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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is the Bama podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today I'm with Reed Dent to talk about wrath.
- [00:13]
B
That's right. Wrath will be. Well, we'll probably be interchanging wrath and anger throughout. So just fair warning to everybody. So I work at a campus ministry and last fall we were doing an appreciation party banquet thing for our leaders and just a little bit of backstory. A year ago, Derek and I switched places as director and discipleship minister, so I took over. And so we made a joke out of this at the banquet where Brooke Barnes shout out to one of our women's ministers. She's fantastic. She also does a lot of music. She and I did a cover of the song Goodbye Earl by the Chicks. You know the song, Brent?
- [00:53]
A
I am familiar with it, but I don't think I could sing it. I'm not sure I know the melody.
- [00:59]
B
It's like the na na na na na na na Goodbye, Earl.
- [01:07]
A
Okay, I don't think I've actually heard it.
- [01:08]
B
Okay. Well, it's this funny, morbid song about this guy is like domestically abusive and then his wife murders him. And it's. I just. I was. We made a joke out of it. And it occurred to me that oftentimes revenge is just really delightful. And there's this great lyric where they poison Earl with these poison black eyed peas. And she's. She sings, you feeling weak? Why don't you lay down and sleep, Earl? Ain't it dark wrapped up in that tarp, Earl? And it's just funny. And I was like, are we going to be able to sing this, like, at the party? Is this like over the line in some way? I was like, no, people love revenge. Like, of course we're going to. We're going to do this. Yeah. And it was a huge hit. Everybody loved it. And that brings us to our daily beak, who writes this about anger? He says, of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue, the prospect of bitter confrontation still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back. In many ways, it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. I think once again, I just. I feel like these episodes could all be 60 seconds long where we just finish with our daily beer. I hope people are getting a Sense of, like, why he is so great, why I love him so much. He's just the best. I want to change up our format a little bit this time. So we are some vices in at this point. And part of our conversation each time is the text conversation where we're picking up just a little bit of scripture and seeing how that informs the way that we understand what these vices are. And normally that comes a little bit further into the episode. But I actually wanted to start with the text conversation this time because wrath or anger, it's the vice that biblically speaking, is not always obviously a vice, because, you know, the wrath of God is like a thing that we talk about because God is angry. God isn't gluttonous or lustful or slothful, as far as my memory is recollecting in the scripture. But anger is definitely there, right? We're talking out of both sides of our mouths a little bit when we talk about anger, because we talk about how it's sort of a sin in man, but it's. There's something righteous about it in God. And I realized that that can be kind of confusing then with how are we supposed to understand it as a vice, as something like, what is our relationship to anger meant to be?
- [03:54]
A
I feel like I've heard that a little bit from either direction. Like, sometimes it's like, well, it's sinful in man, but God can be righteously angry. But only God can be righteously angry. But then I've heard other conversations where it's like, well, God's anger is righteous because it's God. And so if we're going to be angry, then we want to aspire to be angry in the same way that God is angry so that our anger can be righteous.
- [04:21]
B
Totally. And actually you're keying into part of just what the. You know, we talked about the desert fathers and some of the monks and their part in developing this tradition of the vices. And there were definitely different voices in that conversation when it came to exactly what you're talking about. Whereas, like, is this something that we ought to try to channel? Because it. It does. I think actually my. My thought is this is maybe one of the more helpful would be vices, anger, when it's properly channeled, because it really does. It can spur us to justice. That justice is at the heart of what wrath is about. But wrath becomes a distorted way of trying to get. But then others said, no, you know, this is like, so potentially destructive. And there is something fun and delicious about Revenge and wrath, that we ought to avoid it at all costs. And there are, you know, parts of the Bible that there's, you know, anger does not produce the righteousness of God. Right. That's in James or in Ephesians, Paul writes that all anger should just be removed from you. And I think it's tricky because we typically, I think, think about anger as, quote, unquote, a negative emotion. But I don't know that that is the best way of thinking about it. Not a conversation I was planning on having in this episode, but I think it makes sense to have it here just a little bit. My wife's a counselor and she talks about how, like, emotions and anger is definitely an emotion. Emotions aren't negative or positive. Maybe it's better to think about them as comfortable and uncomfortable. And for some of us, anger is a very uncomfortable emotion. For some of us, it's a very comfortable emotion. Actually, we want to indulge it a little too much. But the thing is to recognize what is it being channeled at? When is it being channeled? Is that appropriate or not? That's something we'll get into in a little bit. But I wanted to start here with the biblical conversation just so that that, like. Yeah, but sort of mental block isn't hanging around nagging us in the back of our minds for this entire conversation, because what do we say about the anger of God? So my foundational text when it comes to thinking about the anger of God is Exodus 34. 6. This is one of my most foundational texts for all of my own thinking and living. I'm sure listeners will be familiar. This is where Moses is on the mountain and God is passing by, and God is going to declare his name to Moses, and this is what he said. Brent, can you go ahead and read that?
