TEMPER:
LOSS OF CONTROL; VIOLENCE

The bull out there in the farmyard is a domesticated animal, but once in a while he goes berserk. Unexpectedly, something will make him mad and he will explode. He will lower his head and roar and bellow. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in the field when that happens may have to climb a tree or jump over a bull-proof fence to keep from getting mauled! What has happened? That bull has simply risen in his anger and thrown off centuries of domestication. Underneath the domestication, he is really the same old wild beast, his nature unchanged.

Once the bull is over his tantrum, he probably will be ashamed of himself and meekly follow his owner back to the barnyard. But the farmer does not know when the bull will go on another rampage, for he is dealing with a bull—an animal tamed through a long process of conditioning, but by nature wild.

And we humans are not much different. I read of a man with six years of graduate and professional training beyond college. But one day he blew up, lost his temper and killed his wife. Do not ever think that it is only the poor, the uneducated and the underprivileged who commit crimes of violence. It is happening in the top brackets of society, too. It takes more than education to change people’s nature. Education may bring about certain restraints and some degree of control, but just let those people act freely from within, and you will find out what they really are.

Romans 3:10–18; Ephesians 2:1–3; 2 Peter 2:12–15

Faith Beyond Reason, 92, 93.