Preaching Connection: Anger

Reading for Preaching

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

In October of 1981 Ayman al-Zawahiri was picked up by Egyptian authorities on suspicion of complicity in the terrorist assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat.  Sadat had been the object of rage from militant Muslims who deeply resented his friendship with the West and his peace efforts with Israel.  After the assassination, Egyptian authorities imprisoned Zawahiri...
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“Anger,” in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’S of Faith

“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...
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Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

Trust God’s anger. It’s generally against really bad oppression of the poor (think Isaiah, Amos, Micah). And it really heats up when people oppress the poor and then go to church and get pious. Our own anger is dangerous, less trustworthy, more apt to be built upon fear, and to express itself meanly or self-righteously....
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The Chosen

“I sat there stunned and terrified, engulfed by his rage. His reaction had caught me so completely by surprise that I had quite literally stopped breathing, and now I found myself gasping for breath. I felt as if I were being consumed by flames. The silence that followed his outburst had a fungus quality to...
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“You are Nasty and I am Nice: Angles on Anger”

passim: Anger focuses on the offender, finds him culpable, wants to hurt him at least a little, finds him somewhat repulsive at least for a time, and sees oneself (or assumes oneself) in a position to judge. Loving people have love as their ‘default’ position, and have a hair trigger for it, but like the...
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Additional content related to Anger

Hosea 1:2-10

We teach a certain rule-of-thumb to our seminary students.  We talk about it as colleagues in ministry.  And deep down we intuitively know this truth anyway.  We preachers know that it’s at best dicey to use our spouse and children as sermon illustrations, exemplars of behavior good or bad, or just generally as the starting…

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Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Comments, Questions, and Observations Like Easter and Christmas, you sometimes wonder what else is left to say about such well-known stories like the Prodigal Son. But given the liturgical posture of Lent, and thinking about last week’s passage of warning, we are given a natural link to build between the elder brother and the parable…

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2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

There is no question what this text is about—the ark of the covenant.  It is mentioned over and over, nine times in all.  So is David; his name comes up even more.  David brings the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem.  That’s what this text is about.  But, so what?  Why was that so important…

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Numbers 14

Where does one begin with this story? Do you focus on how an entire people betray their faithfulness Saviour? Do you try to skip over how angry God is about their betrayal? Do you draw upon Moses’ request for Yahweh to forgive as the spot of hope in an otherwise very sad story? For that…

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