- [06:55]
A
The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
- [07:16]
B
Okay, so I just want to observe a few things from this and also from other places in the Hebrew scriptures about the anger of God. First of all, it's kind of an interesting idiom. The word angry is actually like, if you just literally translated it, it's like the nose burned hot. If your nose burns hot, that is getting angry. And that kind of Bible project has a video on this, by the way. But if you if you think about it, you know, when you start to get really angry and you feel like your face getting flush and you can feel actually your face getting hotter, the nose gets hot. That is their expression for anger. And so to be slow to anger, literally it's long of nose. God has a long nose, which, you know, if your nose is like further out from your face, then it takes longer, you know, for, I guess that heat to so, so it's slow to heat up is kind of a way of talking about it. And I think that's the, the first thing to note here is that, and this is attested to other places is that when we're talking about the anger of God, it is slow, it's difficult to arouse it. And earlier I think I said that God is angry. And actually I sort of intentionally misspoke there. It's not that God is angry. This is an important distinction. It's that God gets angry. Angry. God's anger can be occasioned, it can be aroused. But God is not just walking around as an angry God just waiting to go off at whatever happens to irritate him next or offend him next. And I mean, I think if you just think in your own lives about the difference, if you have anybody that comes to mind, it's like, oh, that's an angry person. There's a difference between that like, or like, if you think about your parents, you know, like, I could make my parents mad. Of course, that doesn't mean that like I have an angry father, you know, or an angry mom. And so it is difficult to arouse it. That's one thing. And to think then a little further down that path of questioning, what is it that actually occasions God's anger in the scripture? I did not do a comprehensive study of every single spot where God gets angry in the Bible, although in a, like a sort of survey, I noted that it wasn't quite as prevalent as I thought it was going to be. Sometimes I think we have this picture of God in our minds that's like every other page. God is getting mad about something. And I don't think that that's what the scripture actually attests and what occasions God's anger. I don't think it's just simple like misbehavior or, and I'm not condoning misbehavior, right, or, or like doing the, you know, growing up in youth group, like sex, drugs and rock and roll. That's like God's going to be mad at you kind of thing. The there are two things that I see when I look at where the word anger and God, like where it shows up. So like in Deuteronomy, in the first chapter we get mention. And this maybe is. No, it's not. There's a mention in Leviticus, but mention of God getting angry is because of the Israelites ongoing failure to trust God through the wilderness. And God gets angry about that. And not just that they're having a hard time trusting, but you know how they're kind of constantly grumbling and saying things like, man, it would be better if we were dead.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah.
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B
Which understandably is like, I'm trying to free you. I'm trying to bring you into a new way of being and a new nation of people. And you're saying you'd rather be dead. So like God is. I think it would be like a just lame picture of God if it was so flat and two dimensional that like God never actually felt angry. And so anyway, this failure to trust God there, or even like begrudging God's actual kindness to them is something that God expresses anger about. And then the other one, and you see this a lot in the prophets, is a failure to do justice, meaning to actually take care of the poor, the vulnerable. And not even just failing to take care, but also exploiting them, is something that we see the nation doing in the prophets. And this is something that the prophets get heated about. And by extension, like we're to understand that God is heated about this. And so more than it maybe is a. Maybe we're being lulled into a comfortable but like deceived place in thinking that like, oh, well, if I just don't do morally bad things, then God like would never be mad at me. And we use that as a reason to like ignore the justice that we are failing to do. And we're not actually seeing like there is an anger going on here that we're not aware of. But this is what the scripture attests to. So again, God is slow to be aroused to anger. And that when he is, it is like there is a failure to trust God and like an active sort of slandering of God as God is trying to, you know, provide and rescue and all that. And, and then also a failure to do justice for the vulnerable in the community. That is what God gets angry about. I think there's a picture of the anger of God sometimes, Brent, that we have that's like God just is walking around feeling a lot of importance for his own dignity. And if you like offend his Dignity somehow. Then he gets really mad at you. As if God were kind of petty or as if God had this need to like, avenge his own just dignity for the sake of itself. And that's not what I see when I'm looking at these passages where we're seeing that God is getting angry.
- [13:01]
A
Yeah. As if he demands total and complete perfection in all of our actions all the time. And he's ready to snap if we do anything off path.
- [13:10]
B
Right, Right. No, not at all. There's a passage in Jose we're going to get to in just a minute where I think it's a helpful illustration of this. So another thing to note, beyond the fact that God's anger is hard to rouse and that it's slow, is that it's disproportionately small or it's disproportionately short in its. In duration. So there's the episode, the teaching that Marty has that is great about the thousand to three ratio which is coming from this passage in Exodus 34. And the point that's being made is that God shows love and kindness and faithfulness and slow to anger for thousands to thousands, thousands of generations. But. And those who want to bring up the. Yeah, but he does doesn't leave the guilty unpunished. He does punish. Okay. And it's to the third and fourth generation. And so it's disproportionate. It's not like there is an equal measure going on a scale of balance between God's loving kindness and God's anger. Those don't exist in like a perfect symmetry. Or think about, like Psalm 30, that verse that I think a lot of people are familiar with where it says his anger is for a moment, but his delight, his pleasure in us and his people is for a lifetime. Or I think about this in Isaiah 57. You know, Isaiah's like the. The people are. There's critique going on for some of the things that we already talked about. And then in Isaiah 57, we get this. Brent, can you read that?
- [14:39]
A
For this is what the high and exalted one says. He who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
- [14:54]
B
Sorry, can I stop you there for just a second? I just want to point out that we see sometimes what lends itself to thinking of God as an angry God is, as you said, this notion that, like God's holiness compels him to be angry with anything that is not holy or that is sinful or whatever. But I just want to note that in here, the phrase you just read that God is high and holy. This is where God is. But God is also down low with those who are contrite and with those who are lowly. So it's a both and it's. He is down at low altitudes, low elevations, with those of us who are like, struggling along in our various ways. And God is also high and holy. Okay, so this is part of the outworking of this high and holy, but also contrite and lowly. Ooh, that's a nice little rhyme. The way that works itself out is in this next verse. Go ahead.
- [15:53]
A
In verse 16, I will not accuse them forever, nor will I always be angry, for then they would faint away because of me. The very people I have created. I was enraged by their sinful greed. I punished them and hid my face in anger. Yet they kept on in their willful ways. I have seen their ways, but I will heal them. I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel's mourners, creating praise on their lips.
