When Jesus passes through a Samaritan town in the last year of His ministry, two of His disciples, James and John, two of the men in the inner circle of His twelve, two of the three men He spent the most time with, demonstrated how far they had yet to grow in their discipleship. James and John had been nicknamed by Jesus as “sons of thunder.” (Mark 3:17) From a study of their character, you might say that they had “anger issues” and even after three years of following Him, after three years of discipleship, after three years of hearing Him preach, watching Him live, observing His life of prayer and holiness—after all of this, their lives demonstrate that they had a long way to go in living passionately for and like Jesus.
It is encouraging that John, the one-time “son of thunder,” eventually came to be known as the Apostle of love. Maybe there is hope for all of us?
I don’t know if you have noticed, but we are living in angry times. That’s a joke. Of course you have noticed. Everywhere we turn it seems there is someone seeking to divide us, or diminish us, or fan the flames of anger, bitterness and resentment between this group or that party. There are so many “us’s” and “thems” in the culture right now that pretty soon each group will soon have only one member. It is the most “uncivil society” that I have experienced in my entire life.
And Christians themselves seem to have “anger issues”. Many of us seem to have forgotten that the Scriptures remind us that our anger is not helpful to the cause of Christ.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
James 1:19, 20 (ESV)
In other words, after 20 centuries, Jesus shouldn’t be handing out any nicknames like “Sons of Thunder” to anyone who calls Him Lord. James and John, lost their nicknames after the Holy Spirit was given to the church because their character was transformed. John became the apostle of love and is one of our new role models. Another translation renders verse 20 as “the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God.” Let’s remember this. Let’s show the world the peace that surpasses all human comprehension (cf. Phil. 4:7). Let’s show the world that we trust in Christ not our anger. Let’s be a people who is different than the angry voices of the current political landscape. Let’s love those who persecute us and despitefully use us (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:28). After all isn’t that what Jesus told us to do?
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