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NASB | Psalm 4:1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Psalm 4:1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have freed me when I was hemmed in and relieved me when I was in distress; Be gracious to me and hear [and respond to] my prayer. |
Bible Question:
The NKJV says: "Be Angry and do not sin." What is this saying? Is anger encouraged, or am I missing something? |
Bible Answer: I just noticed with all this controversy about the versions of the Bible, no one has done a very thorough job of answering your question. Since we're all Bible students and dealing with anger is a tough topic, I'd suggest we should stick with God's Word in handling it. I would suggest we look to the one single instance where our Lord showed some anger. John 2:14 And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. John 2:15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; John 2:16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." John 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, "ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME." And he showed this one single display of anger and NOT a single word or even a look of anger when He was beaten unmercilessly for no good reason before His crucifixtion. He was spat upon and tortured with a crown of thorns and many other abuses totally undeserved. The vast majority of the time like 99.9 percent of the time we humans get angry, it's for a reason far, far less worthy than our Lord's example, "His zeal for His Father's temple." I have to conclude that we all should strive to reduce the number of times we get angry and limit them to true instances of totally Godless injustice in the world. But then we must take care and make certain that we DON'T keep this kind of anger pent up inside us for a long extended period of time as it will just destroy our effectiveness as christians. Paul's words are very instructive in this regard Eph 4:26 "Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27nor give place to the devil. Hope this answers your question, at least a little bit. Blessings to you. Country Girl PS: Didn't want to dodge the Bible version controversy. I believe very strongly that the sum total of all the good, well-written, and thoroughly researched versions represent a very good complete Book of Guidance from God. We can take comfort that we do have ALL of what God wants us to know about Himself, His Son and all other matters eteranlly important to Him. As for myself, I prefer the NKJV and NASB, but as I mentioned there are several other good versions. I believe in 1611 and about 350 years thereafter, the KJV was a perfectly good version but now, it's been improved upon with the discovery of those manuscripts. I'm also confident there's very little changes of any significant consequence between the KJV and these more accurate, modern versions. |