Ephesians Devotionals
Bob Morris
How to Live Together Part I (Ephesians 4:25-27)
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Part I: Truthful Speech and Controlled Anger
Earlier, Paul had said we will grow up into Christ by speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). Sometimes speaking the truth in love in the community of God’s people is the toughest place of all. Certainly it can lead to hurt and anger, but it is necessary to our corporate spiritual maturity. So the only alternative we have is to speak truthfully and deal with any anger it might cause. It is not an alternative to gloss over the truth or say you are okay when you aren’t. These are opportunities for the Devil, the father of lies and deceit, to influence our lives. The devil’s “footholds” include broken relationships, resentment, false accusations and any number of other things that unmitigated anger leads to. Let’s not go there.
As we interact with various cultures we would be wise to understand how differently people value truthfulness and anger. In the West we value directness and equate truthfulness with frankness, openness, and full disclosure. Most other cultures do not believe in telling “the whole truth” even though they believe they should tell “nothing but the truth”. We must not judge them for telling the truth indirectly, whether through story, hint or allusion. But the bottom line for all cultures is that we are to speak truthfully to each other. We must not bear false witness.
In a similar way, cultures express and value anger differently. A missionary colleague of mine was told by his Tanzanian supervisor, “Robert, the Christians here will forgive you for being a polygamist, but if you show your anger in public, your ministry in Tanzania will be over”. In contrast, many of us come from a culture which says, “Let it all hang out. Express your anger. It is dangerous to repress your emotions”.
Paul says neither. There is a place for expressing anger when it is the right kind of anger. Righteous indignation over the injustices of the world and the pain and devastation wreaked by some humans over others is good reason to be angry. So is anger against sin in the body of Christ. How we express our justified anger is the question Paul addresses here. Our anger must not be motivated by revenge, hatred, or any other sinful origin. As well, there should be a limit to how long we allow anger to rage in us. Each day has enough time in which to be angry; every sunset is a reminder to deal with the cause of our anger and leave it. Anger that is wrongly motivated or expressed and anger that is without limits is an opportunity for the devil to do his dirty work in our lives.
Search us and try us, O Lord. See if there is any falsehood or anger in our hearts. Enable us to speak and hear the truth, without anger, in all our relationships.
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