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Presence Weekly 9/22/26: Anger, Insults, and the Heart of Darkness

Matthew 5:21–26

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

[The DEVO] Matt 5:21–26: Anger, Insults, and the Heart of Darkness

Following Jesus making it clear that obedience to the Law remains integral to any pursuit of righteousness, He then begins a series of clarifications that must have sounded as though Jesus was intensifying the Law and raising the bar to a point of unattainability.

Everyone listening would have been familiar with the 10 Commandments, which are listed in Exodus 20, and given shortly after the people of God have been rescued from brutal slavery in Egypt and upon arriving at Mt. Sinai.

20 And God spoke all these words, saying,

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” Exodus 20:1–17

After hearing the full content of the Law that the LORD has given Moses, Exodus 24 records that the people respond with, “All that you have said, we will obey.” Forty years of disobedience-fueled wandering in the desert later, Deuteronomy 5:6–21 records Moses repeating the 10 Commandments to the generation about to enter the Promised Land. As referenced repeatedly in this discipleship liturgy, Leviticus 19 also includes a disordered retelling of the Ten Commandments as part of instructions for worship within relational and vocational life.

Through the rest of Matthew 5, Jesus employs a rhetorical “You have heard it said…But I say” device six times that was not only a teaching tool, but was setting Jesus apart from all other teachers. 

Asserting Divinity

First, and most importantly, Jesus is doing something that sets him apart from all other teachers, including any of the Scribes or Pharisees. He is not speaking for God, he is speaking as God. Jesus is making definitive statements about the Law, what constitutes obedience, and the consequence for disobedience.

In the Old Testament, there were, of course, several times where God spoke directly to all the people, but those times often scared the people so much that they begged for a mediator. The Law is given to the people by Moses, who God chose as his mediator. The Old Testament either records that Moses told the people what God had said, or that he began his speech with “Thus says the LORD.” In the same way, throughout the Prophets, God’s chosen mediators of covenant obedience are also presented as being appointed by God to speak for God. Further, God either instructs them, “Go say this to the people” or the Prophets themselves proclaim, “thus says the LORD God of Israel.”

So, when Jesus says, “But I say to you” he is interacting with the Law and the Prophets as the Original Author and not as a commentator. In many ways, Jesus is rearticulating the Law to his listeners and inviting them into a renewed covenant with himself as the True Mediator.

This rhetorical move was not lost on the Scribes and Pharisees in the audience. That’s because Jesus wants their full attention for what he will say at the end of this sermon.

Intensifying the Law

I once heard Pastor John Piper say during a sermon that many of us read our Bibles with one thing on our minds: “Is that a sin? No? Good! I am off to do it.” This is the interpretation and application that Jesus is correcting when he says,

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

The sixth commandment is one that most of us are confident in our ability to successfully navigate through our lives. Last year in the United States, there were 11,271 murders that we know of. If you are reading this, then it’s unlikely you have committed murder. This is also the case for personnel in our armed forces who carry out lawful orders during military campaigns. Police officers who rightly use deadly force are also exempt from the charge of murder.

Last year, the number of people who were angry with or insulted someone was well above 11,271 and probably closer to 322 million, which just happens to be the number of people age five or older. That number, of course, includes Christians. 

In his intensification, Jesus is moving from the external to the internal. Murder is an action. The life of a person created in the image of God is ended by violence. There may or may not be witnesses. There may or may not be a body. The murderer may or may not be caught. However, it is always the case that in murder, the unLAWful killing of an individual has occurred.

Anger, however, is an internal, unseen affection of the heart. It can be hidden from everyone while taking center stage in your mind. Because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt 12:34), hurling insults at the object of your hatred, whether to their face or, more often, to third parties, is typically unavoidable. Jesus clarifies that despite maintaining a public appearance of righteousness by refraining from murder, external action is not the only measurement of obedience. The intensification Jesus makes is neither the penalty nor the mechanism that adjudicates it. Instead the intensification comes from what constitutes a violation. 

For those serving and leading in the public square, and Christians discussing the servants and leaders in the public square, what Jesus says about anger and insult is devastating to our self-assessment. Social media is ready to amplify the distortions of our heart by providing a feedback loop of encouragement from like-minded individuals.

