Don't despair because the Gospel of the Lord Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit can change us.

And you think of, you know, Saul of Tarsus, who was a very angry man before his conversion, violently angry. And the Lord changed him.

Welcome to the Crossway podcast, a show where we sit down with authors each week for thoughtful

interviews about the Bible, theology, church history, and the Christian life. I'm Matt Tully, and today I'm

talking with Christopher Ash. Christopher is a writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England,

and a full-time preacher, speaker, and writer. He's also the author of a number of books, including

The Heart of Anger, How the Bible Transforms

Anger in Our Understanding and Experience, which he co-wrote with Steve Midgley.

Today, Christopher and I discuss why anger is such a powerful, dangerous emotion for the Christian.

He walks through some of the key Bible passages that address the topic of anger, explains how we should think of imperfect, often selfish, human anger compared to God's perfectly righteous anger, and offers advice for the person who struggles to control his or her anger on a regular basis.

Let's get started.

Well, Christopher, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

It's very good to be with you, Matt.

So you have this really powerful line in the opening of your book that just really stood out to me and I think would be really helpful to hear you unpack a little bit more.

So you write, anger is the drawn sword of human relationships.

What do you mean by that?

I guess it was an image that came to me when I was thinking about this.

I mean, it's an old-fashioned image because nobody draws a sword now except on a film set.

But it's the idea that before a sword is used to strike somebody,

somebody has to reach their sword arm, to touch the sword and think about drawing it.

And then they draw the sword.

And then they hold the sword up in the air.

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