If you engage in any form of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.), you’ve surely read something that set your blood to boil. I’m not sure that we’ve figured out how to have meaningful conversation around divisive topics in the virtual world. Is it even possible?
For believers in Jesus, James provides an appropriate online ethic: “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry” (James 1:19). How much of the bickering on the World Wide Web would come to a grinding halt if our society lived by that credo?
James doesn’t promote his instruction as something simply necessary for polite, civil behavior. He doesn’t merely recite the appropriate range of good manners. Instead, James insists that believers in Jesus must choose to live contrary to our natural inclinations because “human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires” (James 1:20). Our angry rhetoric, no matter how much it might appear to reflect God’s truth, doesn’t reflect how He transforms hearts. Jesus’ truth isn’t a list of abstract ideals but a life we actually live in the power of the Holy Spirit. We practice the way of Jesus and embody our faith.
God doesn’t fly off the handle in anger at the world He loves. Rather, God’s love is “patient and kind. . . . It does not demand its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).
How we give away the truth is just as important as whether or not we possess it. According to James, the two can’t be separated. If we’re to announce Jesus’ message, we must allow this truth to sink into our own hearts and minds. May it transform us into the kind of people who can be—through tears, hope, joy, and much love—God’s good news for the world.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: John 7:1-31
More:
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. What are the descriptors of genuine love? How do they fit with James’ admonition for us to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry”?
Next:
In what relationships do you need to be quicker to listen and slower to speak? Where do you sense God inviting you to replace anger with love?
sercher on July 27, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Thank you, Winn, for bringing that issue up for consideration!
We are so often tempted by devil to react and respond to what we believe is “a blatant lie” or “preconceived notions” of others while reading comments or blogs in the Internet.
By doing so, we are being swept up in the vicious circle of sin, even though we honestly believe that the truth is on our side.
Why not allow that person some time to think over what he said. It may be that he will reconsider as the older son in the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:29)- “but LATER he changed his mind…”. He proved to be wiser than his younger brother in the end.
This is what James meant when he mentioned ‘wisdom’ earlier in the first chapter (James 1:5). We need to ask for wisdom, and while God makes that gift possible for us to receive, we need to be silent for a little while.
Here are a few more quotes from Proverbs.
Proverbs 17:27
27 A truly wise person uses few words;
a person with understanding is even-tempered.
Proverbs 10:19
“Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.”
Winn Collier on July 27, 2014 at 7:29 pm
“Be sensible and keep your mouth shut” — now that’s wise advice.