Subordinating Ethics

Let’s be clear. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing less than an articulation of the ethics that lead to happiness, flourishing, and the good life. But saying that it is nothing less is different than saying it is only.

The rhetorical device “You have heard it said…But I say” offers a clear differentiation from Greek virtue ethics, championed by Aristotle, which were becoming increasingly well-known in the decades prior to the arrival of Jesus in Greek-influenced Jerusalem. In subordinating practiced behavior, and even character formation, to the desires of the heart, Jesus is also moving beyond ethics to affections. Therefore, according to Jesus, any evaluation of the righteousness of servants and leaders in the public square will always be woefully incomplete because it cannot include an assessment of the heart. Further, Jesus is asserting that happiness, flourishing, and the good life cannot be truly experienced without a heart that is focused on worshipping God.

Implicating Anger in Relationships

Jesus cares about relationships. The fact that Jesus uses the word brother four times in this brief passage makes it clear that Jesus is addressing the importance of relationships and at the heart of Jesus’s concern is reconciliation. One thing to notice about this passage is that it is the flip side of the coin to another, more frequently cited passage on restoration of relationships.

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matt 18:15–20

Given later in Jesus’ ministry, this sermon focuses on the importance of confronting someone else with their sin, specifically by the offended party. There are clear guidelines given for how to proceed that start with actually going to the person and laying out their offense. Perhaps the reason this passage is more familiar is that it focuses on the offended person going to the offender and saying, “You hurt me.”

In Matthew 5, the goal is still relational repair through a reconciliation process. However, here Jesus is asking the individual who wonders if another person is upset with them, to go and ask, “Are you upset with me? Have I offended you?” In other words, it is not okay to assume or wonder if someone else is upset with you. The responsibility is on the wonderer to initiate reconciliation, which may include the other party detailing just what you did wrong.

Implicating Anger in Worship

During a conversation with our Chief of Staff recently, I was cataloguing the reasons a particular non-profit leader has rubbed me the wrong way for several years. After hearing me out, she said, “Well, what does the Bible say about allowing people to live rent-free in your head?” Those were words on target. The correction was, in fact, a call to repentance. When we are perpetually allocating brain-space to the contemplation of our dislike for someone, especially a professing Christian, we are violating one of the chief imperatives of worship.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deut 6:4–5

For servants and leaders in the public square, it is important not to collapse the meaning of worship into what happens on Sunday morning. The Old Testament uses the word avodah for both work and worship. In Genesis 2:15, we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it (avodah) and keep it.” Then in Exodus 3:12, the LORD tells Moses, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve/worship (avodah) God on this mountain.” 

This connection between work and worship is captured by Paul in Colossians, 

23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Col 3:23–24

So here, Jesus is also elevating gathered worship by instructing his hearers to come into worship reconciled in their relationships, including work relationships. If harboring anger against a brother or sister in Christ necessarily makes it impossible for us to devote our whole heart to the object of its proper affection, then interrupting our worship, including our work, to reconcile a relationship is necessary for us to avoid hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is exactly the point Jesus alludes to when he says, “Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny” — a point he will make very clear when he attaches the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant to Matthew 18’s discussion of reconciliation. Anger, therefore, not only hinders our worship in this life but has the potential to make it impossible in the life to come when one becomes “liable to the hell of fire.”

 

Application Questions:
  1. Who occupies rent-free space in your head right now — and what does the honest inventory of your anger toward them reveal that your outward conduct toward them conceals?
  2. Matthew 18 asks the offended party to initiate. Matthew 5 asks the one who wonders whether they have offended to initiate. Is there someone you have quietly wondered about — and what has kept you from asking?

 

