Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. Ephesians 4:31
To his great delight, I showed my grandson Jonah a video of a bull-riding competition. Most of the cowboys failed to remain on the backs of the bulls for the required eight seconds. Those huge beasts were incredible in their ability to buck and spin, throwing their hindquarters high in the air and flinging their massive horned heads to and fro. One of the bulls was noted as having never been ridden. In many cases, riders are seriously injured as they are thrown off, or are butted, gored, or trampled by the bulls. As we watched the competition, I asked Jonah if he would like to become a bull rider. ‘No!’ He shook his head emphatically. Wise decision. Trying to ride those bulls is no more or less dangerous than trying to ride the spiritual bulls of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking.
Bitterness is known for its close relationship with jealousy, envy, and dissatisfaction. What a poor testimony it would be for a Christian to be consumed by bitterness. Just as it would be a poor testimony to allow ourselves to be given to wrath. The Greek word for wrath – thymos – indicates that which is hot, fierce, and passionate. Like a bull that has never been ridden, wrath will control us and make us to act wildly and carelessly.
We know that not all anger is sin. But the anger referred to in our text is sin. It refers to the persistent anger that arises from the frustrations of life. We can’t control the bad and annoying things that happen around us, but we can control our response to them. And our response is not to be angry.
We are not so familiar with the word ‘clamour’ that is used in our text. Here, it refers to noise, commotion, and uproar. Clamour refers to those known as obnoxious, riotous, troublemaking, annoying people. And it also includes those who are quarrelsome. Surely we don’t know any Christians who behave like that!
The term ‘evil speaking’ is actually the same word used for slander. There is a reason why slander is crime – it is capable of doing serious harm to others, especially if it is untrue. Slander, speaking ill of other people, is always wrong. But it gets caught up in gossip, and is spread by folks just passing on what they heard from others. And if those folks who just pass it on happen to be Christians, those Christians are guilty of evil speaking.
OK, folks, time to stop riding the bulls, the bulls of bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking. And don’t forget to get rid of the malice, too. – Jim MacIntosh
Here is the link to the video of this message:https://youtu.be/axRPKuUF9js