Colossians 3:8 (NIV)
But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
Leave aside for a moment the difficulty inherent in the idea that we must rid ourselves of these problems (I mean, isn't God supposed to liberate us from these evils?). What are we to make for the first three things on the list of undesirable qualities? "Anger, rage, mailce..." Are these not equals?
Well, no. They're not. There is a difference that might need a little thought to understand. The first two, anger and rage are different, and it is not just a difference of degre either. They are different in kind. The first, anger, is reasonable while the other foams at the mouth. And by "foams at the mouth" wish to suggest an irrationality as found with mad dogs. Anger may well be based on a very real cause. Someone may have done you harm; worse, they may have done you intentional harm. The natural response to that is anger. This is different from rage.
An angry man may sit at home with pen and paper and make a list of all the reasons for his anger. A person who is in a rage couldn't do that. I mean, they could sit with the pen and paper, but they wouldn't know what to write down. They wouldn't even have a reason for their feeling. Of the two, this might sound the worst one, but Paul is saying that both must go and a lcoser look shows that there isn't that qualitative difference between anger and rage that we might want there to be. (After all, reasonableness is a prized trait and anger possesses it.)
Think of this - if you don't put away anger, it consumes you - no explosion, just a simmer that kills you. If you don't put away rage, it also consumes you. Yes, an explosion this time, but either way, your consumed. Will it help to have a reason behind this self-consumption? Dead is dead. A reasonable death isn't really more desirable, is it?
Then malice. I think malice is what we call the feeling that motivates us as we act out either our anger or our rage. Anger or rage in action is malice. Does that make sense? It is thought that one way to rid ourselves of anger or rage might be to act upon those feelings - vent. We can give the person who had made us angry a good punch in the nose. This will release the anger and we will be healthy. This might seem reasonable, but maybe it isn't. Maybe malice is like practicing our anger or rage. We'll get better at it - practice makes perfect. Ridding ourselves of anger and rage may be good, but doing so by acting upon these feelings isn't the way. A little later int eh chapter, Paul points out several things we might want to try instead, and I will get to those next time.
Leave aside for a moment the difficulty inherent in the idea that we must rid ourselves of these problems (I mean, isn't God supposed to liberate us from these evils?). What are we to make for the first three things on the list of undesirable qualities? "Anger, rage, mailce..." Are these not equals?
Well, no. They're not. There is a difference that might need a little thought to understand. The first two, anger and rage are different, and it is not just a difference of degre either. They are different in kind. The first, anger, is reasonable while the other foams at the mouth. And by "foams at the mouth" wish to suggest an irrationality as found with mad dogs. Anger may well be based on a very real cause. Someone may have done you harm; worse, they may have done you intentional harm. The natural response to that is anger. This is different from rage.
An angry man may sit at home with pen and paper and make a list of all the reasons for his anger. A person who is in a rage couldn't do that. I mean, they could sit with the pen and paper, but they wouldn't know what to write down. They wouldn't even have a reason for their feeling. Of the two, this might sound the worst one, but Paul is saying that both must go and a lcoser look shows that there isn't that qualitative difference between anger and rage that we might want there to be. (After all, reasonableness is a prized trait and anger possesses it.)
Think of this - if you don't put away anger, it consumes you - no explosion, just a simmer that kills you. If you don't put away rage, it also consumes you. Yes, an explosion this time, but either way, your consumed. Will it help to have a reason behind this self-consumption? Dead is dead. A reasonable death isn't really more desirable, is it?
Then malice. I think malice is what we call the feeling that motivates us as we act out either our anger or our rage. Anger or rage in action is malice. Does that make sense? It is thought that one way to rid ourselves of anger or rage might be to act upon those feelings - vent. We can give the person who had made us angry a good punch in the nose. This will release the anger and we will be healthy. This might seem reasonable, but maybe it isn't. Maybe malice is like practicing our anger or rage. We'll get better at it - practice makes perfect. Ridding ourselves of anger and rage may be good, but doing so by acting upon these feelings isn't the way. A little later int eh chapter, Paul points out several things we might want to try instead, and I will get to those next time.
posted by Steven at 11:56 PM
2 Comments:
I struggle with this verse a lot. I like your notion that malice is practicing anger--ingraining it and perpetuating it.
I recently wrote a very (for me) challenging story for an anthology called Surreal South that Pinckney and I edited. It's in first person and the voice is, well, profane would be a gentle word for it. It freaks me out to let this sort of thing out into the world, to channel words that I cannot utter in front of my children, my parents. I don't know why God has given me this gift of writing hard things. And I do believe it is from Him. My purposes are not pornographic or salacious. I wouldn't dare to call it art. But it's what I've been given to do, for whatever reason.
Does this seem reductive? Perhaps. But it still keeps me thinking, wondering.
Laura Benedict
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by. So long as you're sure the talent comes from God and you feel you can lay the work at His feet, then it should be okay. We live in a profane world and our work reflects that. Of course, there are often ways around using words that offend you. I mean, Hammett and Chandler managed. Of course, they were in different times also.
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