The Elder Must Not be Quick-Tempered

Chapter 17

This is one of those traits God calls sin that contemporary psycho-babblers call a lot of other things. Some excuse such behavior and try to control it with drugs because they define it as a sickness rather than a sin. Bi-Polar syndrome, split personality, manic-depressive, all try to excuse the man who will not control his temper as one who is unable to do so. Of course, there is a sense in which psycho-babblers are not too far from the truth. Man, without the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, is in fact, a slave to his father, the devil. And losing one’s temper quickly is, in fact, a manifestation of demonic activity. I’m quite sure most of us have seen it. I’m also sure many of us have manifested such behavior at one time or other. Prisons are filled with those who manifested this kind of behavior at least one too many times in their dealings with others.

It is a scary thing to behold a man who can’t control his temper. I’ve seen everything from a Christian man yelling at a referee for calling a penalty against his son, to one man attempting to kill another in uncontrolled rage. As strange as it may sound, I believe suicide is often the result of one who cannot control his temper. I believe it is also the peak of self-centeredness. When one commits suicide he turns his uncontrolled anger against himself and in his final act of self-centered egotism, mistakenly thinking he is committing his final act of self-control, he ends his physical life. This trait is arguably one of the most destructive traits known to man. It is destructive whether it manifests itself in a great military leader (it seems Napoleon was a quick-tempered man), or a kindergarten teacher.

Quick tempered men usually get angry and quickly begin throwing things and yelling obscenities at those they claim to love. I know a quick tempered man who once threw his wife’s sewing machine through a plate glass sliding door for some relatively minor thing she had done to anger him. I know a quick-tempered man who once ended up with bruises all over his body for challenging someone larger, stronger, and much less inebriated than he was. Being quick-tempered is a human trait that Satan uses quite successfully to ruin multitudes of lives daily. God’s Elder must not be one who is quick-tempered. It is a self-destructive trait that seems to have no end. Men who are quick tempered need to get nouthetic counseling about how to deal with such foolishness. It can manifest itself in everything to slapping a child for doing something inappropriate to murder. While God’s word makes it clear that children must sometimes be disciplined with a rod of iron, it does not condone a parent giving a child a black eye for breaking a plate. Some seem to confuse defiance of authority with being clumsy. One is abominable sin; the other is a state of being.

King Saul was a quick-tempered man. He almost murdered David more than once by hurling a spear at him (I Sam. 18:11). Proverbs 25:28 reads, “Like a city broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.” The list of tragedies directly or indirectly related to those who have demonstrated their ability to enter a state rage for insignificant reasons is endless. I am currently counseling a young man who is his fifth day of lockdown (isolation) for his inability to control his temper. And, by the way, he is in jail in the first place for doing the same thing. James 1:19 warns us, “. . . everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;” I sometimes think a violent, uncontrolled temper is worse than the most addictive mind control drug on the market. In my own life, my ability to enter a state of uncontrolled rage at the slightest provocation as a youth got me into more trouble than I care to remember. God’s Elder must not be quick tempered.