's bitter, it's like they're so blind to their bitterness, but there's fruit of their bitterness all over their life.
Janet: And they can't see that.
Jocelyn: And they can't see any of it.
Janet: Yeah. That connection. Yeah. I remember years ago, there is a-- some people that we administered to for a long time and Some things happened that they were very unkind. And so it was very painful. And we talked about it and we talked about not being bitter and not stewing and we didn't use the word cook but I really like that. We needed to not cook. And it was like, okay, I think, you know, yes, we prayed, we talked, we're good. And so Brent said to me, the next day, you know what, why don't we see if they want to watch our children because that would be a way of just, not to use them, but to really say, we would let you do that. And I said, oh no, I don't need anything from them. And we both looked at each other and I went, oh my word, I'm already bitter. I didn't even know it. Until it was, I will, the walls were up. I'm going to just, I'll be kind, I'll be nice, I will smile, I'm good. And I really thought I was, until it was, why don't you give a little bit of yourself. And I, oh no. No, no, no. And that's so sad.
Robert: Yeah, one of the things I would add about what happens with concealed anger is there's a bunch of murmuring in our heart. So we're talking to ourselves. We're not really learning how to talk to God with that anger, and we're not learning to open up to one another. You know, your close friends, your counselors in your life, that kind of thing. And therefore it doesn't really get surfaced outwardly, but it's still going on there.
Janet: that's so interesting to say it that way, that I'm talking to myself, but I'm not talking to people who could speak into it and help me to see it.
Jocelyn: Or evaluate whether you're right.
Janet: Yeah, so I, can't evaluate well in that moment. I was just reading something else that talked about the difference between crying and crying out to God. And that's, you're saying that in a different way, that's the murmuring is I'll talk, but only to myself. And so then I always believe me. But I'm not saying it out.
Jocelyn: I wish I had no experience with this, but it's really ringing true. Because there's so many times when I've had an argument with Brian, it's like he walked in on an argument I've been having all day long.
Janet: In your head.
Jocelyn: In my head about all the reasons I'm right and why obviously he is wrong and he walks in on it and I unload it because I'm in the middle of the conversation inside of my head with myself. Like I have been murmuring all day long.
Robert: And, you know, I suspect, Jocelyn, like me, you have never lost an argument within your own mind.
Jocelyn: I have never. My argument becomes more and more clear the longer I speak to myself.
Robert: I win every time. All the reasons are being assembled, arrayed as forces, and you're ready to
Jocelyn: Like, it's not like this now, but in years previous, like, I would literally get my notes out, and I would outline the notes. Like, these are the points I need to make as soon as he gets home. This is what proves
Janet: Oh, wow.
Jocelyn: Yeah, it was coordinated.
Janet: Wow, you go.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Well, because you're passionate.
Jocelyn: Not a lot of great fruit from that.
Janet: and it's funny though when you say, you never Lose your own arguments. That is so true. I mean whoever thinks something and thinks they're wrong.
Jocelyn: Yeah, that's a stupid point self. Why should I think that?
Janet: Yeah. So I think it and early on I remember Brent and I never had loud arguments. We're more stewers. so whenever we were angry, it was typically a long conversation with lots of silence while we're stewing. And I was explaining my obvious rightness and it was so clear
Jocelyn: Superior argument.
Janet: And then he looked at me and didn't agree. And so my only conclusion, I look back and it's so, I'm so embarrassed, but my only conclusion was I know I'm right, so the only reason he could disagree with me is if he's not even listening to me.
Jocelyn: Oh, poor Brent.
Janet: There's no possible way you heard me and don't agree. So you're not even listening. So I looked at him and I said, You are not hearing me. And he goes, I have heard you, I just don't agree. I didn't know what to do with that sentence. Like, nothing about that seemed possible to me. And I look back now, another way to say that is because I'd been murmuring, and I agreed with me so much that there was no way. Ultimately, though, we'd had enough teaching. I just started laughing. He's looking at me and I'm like, Oh my word, do you know that I don't have a category in my brain for you to understand everything I said and not believe it's true? I don't have a category of being wrong in my brain. And then I was laughing because I just thought, I didn't know that about me. And we're having this and I was like, that's really arrogant, Janet. But I was like, I don't even know.
Jocelyn: And on our next episode of Humility.
Robert: You know, you just you, your story illustrates Brent giving you a gentle answer.
Janet: Yes.
Robert: That turns away your anger and wrath and just causes you to kind of, be stopped in your steps and really think, wait a minute, what's going on here?
Janet: Well, and you're right. I hadn't even thought about that. Yes, it, because I. He didn't yell back. I mean, it just was like, I do hear you. I just don't agree. I'm like, it's not possible.
Jocelyn: That's because you're not right, Janet.
Robert: I think it's easy you know, we have an assumption that I am the perfect speaker. And if you don't understand me, you must not be the perfect hearer.
Janet: That's so true.
Robert: Or if you're sharing something with me. And it's not clear. Well, I'm the perfect hearer. You must not be clear, or rational, or wise in your words.