- [16:19]
B
So the anger because of this high and low God says, I won't accuse them forever. I won't always be angry because if I did, they would just be wiped away. They would. Would cease to be. They would faint because. And. And these are the people that I have created, though. And yes, I was enraged by their greed, which is a kind of injustice. And I punished them. And they kept on and I punished them. And yet also I will heal them. I have seen their ways, but I will heal them. So I. I see that, like what they're doing is something that's like making me mad. But I feel as their gracious Creator, that what I want to do is heal them. This reminds me of Psalm 103, where the Psalmist is talking about how we are dust. There is something that is frail and given to just wasting away within us. It says, so as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. And so there is something about the condition that caused the very condition that causes us to. To stumble and to fall and to fail that compels God actually to be compassionate to us. Even as, of course, like he feels anger, his anger is aroused when we're not being what we are called to be. And yet still, like what wins out at the end is a kind of healing, compassion. And that's the last thing that I want to say about God's anger. Actually, the third thing is that it's aim is restoration. God's anger. The point of it is not to punish for the sake of punishment or to punish for the sake of just letting somebody know how bad what they did was. That's actually what the vice of wrath becomes. But God's aim is restoration. And this makes me think of Hosea is another text that comes to mind, I think, in the anger and wrath conversation, where even in the first or in the second chapter, the first few chapters, the situation's being laid out and we have a picture of the people who are going after all of these other lovers and they are spurning God. They're walking away from God and God says, okay, they're walking away towards all these other people. I'm going to block her path with thorn bushes. This actually reminds me of, you remember doing this in Israel with Marty, where we had to. He. He like walked us off the path and through this briar patch of like just very thorny bushes. And I'm like wearing shorts, as a lot of us are, because it's in the desert. You're getting all scratched up, you know. But the whole point of that is, hey, dummy, you went off the path. Like, it'll go better for you if you go back. But God is willing to like put that obstacle in our way. That is, I think, kind of a function of his frustration, a function even of his anger. But the point is that the people she. We would stop chasing after all these other things that are destructive, not just making God angry, but they're bad for us and that we would return. And again, one of the most beautiful passages of scripture to me is Hosea 11, where God is remembering how like a child, the metaphor shifts, right? So it shifts from Israel being like the lover of God to the child of God. And he's like reminiscing as parents who are listening will. If your kids are grown a little bit, like you have this way of like remembering when you held your child's hand and taught them how to toddle, as they're like learning to walk, right? Or you taught them how to like write their own name or all of these things, or you're teaching them language, you're teaching them things that are so just sweet and precious when we teach them to little children. And God is remembering that. But now they've grown and they've walked away and he's like, that's it. I'm going to let you go. The way of the sword is coming for you and you're just going to, like, meet your end. But then, then he says what to me is like one of the. Just one of the most real, raw, like, full of heart, honest confessions of the heart of God that we get. And it's this. Can you read these verses from 8 through 11 in Hosea Brent?
- [20:40]
A
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over Israel? How can I treat you like Adma? How can I make you like Zeboyim? My heart is changed within me. All my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One among you. I will not come against their cities.
- [21:05]
B
Let me stop you there for a second. I just want to point out that God is drawing a distinction between being God and being man and God's holiness and man's not holiness. Here I am the Holy One among you. He says, I am God. I'm not a man. But far from being a reason to execute his righteous anger on them, what is the defining characteristic of being God here and not a man is that he is not carrying out his fierce anger. He's not doing the devastating thing right? It's not that he doesn't have anger about it, but that what is his Godness here, what is his holiness is that he decides to lean into compassion and mercy. Because what would men do? Men in their wrathful state, they're the ones who are going to carry out their fierce anger, but because God has a perspective. And this is why I think the parent metaphor is so helpful, because especially as kids get older, they can drive you crazy and they can offend, not just drive you crazy, like annoy you, but they can do things that deeply, they. They gain the ability to deeply hurt you and cut you with like their words and their actions. And yet, because you know that they are yours and they are your children, it's, I'm so angry and yet how could I give you up? And God's heart starts to change within him and his compassion is aroused and he decides not to carry out. So that. Let's get the last couple of verses here, Brent.
- [22:35]
A
They will follow the Lord. He will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come from Egypt trembling like sparrows from Assyria, fluttering like doves. I will settle them in their homes, declares the Lord.
- [22:51]
B
It's restorative. The point is, I'm going to roar like a lion and you are going to tremble, but you're coming home in your trembling and I'm going to settle you where you belong.
- [23:03]
A
Yeah, I see it a little bit in these Hosea passages and also in the Isaiah 57. Like, I have seen their ways, but I will heal them. There's this image of God that I grew up with as far as God's wrath, where he's like, bound to this thing where something has happened. And like, well, God has to bring justice to this situation. And not in a restorative way, but in a. Like, he has to work against that. He can't. He can't be in the presence of whatever. And it's like, no. Like, God is more powerful than that. He is not bound by anything. It's just amazing how. And it's so clearly here in the text. It's amazing that my view of God was so limited. I was trying to limit God. And these passages are like, no, like, I'm not like men. I'm bigger than that. I'm not bound by anger. I'm not bound by some, like, greater moral law. Like, I created the universe. I can be compassionate.
- [24:08]
B
Yes, I agree. Sometimes we talk about justice and the punishment of sin as if it were a system that is greater than God.
- [24:18]
A
Yeah.
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B
And that God is like, well, I'd like to help you, but my hands are tied.
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A
Right.
- [24:23]
B
And I think what is true, and this is a philosophical statement, but that. But God is bound by nothing other than his own self. But what I think is important to point out here is that what you see is at the very core of God's self is this heart that is compassionate. Is this love that is for his children that, you know. Yes. Like, in many ways disapproves and even like condemns these things that they are doing, but this fierce determination to bring them back.
- [24:57]
A
Yeah. And this is not to say that God is inconsistent. It's like, oh, well, he wants to be compassionate, but then sometimes he just like, bubbles over.
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B
Yeah.
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A
It's like, no, God is consistently compassionate, but he acts when he needs to, but he's not going to act. Like, if there's any way that he can avoid that road, like, he wants to restore, no matter what, he will use wrath to bring about restoration. I love this next thing that you have in the document here. I think maybe that's where you're going.