Faithful Prayer:
  • Cabinet Agency: Servants and leaders at the Environmental Protection Agency as they work to protect human health and the environment, including action on current hot topics such as PFAS and datacenters. 
  • Think Tank, Lobby group, NGO: Servants and leaders at both the Data Center Coalition and the Stop Data Centers Coalition, who are pursuing divergent agendas related to the growing initiative to build data centers, and are frequently interacting with servants and leaders at the EPA, Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior. 
  • Weekly delegation: Servants and leaders of the congressional delegation of Texas, which currently has over 600 data center projects planned or underway. 
  • News events: Servants and leaders in the EPA and HHS advancing a comprehensive, lifecycle-based strategy to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As part of that strategy, EPA is highlighting innovative PFAS treatment and destruction technologies, announcing nearly $1 billion in new funding to states to address PFAS in drinking water, and issuing two proposed rules for public comment that uphold the National Primary Drinking Water Standards for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) while enhancing practical implementation and proposing to correct potential failures of the Biden-Harris Administration to follow the clear requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Together with EPA’s parallel work to address PFAS before it enters the environment, EPA is delivering real solutions to reduce PFAS exposure for Americans.
  • Personal requests: For a senior staffer whose year-long work on important legislation was rejected last week in a floor vote (Thankfully, the LORD received all their work as meaningful worship!). For two couples navigating pregnancy and two others hoping to conceive. For a diplomat and their family serving in a high-profile posting. For someone experiencing vocational overwhelm. For someone re-engaging therapy. For a staffer who was on the receiving end of an intraoffice scheme to undermine them.

 

The Page, Pod, Stack:

 

What’s Happening:

This Week:

    • Tuesday, Sep 22, 2026 | 6:30pm – 8:00pm  ET, the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown hosts Protecting the Vote: A Conversation on Faith, Democracy & the 2026 Election for a timely public conversation on the challenges facing the 2026 election and the role faith leaders and communities of conscience can play in safeguarding democracy. 
    • Wednesday, Sep 23, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Hudson Institute and Tablet Magazine for an exclusive live recording of What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead. Mead, the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship, and his cohost Jeremy Stern, editor in chief of Colossus, will bring their wide-ranging perspectives to help make sense of the news and understand the most consequential developments in American politics and world affairs.
    • Wednesday, Sep 23, 1:00 – 2:15 PM ET, the Center for American Progress hosts a hybrid event, Down to the Roots: Building Rural Policy Around Rural Needs. This event will explore what it means to invest in rural communities on their own terms and build a rural policy agenda rooted in resilience, opportunity, and shared prosperity.
    • Friday, Sep 25, 12:00 – 1:00 PM the Roosevelt Institute hosts an online event, Fall Policy Summit: The Good Life Agenda & Our Intergenerational Community of Doers. 
  • The National Museum of African American History and Culture announces “The Reunion” a Multi-Day Celebration Marking Its 10th Anniversary September 24–27. Free and ticketed events will take place both at The Wharf and the museum itself. The milestone presents an opportunity to discover the wealth of Black history, heritage and culture across DC by visiting historic landmarks from Shaw to Anacostia, savoring delicacies from Black chefs and Black-owned restaurants and supporting Black-owned businesses throughout the District.

Next Week: 

  • Monday, Sep 28, 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT, The Bi-Partisan Policy Center hosts a hybrid event, What the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Means for HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program. The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is one of the most important tools for helping low-income families afford housing—yet administrative challenges hinder its success. The landmark 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act makes important changes to streamline the program’s inspections process and increase housing provider participation, ultimately expanding housing choice and opportunity for renters. Join the Bipartisan Policy Center for a timely conversation with experts about Congress’ recent reforms, implementation, and the future of the HCV program.
  • Wednesday, Sep 30,  2:00 PM – 6:15 PM ET, AEI presents a hybrid event, Radical Grace: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Bob Woodson. For over 40 years, Robert “Bob” L. Woodson Sr. pioneered a movement to empower people to become agents of their own uplift. A civil rights leader and former AEI senior fellow, Mr. Woodson held a stalwart hope for the promise of America and the potential for individuals to transform their communities. His efforts renewed a respect for the institutions that lead to human triumph. Please join the American Enterprise Institute for an afternoon honoring his legacy. 
  • Wednesday, Sep 30, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET, Rand presents an online event, The State of Psychedelics in America. Interest in psychedelics is growing across the country—from lawmakers and researchers to veterans, patients, and other members of the public. As policies begin to shift, key questions remain about how these substances are used, how Americans view them, and what psychedelics policy might look like. In this Policy Lab, RAND’s Beau Kilmer breaks down the latest evidence from his research, including a new report on veterans’ psychedelic use.
  • OktoberFest at the Wharf is Saturday, October 3. Put on your dirndl or lederhosen, grab your Dachshund and join great folks for a free Oktoberfest at The Wharf festivities on Saturday, October 3, 2026

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