Mark 3:5 - "After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart…"
To understand that Jesus was just with his reaction of anger in verse 5, Mark explains the reason for it to be that he was 'grieved at their hardness of heart.' Jesus was 'grieved,' because the very men who had been instructed in the Law of God were in fact blinded to see the truth of who Jesus was and how God's law should bring healing and life. We see an interesting dichotomy in Christ's reaction in verse 5 of both anger and grievance. Anger because Jesus has great zeal for Gods truth but also grievance because he is distressed about the destruction of these wicked men. We also see in this passage that Jesus was not free from human emotion. We can therefore infer from this passage that emotions such as anger are not sinful, provided they are still rooted in God's love. There is righteous anger, but not all anger is righteous. Check out these verses: Ephesians 4:26-27 - Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. James 1:19-20 - Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Proverbs 19:11 - Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. When we face unholy opposition anger may be an appropriate reaction, but from these passages we can see that we should be slow to get there, it should not rule us, and it should not linger within us. The battle will be an emotional one and therefore we should be praying often, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us. When are times you have felt an unrighteous anger? When are times you have felt a righteous anger? How do you know when anger is righteous or unrighteous?
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Mark 3:1-6
1 He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. 2 They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. 3 He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” 4 And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. 5 After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him. Opposition is defined as 'resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument.' In our world today we see examples of healthy opposition. For example, opposing teams face each other on a basketball court or we can see opposing political parties debating each other in government to determine law (this one is supposed to be healthy, sometimes not always). These opposing elements are not necessarily negative and can lead to growth and goodness. But what we see in Mark 3 is a different type of opposition. This is a very dangerous type of opposition. There is an opponent that Jesus is not backing down from. And that opponent is not so much flesh and blood as it against the rulers, against the powers of darkness and wickedness (Ephesians 6:12). It's a fight and Jesus does not back down. Where in today's world do you see opposition to the Kingdom of God and the teachings of Jesus? What type of power do these opponents have and use? |
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