- [25:28]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, so what this is reminding me of, gosh, there's so many things. But I know I'm just going to save it for another time because we'll talk for way too long. There is a great line in George MacDonald. He has this incredible sermon that is called Justification and he says God is not obliged to punish sin, he is obliged to destroy it. And I think this gets into a lot of theological issues that I. I'm not trying to parse them all out here, but I think are actually really important when it comes to do we think of sin purely in terms of like the wrong that we do and that we are the bad guy, we are the enemy of God and that God is bound to like punish us because of some greater than God cosmic system of justice? Or is sin something that we are actually held captive by? That we, I mean, read Romans chapter 7 and Paul talking about how he finds in himself this other thing at work where he's doing what he doesn't want to do. Right. It's almost like he's been kidnapped or taken prisoner or made a slave. And that thing that is sin, that rules over him and us, that is the thing that God is bound to destroy. And so my kind of tagline or my go to what I tell people that I deeply down believe about the wrath of God is that God's wrath destroys what destroys the beloved. So it begs the question, who is the beloved? This is a tricky question, but I would answer it well. We all are the beloved. He, even those of us who are sinners, you know, as to use the old word. But that's everybody. We are all the beloved. And God's wrath destroys not the beloved, but it destroys what destroys the beloved. There are all kinds of things that we do to ourselves that we do to one another that are completely destructive to ourselves as people, as image bearers. And of course God's wrath flares up at that. But God, and maybe only God is able to properly parse and work in mysterious ways so that at the end what's being sought after and I think what is achieved is that God's wrath destroys that stuff and it preserves. I mean, this is the nature of how I think it works. God's wrath destroys what destroys the beloved and our wrath just destroys the beloved.
- [27:56]
A
Yeah.
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B
Maybe what we want to destroy is like that thing, that destructive thing that this beloved of God is doing, but we're willing to take as collateral damage like the destruction of this other person.
- [28:05]
A
Yeah.
- [28:06]
B
If it makes things how we think.
- [28:08]
A
They should be sooner, easier.
- [28:10]
B
Yeah.
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A
Like we'll take the shortcut. God doesn't take shortcuts.
- [28:14]
B
I want to talk for a second about angry Jesus. I think a lot of us think about angry Jesus as table flipping Jesus, But I want to talk about a different angry Jesus from Mark, chapter three. Brent, can you read these six verses here?
- [28:27]
A
Another time, Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath? To do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
- [29:11]
B
Rebecca DeYoung points this out in her book Glittering Vices that Mark, as we know, is kind of a stark or sparse gospel. Like, there's not a lot of narrative embellishment or flourish in the Gospel of Mark, but here for most of a verse, the gospel writer in verse five decides to actually elaborate on what is the internal. Internal emotional state of Jesus. So can you read just that first part of verse five again, Brent?
- [29:44]
A
He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, stretch out your hand.
- [29:52]
B
Yeah. So here is Jesus both angry and deeply distressed. And what is making him angry?
- [29:59]
A
The fact that they cannot bring themselves to say it's better to do good.
- [30:03]
B
Yeah, they can't answer a simple question, right? Is it better to save life or to kill? And they won't offer an answer. Why? Because, I mean, they don't care about this guy. They have an agenda to trap Jesus. They want to accuse him, and they are willing to use this guy as, like, a prop to that end. And so Jesus is like, all right, you want to play this game, let's play it. Stand up. And then he asked them the question they can't answer. And so what Jesus is angry about is, again, a kind of a lack of justice. The fact that these Pharisees are these Pharisees, actually.
- [30:43]
A
Well, yeah. It says then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. So that makes it sound like it was Pharisees inside, Herodians outside.
- [30:52]
B
Okay.
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A
But earlier it says some of them were looking for A reason to accuse Jesus. So I don't know. One other thing I find interesting here is the language. And I'd be curious to know what the Greek actually says here. But the man stretches out his hand, and his hand was completely restored, which makes me think, like, oh, Jesus's anger made him do more than he needed to do. He could have just made the hand functional again or something. But no, he made it look like nothing had ever happened. It was completely restored.
- [31:25]
B
Yeah, I love that thought. I love the thought that Jesus is just like, all right, stand up. What do you guys think? Which is better, good or bad? Is it better to be good or better to be bad? And they're like. And he's like, that's it. Stretch out your hand.
- [31:40]
A
You were telling me a story about your son earlier, before we started recording, about how he got his toe smashed up.
- [31:46]
B
Yes.
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A
It's like the toe is mostly fine, but still looks a little funny.
- [31:50]
B
Totally. The nail does not grow right. It doesn't look right. But again, as his doctor said, at least it was his toe and not his nose.
- [31:56]
A
And Jesus totally could have done a situation like that, and this guy would have been thrilled. Like, they would have probably changed this guy's life and how he functioned, how he moved about in the world, possibly how he was able to worship all sorts of things. But no, completely restored. It's like the righteous anger brings about total restoration.
- [32:18]
B
If Jesus and God were not fundamentally moved by compassion, if that were not the thing that were at the root, I don't know that the anger would come like it does. But I. I think that it is that. That the compassion is the root. And I think Rebecca DeYoung actually says this. I don't have it quoted here, but something like compassion is at the root, and justice, biblical, true justice is the object. That's where proper anger kind of finds its expression. Does that make sense? Like Jesus, compassion for this man, and I think also for the Pharisees, too. I think there is a compassion for them that's like, gosh dang it. Like, don't you get it? You know, this is an easy question. I'm giving you a softball here. But your. Whatever it is in you is blinding you to what God is trying to do in the world. Like, God is trying to do good. He's trying to save life. You're willing to turn that upside down because of whatever these regulations are that you've put in place. And again, not to trash them. Like, we've talked before about, you know, the. The concern of The Pharisee is actually deep down wanting to be faithful to the scriptures. And they've just put this big hedge around them. They don't want to mess it up, you know. But this fear of messing it up has crept in. Jesus is getting frustrated because he's like, ah, now this guy is paying the price. You would rather him sit here with a messed up hand? You would rather sit here being somebody who's still on the outside of the society because of this devotion to these things, these regulations, and not like there's. There's no compassion present.
- [33:53]
A
Deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.
- [33:56]
B
Deeply distressed. He is angry and deeply distressed because they are stubbornly, like, refusing to see this person as a person.
- [34:06]
A
Yeah, but I see the compassion for them in that moment. It's like, ugh, why are you guys making this so difficult? He wants them to get it.
