7 Deadly Sins: Anger and Envy
The next two on the 7 Deadly Sins list is Envy and Anger.
Both sins appear in the story of Cain and Abel. Cain is at first envious of Abel and his sacrifice to God. Then his anger overwhelms him and he brutally murders his brother.
Envy desires to destroy what another takes enjoyment in. If Envy had a motto, it would be, ‘If I can’t have it, no one can.’ And Anger is its bed-fellow, who carries out its violent desires.
The Devil’s Envy
According to the 1st Century BC book, Wisdom of Solomon:
Wisdom 2 v 23-24
For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.
After pride caused his fall, envy drove him to try and destroy God’s Creation. If Lucifer was going to die, he would want to take down as much of Creation as possible.
Envy drove him to tempt Eve, who in turn, persuaded her husband to eat of the fruit. And death came upon humanity.
Jealously vs Envy
We read in Exodus that God is a jealous God.
Exodus 34 v 14
Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
He is not envious, but jealous for His people. In the Bible, jealously is normally associated with protecting what someone already owns. Whereas, envy desires what someone else has, and then taken to the extreme, wants to destroy it, so no one else can have it.
An example is where someone is envious of a friend’s successful marriage. So rather than try and improve their own marriage, they’d rather destroy their friend’s.
It is the only sin on the list of Deadly Sins that leaves the one who commits it, just as unhappy as before.
The Feminine Sin
A confessional priest recently revealed the sin which men most struggle with is lust, while women were more troubled by envy. It seems to me that as the Western Culture becomes more materialistic, more feminised, and our lives move online, envy will become more of a problem.
It can be beguiling to think that what people post on social media is their real everyday life. And not just a curated life, which produces a ‘hyper-reality’.
This false perception can make social media users feel inadequate, which in turn can drive the impulse to be envious.
Envy gives a reason to hate someone who appears to have a better life than you. It feels like a ‘righteous anger’, and this sin gives an appearance of ‘trying to level the playing field’. It’s the desire to destroy someone, in order to make life feel fairer.
In extreme cases, envy might overflow into the real world, with real harms like reputations damage, cancellations and even where violent assaults can occur.
The antidote to envy is kindness. Taking a moment to think how we can be kind to those we envy, is a good first step to resisting this sin.
Is Anger Sinful?
Feeling angry is a common emotion. We get angry when we are frustrated in what we want to achieve. Like when obstacles are placed in our way, stopping us from reaching our goals.
We get angry when things are unfair and when situations are unjust.
And we get angry when we feel people have been rude to us and we want to get even.
In the Psalms, it tells us it is possible to be angry and yet not sin.
Psalm 4 v 4 (Septuagint)
Be angry, and do not sin
Ephesians quotes this Psalm in Chapter 4
Ephesians 4 v 26
“Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger.
How is this possible? How can anger not be a sin?
Righteous and Unrighteous Anger
The Bible models two types of anger, righteous and unrighteous anger.
The best example of righteous anger is found when Christ overturned the money changers tables in the Gospels. This story occurs in all four accounts.
Jesus displayed anger, but did not sin. He disrupted what was going on, but in His anger, He did not sin. This action was motivated by justice, not revenge.
Unrighteous anger is the opposite and comes from a place of selfishness. It can come in the form of uncontrollable rage, which doesn’t care for the hurt it meters out.
It can also come in the form of revenge, where we take matters into our own hands and bring about justice from our own point of view.
Subjective justice is very dangerous, as we normally give more of a sanction than would be reasonable applied by an impartial judge.
The Law in the Old Testament addresses this issue by stipulating specific laws to limit the sanction which could be applied to a situation. This would place a boundary to the anger, and stop vendettas growing between different groups.
Anger Mis-Management Culture
We find on social media many curated posts which illicit a ‘righteous anger’ response. They are very popular. When we see an act of injustice, we get angry with ‘righteous indignation’. It can makes us feel brave, noble and even morally correct. The adrenaline kick we get can be addictive. And so we are tempted to return to these kinds of videos over and over again.
As we watch more of these curated videos, our reality becomes warped and we find it difficult to accept that the situation might be more complex than it originally appears. The alleged victim in the video may not always be good-guy and the perpetrator may not be bad-guy. We rely heavily on how the video has been edited.
This ‘curated-reality’ can mislead and cause us to make bad choices. Like when feelings of righteous anger spill out into the physical world and we take matters into our own hands, distributing justice in our own eyes.
The antidote to the sin of anger is patience. Taking a little time before responding to an antagonistic event is probably the wisest act we could do.
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