Is Anger Sinful?

“Is anger sinful?”

Thanks for your great question, Maddie.

Anger can be sinful, especially if motivated by hatred, envy, or covetousness (wanting what someone else has and thinking about it all the time). But not all anger is sinful. The Bible tells us that Jesus was sometimes angry, and he lived a sinless life.

In Matthew 21:12–13, Jesus sees that there are people selling things in the temple. These people had turned the temple into a marketplace and were taking advantage of those who were coming to worship God.

Jesus was angry because these people were dishonoring God by using the temple for the wrong reasons. He “drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons” (Matthew 21:12). Jesus expressed righteous (blameless or without sin before God) anger because his anger was directed against sin.

We will sometimes get angry, but we should not let our anger cause us to do or say things that we shouldn’t. Ephesians 4:26 says, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

This verse tells us we should be careful not to sin when we are angry, and we should be careful to not let our anger fester. When we feel angry, we should take time to think about why we are feeling this way and pray, asking God to help us manage our anger well. If we are feeling angry toward someone else, we should try to resolve any conflict and forgive those who’ve wronged us.

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