- [34:13]
B
What if he just said angry? What if he was just. I'm mad.
- [34:16]
A
Yep.
- [34:16]
B
But I'm glad you pointed that out, because what he feels deep down is distress, like, because of his compassion for both the Pharisees and this man with the. With the shriveled hand. I hope that that helps paint a picture of what is a nuanced, like, grounded, lived kind of, you know, anger of God trying to take it out of the sphere of being. Just like this cold calculus of, like, sin and wrath and just purely like kind of abstract theological ideas to seeing, you know, it's interesting how very anthropomorphized it becomes when we're speaking of the anger of God. Like, so I want to just talk then for a little bit about, like, us and our dealings with wrath or anger as a vice. So we've already alluded to this, but, you know, each of the weeks we're talking about with these vices, like, what is it that there is a genuine desire for? We want something good that gets distorted and it becomes kind of total and it messes everything up and that with wrath or anger. I think definitely it's a desire for justice. We want fairness, we want rightness, we want goodness. And of course this is good. And something that is worth fighting for and even something that is worth getting angry about when there is injustice. But what happens with the vice is when it gets distorted into a desire for revenge and we lose sight of the issue of, like, whatever the particular injustice is. And instead it becomes just about injuring, bringing some kind of injury, not necessarily physical injury, but some kind of injury to whoever we perceive the perpetrator to be. I think ultimately, like, what happens is Anger as a vice makes you care more about punishment for the wrongdoer, then you care about justice for the victim. And also it. We talked about vice as like a habitual thing. It's something that's become ingrained. And I think that wrath as a vice, it kind of just becomes a disposition towards just getting even. Like where everything is a cold calculus and has to be fair, and when it's not, you're just ready to go off. And then what happens is this obsession with getting even becomes about way more than getting even. I'm thinking of the story of Lamech in the Canaan Abel genealogy, where Lamech stands up in this weird interjection into this genealogy. And you get this little tiny, you know, pericope about Lamech, where he stands up and he's bragging to his wives about, you know, what a man he is. And here's what he says. Give it to us.
- [37:06]
A
Brent, Ada and Zillah. Listen to me, wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged 7 times, then Lamech 77 times.
- [37:20]
B
This is the Steve Holt moment, like from Arrested Development. Like, he's. I picture him finishing this speech and going, l fist in the air. Anyway, he's bragging about, I killed a man who wounded me. And actually, even more than that, a boy is who. This is a young man, a boy, basically, for slapping me, but I killed him. This is somebody given to wrath, who it becomes like, when the sole focus is not justice. It's your own sense of dignity or your own sense of entitlement that gets offended. And now you're going to go overboard trying to make everything, you know, the way that you think it ought to be, you know, quote unquote, even, which of course is not even. It's helpful to break down how it goes off the tracks with us if we are people, you know, if anybody is a listener who's maybe kind of given to anger or to wrath, to dissect it a little bit, look at some of the parts, and maybe if we understand a little bit more, we might get a little bit more of a handle over it. And this is like talking about, again, the distinction between somebody who gets angry and somebody who is an angry person. And so, like, people given to wrath are the type that we would call more angry people. And I just want to say, too, if what you're imagining is somebody who just goes around yelling at everybody all the time, that is not the only way that this Vice manifests itself. You can be perfectly polite and pleasant. Right. But going around harboring a sort of cold anger that maybe people aren't aware of, but that is actually eating you up from the inside out, where you're constantly seeing everybody as just an obstacle or an annoyance or somebody who is harming you in some way. Okay. So I think we need to ask ourselves if we are getting angry about the wrong things, first of all. Like, some of us and Aquinas wrote about this, actually, but where there's no real injury involved, but we perceive offense. So, like, if you've ever waited a long time for your food or for anything, waiting in lines will really bring it out of. People recently had an experience at Glacier national park where it was like, oh, man, we are. We are all being our truest selves right now because we've been waiting in line for the shuttle for two hours, and it is not pretty.
- [39:38]
A
Yeah.
- [39:38]
B
But you start to perceive it as an offense against you, right. That, like, somebody is doing, like, this shuttle driver is out to get me right now.
- [39:47]
A
Yeah. As if he drove by and like, oh, I don't like those people. I'm gonna make them wait.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah, exactly. And nothing has even actually been done wrong to you. You're just having to wait. Right. And so this is something that you're getting really angry about, but it's actually not something that's worth or justifiable to get angry about. Like, you can be annoyed, you know, but when you start to really feel that sort of seething anger deep down is like, oh, we're in vice territory here. Another thing that happens is, like, in being angry about the wrong thing, is that when we assume somebody else's motivations, like, they don't actually intend ill towards us, but we perceive that they're being malicious to us. So, like, a classic example is, like, you get cut off in traffic, and if you're somebody who's like, that person did this to me to, like, spite me. Well, maybe. I don't know, maybe they didn't see you there. Or maybe they're, like, trying to get to the hospital because they got a sick kid in the back or something. Like, you don't know what it is. Right. But the vice of anger makes you see or perceive that people are being malicious to you when that's not actually the case, so it's not justified. And I think in these things, what's really at play deep down is, like, this corrupting, overinflated sense of self where our main concern going through our Days at work, at school, with our families. Our main concern is like what we are entitled to or what we are owed or how we have been hurt. And we sort of have a scope kind of trained all the time on our own woundedness. And that scope is just way too narrow. Like we're not actually seeing things for the whole that they are. And things get blown out of proportion. We get angry. Another way that it goes off the tracks is not just we get angry about the wrong things, but we direct our anger at the wrong people usually. So like the customer service representative, right? When you've had it up to here with, I don't know, T mobile, right? They have been taking your money and too much of your money for the longest time and you're now like, you're bubbling over with anger. And the customer service rep gets on the phone and you're like, well, sorry, not your day, but I'm going to let you have it, you know. And so we get into vicious anger territory when we can't stop ourselves from like lashing out. And again, this is not necessarily yelling. Like, maybe you're just being really rude and cutting to these people, but you're directing it at, at the wrong person. And then the third way that like we end up in vicious anger territory is when we express that anger in a way that's just inappropriate or inordinate. And what I mean is like, maybe we're just too easily angered. I'm kind of already into our self examination questions here for those of you who are expecting them at the end. But I think it's worth asking, like, what does it take to get me angry? Is my default disposition irritable? And then what are the consequences of that for the people who have to live with me every day? And so maybe we're too easily angered or we're angered like too much. Like we express it way more than is actually needed in this moment where, I don't know, I'm like yelling at, oh my gosh, Brent, I am so, you know, it's. It's true. I'm glad that we kept the streak alive, Brent. All the vices are my vices.
