selected passages
December 15, 2024
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“No matter how just your words may be, when you speak with anger, you ruin all: no matter how boldly you speak, how fairly reprove, or what not.”

~ John Chrysostom, “Homily XVII on Acts VII.35”

“The very fact that [God gets angry] tells us that anger can be utterly right, good, appropriate, beautiful, the only fair response to something evil, and the loving response on behalf of evil’s victims… The Bible makes it clear that anger is not a ‘thing.’ It is a moral act of the whole person, not a ‘substance’ or a ‘something’ inside you.”

~ David Powlison, Anger: Escaping the Maze

“Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.”

~ Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness

“[Anger devours almost all other good emotions. It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness.”

~ John Piper, This Momentary Marriage

“[Catharsis is] the process of reducing or eliminating a complex by recalling it to conscious awareness and allowing it to be expressed.”

~ Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer, Studies in Hysteria

“Do not say, ‘I cannot help having a bad temper.’ Friend, you must help it. Pray to God to help you overcome it at once, for either you must kill it, or it will kill you. You cannot carry a bad temper into heaven.”

~ Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), an English Baptist preacher

“The affections are the forcible and sensible motions of the heart or the will, to a thing or from a thing, according as it is apprehended to be good or evil… The affections are the feet of the soul: for as the body goes with its feet to that which it loves, so the soul goes with its affections to that which it loves. The soul hath no other way to come at that which it loves, but only by its affections… The affections are the soul’s horses, that draw her, as it were, in a coach to the thing that she affects: a man is moved by the affections. By anger he moves out to revenge; by desire he moves out to obtain; by love he moves out to enjoy; by pity he moves out to relieve. The affections are the motions of the soul… The affections are directly related to the apprehension of good and evil. When there is little apprehension of good and evil, the affections are weak and may hardly work on the body at all. But, when there is great apprehension of either, not only the soul is deeply affected, but the body also.

~ A Treatise of the Affections by William Fenner (1600-1640), an English Puritan theologian, pastor, and preacher

Sermon Passage

selected passages (ESV)

Proverbs 14

²⁹ Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,
but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.
³⁰ A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh,
but envy makes the bones rot.

Proverbs 15

¹⁸ A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,
but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

Proverbs 16

³² Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Proverbs 19

¹¹ Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

Proverbs 29

¹¹ A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back….
²² A man of wrath stirs up strife,
and one given to anger causes much transgression.

Ephesians 4

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

Mark 10

¹³ And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ¹⁵ Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

John 11

³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. ³⁴ And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ^{35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”}