Jocelyn: We are so judgmental. We're losers.
Janet: I'm like, oh my word, is there something wrong with that?
Jocelyn: So, speaking of additional ways to be wrong what are some ways that we can handle being angry at God?
Robert: Yes, there's a sense in which once we grasp the sovereignty of God in life, instead of just assuming, well, that person who mistreated me, it's all about them. When you realize the sovereignty of God, God has allowed that person into your world, whether it's your husband, whether it's your kids, whoever it might be. And there's a sovereign God here. I have had times of counseling with people where they have a problem and maybe they're angry at something, some situation. But when we start thinking about where is God in this? They see God in this and they realize, oh, I have a bigger problem than I thought. I'm creating a new problem for them because they realize that God is actually the one who's sovereignly allowing some of these things into my life. And that then puts a different burden on us on how we're going to help a person really think through how do you handle that now? I think the most helpful thing when you think about the anger against God is trying to make a distinction between lament, And I know that you've talked about um, Mark Vroegop's book, lament versus blasphemy. For me, the distinction would be this. That for a Christian to lament, it would be to say this, Lord, I know ultimately that you are right and good and fair, wise and just and loving. But right now, Lord, I don't see it. I can't get it.
Janet: I don't feel that way
Robert: I can't get it. As opposed to blasphemy, yeah, you are wrong. And I'm right and you're wrong and you're, you know, mean and whatever words that are unbiblical to say about our God.
Janet: Yeah.
Jocelyn: That's a very helpful distinction.
Janet: And I just think in our God is so gracious that even when there are times when we are sinfully angry at God, because that is sinful because he is good. That is to use your words, blasphemous. He stands ready to forgive that as well. You know, it's not like, Oh no, I've already done that. So now it's too late for me. That's what Christ died for.
Jocelyn: And what's so humbling about being angry at God is you're literally passing judgment against the creator of the universe and saying, I'm mad at you 'cause you've done something wrong.
Janet: Evil.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: I mean, to our definition, I perceive that you've done evil.
Jocelyn: You have done something -- Right. Which is, this should be extremely sobering because we cannot look at God and say, you've done something evil. He's not even capable of that.
Janet: Right.
Robert: Yeah, so the humility that comes with lament would be saying, Lord, I know you're not evil, but Lord, I'm the one right now, I can't figure this out. What's going on in my life is so hard for me right now. It feels like you're evil. It feels like you've wronged me, but I know it's not true. Help me, Lord, help me. And that's where the lament Psalms and various places of lament in the prophets as well as the book of lamentations itself can be of great help to us.
Jocelyn: Yeah. Absolutely. We love lament psalms. They're so, so beneficial.
Janet: So real. Yeah. how do we then deal with anger against ourselves? Because I hear that a lot. I'm just mad at myself.
Jocelyn: I just need to forgive myself. Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. You know, this self forgiveness, self anger is so rampant. You see it on TV and movies all the time there. Yeah, I know God has forgiven me, I just can't forgive myself. I think in a very similar way, we go back to that definition of anger, and we see that we're making a righteous judgment against ourselves. And what happens now I'll just say this I've got five ways in the book in which this self forgiveness, self anger stuff can be dealt with. I can read them, but I don't want to do that tonight.
Jocelyn: Can you just give us like a little sneak peek?
Robert: Yeah, well one of it is that it's just not believing in God's forgiveness itself. I think there's ways in which we just minimize the forgiveness of God. I think another area would be a kind of deep kind of pride that assumes that I could have been perfect in this situation. That I am one who, the great I, has failed.
Janet: Yes. Yes.
Robert: And I can't get beyond that. There's just a deep pride, I think, that comes into play when we do that. There's just two of the themes, I think, that I see there.
Jocelyn: That's helpful. I think, I agree. Like anger against ourselves is ultimately saying I was capable of so much better and I'm just shocked that I didn't live up to my capacity. Like, I am so clearly above this.
Janet: Brent really has helped me with that because I've and certainly we hear it from people all the time, I can't believe I did that. And then anytime I've said, I can't believe I just did that, Brent will be like, Sure, you can. Do you believe in utter depravity? And he said to me once because we were talking about, you know, how to handle that kind of thinking, helping others and how do we need to think about it? And he said, here's what we really ought to say, I can't believe that I didn't sin in the last 10 minutes. That should be unbelievable.
Jocelyn: I was going to say, I can't believe I didn't do it sooner or worse or louder or more violent.
Janet: Right? Yeah. So he's like, whenever you do honor the Lord, that is miraculous and you should be going, I can't believe I did that, not the other way around. And I think, oh, I really do think pretty highly of myself.
Robert: I think some of the occasions when we feel this way is when we see the results of our failure. And now we're living with regrets. I could have done this. I blew this with my kids and now they're ticked at me. And now I can't forgive myself, and in that case it's somewhat more, I'm reaping the results, and I'm feeling really bad about that. That's another one of those factors that, you know, I had a chance for happiness in a certain way, I should have married the other guy, I should have taken this job, I should have whatever, and I'm living now with regrets. Serious cases, you know, where I had an abortion.