- [43:18]
A
Yes.
- [43:19]
B
Is what I'm realizing at this moment because I'm like, I just was about to say, like, we're yelling at the officials in youth sports games. And then I realized that like, I was the coach of my son's soccer team and I was actually. I had one of my students shout out to Robert, Robert Lee, one of my favorite kids. He was a high school Soccer player, college student in our ministry. He was helping me coach for the season. He's actually now taken over the team and he's doing a fantastic job. But Brent, this is a 21 year old young man and I'm 40 and I'm like, I'm kind of had it with the officials in this game. And of course as the coach, I'm justified because it's my job to talk to them. Well, and Robert pulled me aside, Brent. This guy pulled me aside and very kindly, he was like, hey, I don't actually think that's getting us what we want. And there's probably like a better way anyway. But no, it's seriously, it's like this is too much. And this is a funny situation, right? This is just youth sports and it's this crazy middle aged guy yelling at. And what makes us terrible, Brent, is that this, this official in this soccer match was a high school kid. Okay, so I'm so bad. Yeah, I'm so bad. And I am sorry to that person. But anyway, it's just too much. And it's like, okay, maybe this vice has its claws on me. And then the other thing in it being expressed inordinately is just, it goes on for too long, like I can't let go of it, you know, so the thing happens. And then like maybe the whole drive home and maybe that night, I can't stop thinking about this thing that was done to me. There's this great saying, the older I get, the more vividly I remember things that never happened. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but, yeah, again, what seems to be at play here is actually a kind of pride. That is I am at the center of things. And if things aren't flowing orderly and smoothly around me in the way that I want them to, I get angry. And I feel that it is me who is being like, all these injustices are against me and I'm like the world's biggest victim. And the way that that works itself out, like if we find ourselves being angry all the time, I think it's worth asking if that's kind of how I see the world deep down. And so there's the last thing I want to say about the dynamics of, of anger. Going back to even our conversation before about punishment and sin and these theological things. I think what the vice of anger does, if good anger, anger that does bring about the righteousness of God, if its aim is restoration even of perpetrator, not just a victim, but of both. Right. I think wrath as like A vice as a wicked thing. It comes ultimately to believe that punishment is justice. And so if I have let that person have it and they feel terrible, justice has been served. Or, you know, and that's. Again, I'm talking about trivial matters here, and I'm trying to be delicate, not to talk. But of course, there are many deeper things, many worse offenses, and we think that if we can just punish, then justice will have been served and things will have been made right. But it's not true. I mean, that doesn't actually lead to any kind of restoration and doesn't even lead, I think, to any lasting satisfaction on the part of the people who are angry and who have been hurt. It has to drive us. Like anger in its best form has to drive us to actually work for the restoration, the justice, the peace that God desires.
- [46:51]
A
Yeah, I think the community aspect of anger, because I definitely. I mean, of all the ones I feel like this is the one that I is most. Has its claws in me.
- [47:03]
B
Really?
- [47:04]
A
I think so. I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm justified, sometimes not. Like, I, you know, I try to be conscious of things like we're directing the anger at the wrong person. Like, whenever I have any problem anywhere, I almost always end up blaming it on the management. It's like, oh, your restaurant is dirty. Well, I'm sure there's somebody here whose job it is to clean, and they haven't done it because their management hasn't staffed their restaurant well enough for the rush hour or whatever. Or the manager's in the back doing paperwork when the manager should be out, like taking care of the extra capacity or, you know, I almost always find a way to blame it on the management. And Maggie, she's my fence. She's my restraint to keep me from doing something that I shouldn't do. And sometimes I end up being wrong about that, even. We had an experience at a hotel recently and it took 30 minutes to check in. I was like, you've got four computers, you've got two people checking in. We finally get up, it's like, oh, the person who was checking in wasn't even supposed to be there. They were there earlier that day and somebody called in sick. And it's like, well, that's somewhat understandable. But also, you still only plan to have two people for this check in. Like, clearly you are over capacity. Then I ended up talking to the manager later, and she's like, yeah, I've only been here for a month. We definitely don't have enough people. I worked 18 hours that day, blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, so it's actually the management above her, like, the owners who are not, like, setting her up for success. But I'm. I'm try. I try to be conscious of that, but it's like, at the same time, like, is that really. Is it my place? I don't know. I just feel like, ah, somebody has to understand. And, yeah, it's. There are many examples, I could say, but in any situation, whether it's low stakes checking in for a hotel, or very high stakes, like, I think of the West Wing. I don't know if you ever watched that show. Oh, yeah, that one scene, I think it was some sort of military situation where some soldier was killed and Bartlett wants to just, like, you know, carpet bomb the whole place. And like, oh, they made this mistake and they killed the wrong guy and we're just gonna, like, wipe out their whole. And the people around him are like, no, you can't do that. You have to have a proportional response. Like, yes, it sucks, yes, it's bad. Yes, you should be angry, but you can't just, like, go off. You're gonna make it so much worse if you do that. So, yeah, yeah. The community aspect is so important because the times when I am most angry and get in the most trouble because of my anger are when I am by myself, left to my own devices, my own way of dealing with things when nobody else is around. Yeah.
- [49:48]
B
I think anger is one of those. It's this vice that nobody wants to be seen as an angry person. It would be embarrassing. Right. This is why the community actually can be a little bit helpful. Like a little bit of the. The honor shame culture, where it's like, I don't want to embarrass myself by losing my temper.
