Title: Love is not Irritable or Resentful
1 Corinthians 13:4–5 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
First let’s define this irritation/anger:
to be provoked or upset at someone or something involving severe emotional concern
a person cannot be goaded into the sharp retort of irritation.
something between irritation and anger which takes offense because one’s self-regard has been dented, wounded, or punctured by some sharp point.
“Between irritation and anger” sounds like a spectrum. Have you ever been to a BBQ restaurant of some kind? They often have a thermometer with their BBQ sauce flavors next to it on the menu. It usually starts with something sweet, moves to Cajun, and on up to nuclear annihilation.
There are many degrees or characteristics of anger.
Irritability is anger on a low simmer. Do you live with someone who is easily set off? Are you grouchy?
Arguing is the disagreeable “he said,” “she said” of interpersonal friction. Anger is the emotion that inhabits interpersonal conflict, and it takes two for a fight.
Bitterness expresses how anger can last a long, long time. People recycle old hurts, nurse grievances and grudges, and never get over it.
Violence expresses the sheer destructiveness of angry behavior. Anger can hurt, destroy, and even kill, finding pleasure in inflicting pain
Is it even possible to be righteously angry?
Exodus 32:9–10 (ESV) And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Acts 17:16 (ESV) Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
God created us in His image. That image includes the capacity to react with displeasure toward real wrongs, and to act forcefully to make wrongs right.
So we are wired by God to operate in anger’s logic: “That matters, and it’s wrong. It displeases me, and I am against it. I must change it, remove it, destroy it.” The core is that something important is not the way it’s meant to be, and we are moved to take action.
It isn’t enough to be indifferent to avoid sin.
Indifference to evil would itself be a sin.
We cannot turn a blind eye to injustice, violence, immorality, and things like this.
We cannot take a cynical view and expect everything to be evil and never be changed for good.
We cannot be a stoic and try to train our reactions to be a Vulcan-like emotionless response to evil.
Eventually bottled up, unresolved anger will do something.
It will destroy your body if not resolved and released.
It could explode at the wrong time. (Gonzo and the flying egg.)
So, we’re going to have to understand how to restore the divine image in us. Only God’s grace can do it.
The Constructive Displeasure of Mercy. (David Powlison)
There is a more excellent way. David Powlison says it this way, “Like simple anger, it says, “That matters, it’s wrong and offensive, I want to do something about it.” But unlike pure anger, it says, “That’s wrong—and I will be constructively merciful.” I will call this the constructive displeasure of mercy.”
Mercy contains a combination of attitudes and actions that proceed in an essentially constructive way. Mercy, including its component of constructive anger, is the highest form of love. It’s how we love in the face of something wrong. Irritation, arguing, hostility, violence, and resentment are not the only ways to react to a wrong. They aren’t the only ways to get angry. I can know something is wrong, even terribly evil. I can hate it. And yet I can act constructively.
Patience
Forgiveness
Charity
Constructive conflict
16.Never ends = never collapses, falls away, or passes away
Is patient (suffers long) = Suffer long, to bear up under provocation without complaint
Is kind = merciful, helpful, willing to do a service or kindness, assist
Does not envy = intense negative feelings over another’s achievements or success, it is more directed at the intangible things rather than the tangible material things
Does not boast = to heap praise on oneself, behave as a braggart or a windbag
Is not arrogant = to cause to have an exaggerated self-conception, puff up, make proud
Is not rude = behave disgracefully, dishonorably, indecently; to behave in an ugly, unseemly or unbecoming manner
Is not self-serving = to devote serious effort to realize one’s desire or objective, Selfish ambition
Is not irritable = to be provoked or upset at someone or something involving severe emotional concern—‘to be provoked, to be upset.’
Is not resentful = to determine by mathematical process, reckon, calculate to occupy oneself with reckonings or calculations. love keeps no score of wrongs
10.Does not rejoice at wrongdoing = Wrongdoing – falsehood in defrauding others instead of telling the truth. In Hos. 12:7, “He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loves to oppress,”
11.Rejoices with the truth = Truth – the content of what is true; especially of the content of Christianity as the ultimate truth; Truth corresponds to reality. Truth matches reality. Truth and reality are the same.
12.Bears all = never gives up
13.Never loses faith = Keeps believing that which is undeniable reality – truth. Faith never doubts what God has spoken.
14.Is always hopeful = confidence in God and in new creation believers (born again, born of above, born of God)
15.Endures all = perseverance, continuance, stand one’s ground, hold out