Jesus gives a serious warning against cursing others …

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It was a surreal moment for me as I stood looking at the blood of a human being spilled on a parking lot and mingling with the water being sprayed to wash it away.

I was the editor of my high school newspaper, so when I arrived at the school to find the student parking lot roped off with yellow tape and blocked by police cars, I needed to find out what was going on. Fortuately, my journalism teacher was there and he gained access beyond the barriers for me.

The story he told me was that the body of a young woman was found early that morning there in the parking lot. We would later learn she was a student at Arizona State University who had an argument with her boyfriend. He then beat her, threw her out of the car and ran over her head before making his exit.

Watching the water wash away her blood, I wondered about how one human being could become that furious with another.

In the Bible, God has zero tolerance for murder, so much so it’s enshrined in the Ten Commandments. But in the New Testament, Jesus helps us understand that harming others severely can be done not only through brutality and physical violence, it can be done through our words as well.

And He doesn’t have any tolerance for it.

We live in a time where professing Christians think nothing of logging into their favorite social media sites to publicly curse and berate other human beings. Certainly, we see such coarse behavior commonly among non-Christians. But for believers and unbelievers, we should look closely and soberly at the warning Jesus gives us against unbridled anger and cursing other people …

“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.” – Matthew 5:21-22.

Jesus provides us with these serious and severe warnings because our anger and lashing out doesn’t glorify God, and it doesn’t benefit those we curse or ourselves. It is nothing more than negative, destructive behavior which James speaks to succinctly like this …

“Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires,” James 1:20.

Having zoomed in on James’ direct statement about anger, let’s step back a little to look at his fuller statement …

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls,” James 1:19-21.

We justify our rants of publicly calling people stupid, idiots, and morons as a “release” of our anger, but James helps us see it is nothing less than “filth and evil” we need to purge from our lives because such anger “… does not produce the righteousness God desires …” Truly, if it feels good for you to angrily lambaste someone with your words, you have a serious spiritual problem that you need to resolve with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

Look again, closely and slowly at the warning Jesus gave. Let His words sink in …

“But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell,” Matthew 5:22.

Let’s dig deeper about this warning from Jesus by looking at some insights from a few pastors. Keith Krell writes …

    What was implicit in the Old Testament Law, Jesus is making explicit. He is giving insight into the original purpose of God’s Law, a purpose that had been lost among the teachers of His day. Jesus is saying, “I’m going to the very heart of the Law to show you how you can live out its deepest meaning.” In doing so, He moves from the fruit of murder to the root of murder — an evil heart attitude. Jesus insists that we are all guilty of murder because we’ve been angry in word, thought, attitude, or action. In other words, refraining from homicide does not impress God. On the contrary, since God looks upon the heart, unrighteous anger can render one subject to God’s judgment.

Providing additional insight, Phil Newton notes the following …

    To begin with, Jesus is not giving stages or degrees leading to murder but showing the different manifestations of the same heart attitude. “Anger” may manifest itself in lashing out, verbally or physically attacking someone, or in vitriolic behavior. What we sometime call ranting and raving may be signs of anger. It may also be what has been termed passive-aggressive in which the angry person may not say anything ugly but treats the other person or persons with personal contempt. It may be the silent treatment or even manifest in what he does not say to another person when he should be commenting in a helpful, relational fashion. “Anger” often shows up in a spousal relationship in which one spouse may demonstrate anger at the other by silence, non-involvement, lack of kindness and gentleness, disregard for showing tenderness and concern. It happens in parent-child relationships and even in work settings. The slow, seething of the angry person looks for ways to express animosity as much by what he does not do as by what he does. “You good-for-nothing,” or raca is Aramaic for a term meaning “empty-head” or what we may call without a sense of levity, “numb-skull,” “blockhead,” or “dingbat.” I suppose that we could add dozens of other names that convey the same general idea. This views the other person as inferior – so obviously, pride is part of anger’s root. It is a disdainful attitude verbally expressed in insults to another.

Finally, let’s gain a little insight from famed minister, Charles Spurgeon …

    Murder lies within anger, for we wish harm to the object of our wrath, or even wish that he did not exist, and this is to kill him in desire. Anger “without a cause” is forbidden by the command which says “Thou shalt not kill;” for unjust anger is killing in intent. Such anger without cause brings us under higher judgment than that of Jewish police-courts. God takes cognizance of the emotions from which acts of hate may spring, and calls us to account as much for the angry feeling as for the murderous deed. Words also come under the same condemnation: a man shall be judged for what he “shall say to his brother.” To call a man Raca, or a worthless fellow, is to kill him in his reputation, and to say to him, “Thou fool,” is to kill him as to the noblest characteristics of a man. Hence all this comes under such censure as men distribute in their councils; yes, under what is far worse, the punishment awarded by the highest court of the universe, which dooms men to “hell fire.” Thus our Lord and King restores the law of God to its true force, and warns us that it denounces not only the overt act of killing, but every thought, feeling, and word which would tend to injure a brother, or annihilate him by contempt.

Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “Whatever begins in anger ends in shame.” Frederick Buechner helps us understand how that happens with this snippet from his writing in “Wishful Thinking Transformed By Thorns” …

    Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

So before you angrily unload at the intersection at another driver …

Before you log into social media to rave at how moronic someone is …

Before you think that you need to “release” by unleashing a tirade about the stupidity of people …

… let these words of Jesus ring in your ears, inform and form your thinking, and change your heart. Anger isn’t worth destroying yourself. Being angry at someone else isn’t worth facing the judgment of God. Instead, let God change you by renewing your mind so that you can have the mind of Christ. Then you will think, feel, and act in ways that bring glory to God and benefits yourself and others.

Scotty