- [50:05]
A
Right.
- [50:05]
B
Because that's a childish thing to do.
- [50:07]
A
Yeah.
- [50:08]
B
So we don't want to be seen that way. But I was thinking about how, as a culture, I think this is prevalent, though, because think about revenge stories and how much we love. We get almost like a. A culinary. I think Buechner's metaphor was right. We get an almost culinary satisfaction when we watch, like, a revenge story, you know, like the Godfather or John Wick or all of the films of Quentin Tarantino. The Prestige, the Princess Bride is even a comical one. Like, there are lots of them. Right. And we. There is, like, a release and a satisfaction where we're, like, indulging. We're like, yeah. You know, and maybe it's good that we have those, because that's Like a way to work it out where it's in the realm of art and true, like not. It's not actually hurting. So maybe those are helpful. But I think if anything, if we just notice like how much pleasure we get from watching those movies where like somebody is treated or there's horrible injustice at the beginning. And even like the ones where they go away for a long time and they're like quietly over decades, like plotting. And then you have that moment at the end where they have their perpetrator at their total mercy, you know?
- [51:27]
A
Yeah.
- [51:28]
B
And I'm like, at that moment, what are you hoping for? Are you going to be disappointed if they decide to be merciful? This is like the Joseph story, you know, where.
- [51:39]
A
Yeah.
- [51:40]
B
Like, maybe a lot of us would have actually been a little bit happier if Joseph had been like, yeah. And then he just like, off with their heads. And you're like, yeah, they got what was coming to them, you know. But I think that story shows us that again, that kind of. You could call that just maybe. But that's not a justice that God wants. That's not what the text is holding up as this exemplary thing. No, it's when he's moved to compassion. And it's the God that we see in the prophets that we were talking about, like, man, this is so wrong. But how can I give you up? That's the antidote to wrath.
- [52:17]
A
I like the idea that perhaps the pop culture things are a good outlet for the feeling because there have been many times where I'm like, I feel a little uncomfortable with how much I'm enjoying this because this actually doesn't seem like it's a good thing when you step back and look at it.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah, no, maybe.
- [52:35]
A
But we do, we love them. We love these stories. Like in the church, it doesn't matter.
- [52:40]
B
Yeah. I mean, that about wraps it up. I think the image of God we've been trying to bring this back to, like, how is this about what it looks like to be a full fledged, like, image of God person? And I think what we learn from thinking about wrath as a vice is that the image of God is actually not somebody who goes around in a Zen like state, never having their feathers ruffled by anything. You know, that is not the appropriate picture of what it is to be somebody who is like in tune with the heart of God in the world. Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And I wonder if anger, the good kind of anger, is kind of that. Like it's the hunger pangs Right. It's the grumbling tummy. It's that empty stomach feeling of like, what I want is righteousness and I'm not getting it. And so, so long as that compels me then to work for that righteousness and understanding properly what it is. And not just punishment. Right. And not just vengeance and not just getting even or making sure they get theirs, but for what makes for a true whole lasting peace. That's what God calls us to do. And if we see injustice and our initial outcry, if we have an outcry, Right. Of like anger, then I think that that's probably like, that's right. And we should take that as a clue that like, okay, maybe I need to direct my energy here. And that what God calls us to as image bearers is, and we talked about this earlier, but I just want to highlight it again, is compassion for our perpetrators as well as for the victims. Right. Where what we are moved to is even. And I think this is like the radical Jesusy part of it. Right. Is even for enemies, that we would be able to not wrathfully wish them their comeuppance, but out of distress, deep distress, and also anger that we might be able to somehow work for their restoration as well. And I think that's really, that's really all I've got as far as the self examination questions go. I think we've covered those a little bit earlier. And so you can circle back around to that if that's helpful. But if there's nothing else from you, Brent, I think you can go ahead and just get us out of here.
- [54:53]
A
Yeah, I'll just say that I am pretty good at dealing with anger in the sense of finding ways to justify myself. So I like the way you've worded the self examination. Like, do I mostly find myself getting angry? Because it's like, well, I'm not always. It's like, sure, you're not always, but what is your basic posture with anger?
- [55:17]
B
Yeah, because I am personally offended as opposed to. There is actually what I recognize as a deeper injustice that isn't about my personal offense. There's something deeper going on that's a violation of whoever the victim, and that might be me, but that's a violation of them, but also a violation of the perpetrator. This is not what God has for them.
- [55:40]
A
Yeah, there have been times where I am absolutely a victim in some sense, but I'm imagining those people doing the same thing to somebody else. It's like, well, is that even true? Are they actually doing that to anybody else or is it just me? Am I getting angry to a scale, as if these people are doing it to the entire city of Moscow, even though all I actually know about is me? So, yeah, once again, I just encourage people to be in community about this, wrestle through it. These are tough because there's a good element to this one especially, and there's good elements to all of them. But this one, I think more so than the others. It's like it's easier to justify yourself and not be honest in your examination. So just try to be as honest as possible as you examine this. It's not comfortable, I can say from experience.
- [56:32]
B
Indeed.
- [56:32]
A
All right, well, that will do it for this episode. You can find more details about the show@baymaudiscipleship.com we'll have shownotes for this episode. Good handful. Half a dozen links or so. Some stuff there. Hopefully in your podcast app as well. You'll see those show notes and those links. Check out those resources. Dig into this stuff with a friend, with a group, with your spouse, like whatever the right person is to help you deal with this. Like, my wife is absolutely one of the best people to help me with this problem. But whoever that is for you, like, have a conversation, get it out in the open. Because when we hide this stuff, that's the real danger. I think so. Thank you for joining us on the BEM podcast this week. Thank you for wrestling with us as we deal with these challenging topics. We'll talk to you again soon.
- [57:25]
B
One month from today, Chiefs season opener against the Los Angeles Chargers still feels wrong. We're playing in Brazil.
- [57:34]
A
Oh, in Brazil.