Janet: Yes. And now I'm not able to have children.
Robert: There's complications in my life and I can't have the child I once wanted and I threw it away and I can't forgive myself and I'm angry at myself. So that's some of the themes that I think we could see here.
Janet: And so again, it's not just. Here's the steps to what you said earlier. We really want to listen and get to know them and why they're angry and what's going on at the heart level so that we know the best way to minister to that. But what we can acknowledge is that's not a righteous way. And so anyone listening, okay, we can acknowledge that and the book's going to give you a lot more information about that, but we need to be graciously listening. Is it just not knowing how to deal with the guilt?
Robert: Yeah. And I think we weep over those consequences that the person is bearing.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Robert: I'm sorry that this has happened to you. That sounds horrible. Now, how does God want you to be able to respond to that? And let's talk about where the grace of God can come in and bring you true forgiveness and allow you to look at your past mistakes, your sins in different ways.
Janet: Love it.
Jocelyn: So it's pretty, I mean, we're seeing all sorts of ways that we can apply this to ourself. We've been talking about that all night. But what are some ways that we could help and serve others who are struggling with sinful anger?
Robert: I think the first step always in helping anyone is what I would just simply call entering into their world. We've got to move into their world and listen, understand, feel the struggle, sympathize. We see that in our Lord Jesus as he moves among people. He's filled with compassion. I think that becomes vital. And I think from that, then we have to learn a little bit about what are those things that they are living for, what are they desiring, what are they hoping in, where do you put your hopes, what do you treasure, those kinds of things. And help them understand where is God in all this mess that you're struggling with. How does God want you to look at him? How do we see God as The merciful judge the forgiving God who does judge us, but does so through Christ and the cross, and bring those gospel truths to bear with the person. And what is scripture calling us to do differently, and how does God want us to respond to this hard situation in ways that please Him in all this?
Janet: So, as we come to the end of this and we've even talked about some ways to apply it, if any of the listeners are wanting more, we're certainly going to link your book in the show notes, The Uprooting Anger, because that's been very helpful to us.
Jocelyn: Yes, I've really enjoyed that book.
Janet: Are there any other resources in addition that you would recommend if somebody wants to study this more?
Robert: Well, sure. So, I have a 31 day devotional that was done in the, PNR series, 31 Days called Anger, Calming Your Heart. So that sort of takes a lot of the main truths in uprooting anger and brings it into 31 Day Devotional. These are two pages.
Janet: Yes, that's what I like is they're doable if you're thinking I can't read a whole book right now, there's so much going on, but I love the length of those.
Robert: Yeah, that's helpful. Really. And we use them a lot in counseling type ministries and one another care and small groups are using these kinds of resources. There's some mini books out there. David Powelson has one on anger. I did one on angry at God. The very thing we talked about earlier. Ed Welch's book on anger and I forget the title. But it's--
Jocelyn: we'll find it and link it.
Robert: I'm sure you will. Yes. David Powelson has a book Good and Angry as well. At the risk of being slightly self promoting. Pursuing Peace has just has a lot of this kind of stuff from James and The Staircase and some of those things.
Jocelyn: And that book really applied to relationships.
Robert: Yes, that's right.
Jocelyn: Yeah. I just worked through that book with a counselee and it was very beneficial. Wow. We really appreciate you sharing the knowledge that you've gained from God's word about this topic. I think it's so important that we don't just overlook because a lot of, I work with a lot of young moms and a lot of moms are just like, I'm just an angry mom, like, and it's just how it is.
Janet: Right.
Jocelyn: And it's so easy to be tempted to just say, like, this is who I am. We just need to get along, but I'm naturally angry and I naturally, I can't help it. , it's a moral issue. We need to make sure that we're judging correctly, right and the wrong things. And we respond correctly.
Janet: To hear Dr. Jones saying. One out of one people struggles with it. And because of that, I think it's easy to justify it. Because everybody struggles with it. Therefore, it can't be that big a deal.
Jocelyn: Just means we're all judgmental. We think we know what's right.
Robert: Well it's such an enslaving kind of mindset. I'm just an angry person. I can't change. And yet you can change. The spirit of God lives in you if you're a Christian. You have the church, you have the scriptures, the Holy Spirit that can really help you grow and change. So I love talking to people who say, I'm just an angry person. Yes, but you don't have to be that way. God can help you.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Janet: Yeah. And he delights to do it.
Robert: He delights. And we delight in helping you as a counselor or members of the church. We're here to walk with you.
Jocelyn: That's kind of what I was thinking in closing is like something like anger could be a little hard to see in yourself. And so it might be helpful to have someone outside of you looking into your situation and speaking truth. So if this is something that you struggle with, you know, kind of as a personality, get some help.
Janet: Right.
Jocelyn: Work with a mentor, talk to your deacon, talk to your pastor or work with a biblical counselor in your church. There's lots and lots of ways that you can address this without just being an angry person.
Janet: Excellent. All right. Thank you.
Robert: Amen. Thank you.
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