When you are younger, anger seems almost like a superpower. You cower in the presence of anger, and you see others do as well. Rage gets things done and brings people under your control. If you don’t like a potential decision by the Supreme Court that reverses Roe v. Wade, you yell, scream, and threaten in order to intimidate and make people fearful for their safety in order to try to manipulate the court. If you don’t like what someone does, you verbally or physically bring him into submission through rage. Anger is power.

As you grow older and wiser, you realize that anger of this sort is weakness. You don’t control your passions, they control you. These passions you can’t control are used by others to control you; they “push your buttons” and manipulate you. You are a slave to the unpleasant circumstances around you. Your bursts of sinful anger destroy everything precious to you, isolating you from everyone. Undisciplined anger, far from being a strength, is a display of weakness. Real power is the freedom that comes through patience.

The quick-tempered man in Proverbs is a fool. A fool is not intellectually disabled or a clownish figure. He is a moral deviant, a man given over to sin. Solomon instructs his son in wisdom, and one aspect of that wisdom is to discipline his God-given anger so that it becomes his servant and not his master. To take up the Adamic mission of bringing God’s wise order to the world, cool heads must prevail. In the end, cool heads, the patient, will prevail.

Quick-tempered men, hot-heads, act foolishly (14.17) and exalt folly (14.29); they bring disorder to the world by creating chaotic, tense, unhealthy situations instead of peace (15.18). Their anger isolates them, causing them to be hated by others (14.17), because they keep everyone at a distance through their anger, and, besides that, no sane person wants to be around this drama queen and live with this anxiety.

In his quick temper, the slave to anger loses perspective, not able to take in and deal with all the information because his hasty anger hyper-focuses his attention on one object, putting blinders on him. His limited vision means that he has no understanding or insight that allows him to put all the pieces of the situation together in a proper relationship because he refuses to see all the pieces. Consequently, the quick-tempered man cannot fulfill his God-given mission of dominion. His outbursts of anger are one of the works of the flesh that Paul says is characteristic of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5.19-21).

The wise son cultivates patience. He is slow to anger. He has the ability to calm and steel his mind through hope rooted in faith so that he can endure until he reaches his goal. Patience is not passivity or indifference. Patience is actively working on achieving the goal of defeating evil and building what is good by keeping its wits about him.

Patience is a discipline that must be cultivated. When we are young, our parents are responsible to discipline us in patience. As we grow older, patience must become a self-discipline. We must develop the ability to master our minds so as to direct our desires, will, emotions, and bodies to accomplish our mission. As with all self-discipline, the cultivation of patience requires pain, stressors that will challenge you mentally, physically, and emotionally. The way you respond to that pain will determine if it will make you stronger or break you. Because many stressors in our lives are outside of our control, the only power you have is your response. The stress reveals the weakness in your character. It doesn’t create it. If that weakness is to be strengthened, you must accept this stress as something of a frenemy; others may have plans to destroy you through this, but you know that God in his providence has brought this to be a servant to develop the strength of patience (cp. 1Cor 3.18-23). Your loving heavenly Father intends to make you a stronger son through this training. As you keep that in mind, knowing that all things do indeed work together for good to those who love God–faith–you develop the mental toughness and resiliency to endure, not being knocked off track through uncontrolled passions.

Whining, complaining, and moaning all the time about your situation reveals and cultivates weakness. You are not positively acting. You become the cowed victim that is a prisoner to others or your circumstances.

Patience is freedom. People and circumstances don’t enslave you by your own passions. You are free to be who God called you to be and accomplish what he put you here to do. Being patient, you are a true son of your heavenly Father who is slow to anger.

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What is it that makes you angry? Is it when people don’t pull their weight of responsibility? Is it the traffic, your job, your family situation, the moral evils of our society, or politics? Though we all express anger in different ways, we are all angry people because we are made in the image of God who is a God of wrath. We are created to be angry.

Solomon instructs his son throughout Proverbs concerning anger. Anger cannot be eliminated, but it must be disciplined. But before we can discipline anger, we must first know what anger is in its righteous and sinful expressions.

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The point is, ladies and [gentlemen], that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.[1]

This was the end of the iconic cinematic speech given by Gordon Gekko at the Teldar Paper stockholders’ meeting in the 1987 film Wall Street (a film I do not recommend and have only watched this scene). Greed is considered a virtue and lauded as that which will save. With its insatiable appetite for more, its aggressive impatience, its lack of concern for others, and its myopia, greed gives its host hyper-focus and energy to seek gratification for its appetite. Greed is power, but it is a destructive power, destroying its host and everything around him.

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What does the resurrection of one man have to do with the whole world? Sure, it is a spectacular event. People who die normally stay dead, so for someone to rise from the dead is extraordinary. Good for Jesus. But what does that have to do with me and the world around me? Or, to put it more crassly, why should I care?

Good questions.

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Jesus told his disciples a few times over the past several years that he would have to be delivered over to the Jewish officials who would then hand him over to the Gentiles to be crucified.  He transformed the old Passover meal into a memorial meal for his people in which he displayed and gave himself through his own broken body and shed blood in bread and wine. The disciples didn’t understand this, but for them and the rest of the world to have the life of a good, healthy, functioning body, Christ Jesus would have to suffer and die; his body would have to be broken for their bodies to be made whole. Death accompanied by the sting of sin was the fate of man, Adam, as promised by God from the beginning for his disobedience. That is, unlike the death Adam experienced in the creation of Eve when he was resurrected immediately into a greater state of glory, sin would hold him in death’s grip without resurrection.

This is Adam’s fate.

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The journey to the great Passover began as it had for hundreds of years. An individual man, family, or small band of families from a Roman province began the ascent to Jerusalem singing Psalm 120, the first of fifteen Psalms of Ascent that would end at the mountain of the Lord in worship. The Psalms of Ascent begin with a desire for peace in a world of war and move through the ebbs and flows of the journey of God’s people through history, celebrating and anticipating the promises of God in the midst of present distresses.

From north, south, east, and west Jews traveled, meeting up with other pilgrims along the way. Their bands grew larger and their voices stronger as they converged on the roads and finally at the gates of Jerusalem. Standing at the gates or inside the city, Psalm 133 is sung as the penultimate Psalm, declaring the goodness of the unity of God’s people as they have gathered as one body and one voice for one purpose: to pledge their loyalty to Yahweh their King and receive the promise of deliverance from him. The servants of Yahweh’s house are then called to lead them to the throne in Psalm 134.

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Solomon instructs his princely son in Proverbs so that he might complete the mission of dominion given to man; namely, to form and fill the world that God gave to the stewardship of man (see Gen 1.28; Ps 115.16). This will take wisdom, the ability to see how everything should relate, and the skill to put everything in right relationship. This wisdom begins and matures in the fear of Yahweh, loving Yahweh and his discipline and zealously guarding his instruction. As the son submits to Yahweh, the mission will progress; the world will grow and come together to reach its intended purpose. If the son rebels, rejecting the wisdom of the Father, he will reap chaos and destruction, not only for himself but for the world. Adam’s story is a clear picture of this.

The seven-fold structure of the abominations in Proverbs 6.16-19 fit this theme of world-building, echoing the structure of the original week of history. However, Solomon is instructing by the contrary. If you want to know how to de-create the world, then these seven abominations will tell you. These are the sins the son must avoid.

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