- [57:35]
B
Yeah, we. But it's, it's, it's, it's a good thing to get your international. If you have to have an international game week, week one is probably the best time to have it because you're not trying to squeeze it in between other things. And yeah, all the, like travel and the short rest and not being able to practice normally, etc. Etc.
- [57:51]
A
Yep.
- [57:52]
B
So, yeah, we play one month from today, season opener, the Mahomes and Company Revenge Tour for the humiliation that we suffered in the Super Bowl.
- [58:02]
A
Oh, they played. When was that?
- [58:04]
B
When did we play the Super Bowl?
- [58:05]
A
No way. Well, I know, I know that was many times. Which. When did you. You lost to the Chargers in the Super Bowl.
- [58:13]
B
No, no, no, no. We.
- [58:14]
A
This wouldn't have been Super Bowl.
- [58:15]
B
The Chargers is the season opener that begins the season. This next season is going to be Mahomes and company Revenge Tour.
- [58:23]
A
Oh. Oh.
- [58:24]
B
Because we have to avenge ourselves. Of the humiliation that we suffered at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles in February.
- [58:34]
A
And it was a great. It was a shocking humiliation.
- [58:37]
B
So bad. So, so bad. But what's great, when does this episode come out? Do you see it on your doc there? Because it'll be at least some way into the season.
- [58:45]
A
It'll be October 23rd.
- [58:47]
B
So we will be about halfway the season at that point. Almost where we will be. What did I say? We're gonna go for posterity. I predicted that we are going to win the AFC and if we'll have a meaning the regular season, we'll have the one seed and the bye week. If we are playing for the conference though, in the final week of the season and that game matters, then we'll be 14 and three.
- [59:17]
A
So you'll only be seven games in at this point. Okay.
- [59:20]
B
We will have finished seven games.
- [59:22]
A
Yeah.
- [59:23]
B
Okay. So we will be like a week shy of the midpoint of the season anyway. If we. My, my total season prediction is that we will be at least 13 and 4. If we already have the number one seed lockdown going into the last week of the season when we play the Raiders for the second time, we will definitely not play our starters and we'll lose that game. So that'll make us 13 and four. If we are playing for the number one seed at the end, we will obviously play our starters and win and we will be 14 and three on the season. Number one seed. Okay, that's my prediction. Although we're going to have some. We're going to have some receiver trouble. I'm a little nervous about that.
- [60:06]
A
So you play the Eagles week too? Okay.
- [60:08]
B
Yeah, we do. That's going to be. So we have the most prime time games of any team this coming season. And I think like our first six.
- [60:20]
A
You gotta, you gotta win something.
- [60:22]
B
Well, I think our first like six weeks are all going to be like late slot prime time games or something like that. Like we play. Our first game is actually a Friday night because it's Brazil. And then I. The Eagles game is a late game. We played the Ravens in the first. We played the Lions. We play a bunch of teams in the first like six weeks. It's gonna be crazy.
- [60:47]
A
Giants is Sunday night football. Jaguars is Monday night football. There you go. But Eagles and Ravens are both afternoon games.
- [60:54]
B
Well, but it's the late slot in the afternoon. It's not prime time, but it is the national game for that, you know, for whatever the network is.
- [61:04]
A
Then you're back to Sunday Night Football for the Lions, the Raiders, your early slots.
- [61:09]
B
Yeah, nobody cares about that.
- [61:10]
A
Is it really prime time? If you're on YouTube though, YouTube has the first week has the rights for that Brazil game.
- [61:16]
B
It's what it is. It's an evening game under the lights. Well, the, the week 13 is the Thanksgiving Day game. But like every Thanksgiving game is basically a primetime game. We play and we play Dallas. We play the 3:30 slot on Thanksgiving against Dallas. Like that'll be the biggest game of the day.
- [61:31]
A
May you obliterate the Cowboys.
- [61:34]
B
Thank you. I think we will. I don't think the Cowboys are going to be that good. All right. I said we needed to be timely and now we spent the first 10 minutes talking about football.
- [61:41]
A
I'll put it at the end. Don't worry, we're not going to subject everyone to that.
- [61:46]
B
Hold on, hold on. I need to say by. So this, this comes out and we will have played the first seven weeks. That's what you're telling me?
- [61:53]
A
Yes. Okay.
- [61:54]
B
Chargers win, Eagles win, Giants win. Baltimore win. Jacksonville win. Detroit win. Vegas win. We will be seven and oh wow, here's who we're going to lose to. We're going to lose to Buffalo because we always lose to Buffalo in the regular season.
- [62:10]
A
Okay.
- [62:11]
B
We are going to lose a game that we shouldn't lose probably to like Houston in week 14 or something. So that'll be two losses. I think we will drop one to. Well, no, no, no, I did not. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We will lose to Baltimore in week four. We will lose to Washington in week eight and Buffalo in week nine. So by the time this airs, we will be six and one and we will have lost to Baltimore and then we are about to lose to the Washington Commanders this coming weekend is what everybody needs to know. And Buffalo next week and then we have a bi week and then we went out. Okay, okay.
- [62:51]
A
True or false, the Chiefs will be involved in some sort of off field scandal in Brazil.
- [62:58]
B
False.
- [62:59]
A
Okay. All right.
- [63:00]
B
You mean like keep it all players are going to like go out and get in trouble?
- [63:03]
A
Yeah, just, you know, whatever. They're going to make a scene somehow.
- [63:08]
B
No, false. I think once. I mean, so the Chiefs definitely have some, you know, some characters who have done some underhanded and illegal things. I will say this though, that like that is usually off season woes and once the season kicks in, I think that the team is incredibly disciplined and well run and that's one of the things that makes the organization like so good. Year over year but it's just the off season when guys go get in trouble.
- [63:43]
A
You know what? I figured out how to tie it in, Reed. This is this first game in Brazil. It's biblical. It's being played at Arena. Corinthians.
- [63:51]
B
Perfect. Okay.
- [63:52]
A
Boom.
- [63:53]
B
And Corinthians probably says something about the wrath of God. All right, we're ready to go.