A man who chooses the Jesus script is…
A man who knows when it’s time to turn over tables and when it’s time to turn the other cheek.
How does the thought of Jesus experiencing emotions strike you? Do you see him as continually calm, content, and compassionate? Is anger an emotion you’ve ever associated with Jesus?
As one of his closest disciples, Matthew got an upfront look at Jesus over their nearly three years together. He saw him refreshed at the start of the day and tired at the end of a long day of ministry. Here are two accounts from Matthew’s Gospel that reveal Jesus’s different reactions and his teachings on how to respond when emotions seek to control us.
In this first account, Jesus has a fierce reaction to improper and irreverent business practices taking place in the temple:
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
—Matthew 21:12–13
Yet on another occasion, Jesus lays out a principle of how we’re to go above and beyond when it comes to showing kindness in the face of unfairness:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
—Matthew 5:38–42
Turning over tables in the temple might challenge the view some have of a nice, calm Jesus. But let’s get some context on what was happening at the temple. People often traveled long distances to the temple to worship God and make their sacrifices to him. Unscrupulous men sold doves to travelers at exorbitant prices for their sacrifices to God. This was exploitation. Jesus’s anger and his ensuing actions were rightly focused on an injustice being committed as people were seeking to worship God. Jesus didn’t sin in his anger, and his anger didn’t control him. It was a righteous anger.
In his teaching about retaliation, Jesus provided a way out when anger seeks to control us. Because Jesus knew the hearts of men, he knew the temptation we’d all face to strike back and counterattack. When we’re forced to do something against our will, he knew the tendency we’d have—to seethe with anger as we complete only the bare minimum required.
Jesus knew how to determine righteous anger from self-righteous anger. He knew the one type of anger that had the right motivation, and the one that had a wrong one. And he knew well the temptations we would face and how to face them.
The man who follows the Jesus script discerns when it's time to turn over tables and when it's time to turn the other cheek. He learns not to be confused about the difference between the two or the people impacted by each choice. He differentiates righteous anger from self-righteous anger and leans on Jesus in his time of need—the one who was tempted like us and now provides the open door for grace and mercy.
