The Wisdom of the Long Fuse Text: Proverbs 14:29
Introduction: A City Without Walls
We live in an age of outrage. Our entire culture seems to run on the high-octane fuel of indignation. We are encouraged, from every quarter, to have a hair trigger, to be perpetually offended, and to let our anger flash like lightning. To be quick-tempered is seen as a mark of authenticity, of being passionate and engaged. But the wisdom of God, distilled for us in the book of Proverbs, tells us something entirely different. The man who is a slave to his temper is not a hero of the people; he is a fool who has put his own folly up on a throne for all to see.
The Scriptures teach us that a man who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls (Prov. 25:28). Think about that image. In the ancient world, a city without walls was not a city at all. It was a ruin waiting to happen. It was defenseless, vulnerable to every passing marauder, every wild beast, every gust of wind. It had no integrity, no strength, no safety. This is the biblical picture of the man with an uncontrolled temper. He is exposed. His lack of self-government means he is, in the most practical sense, ungoverned and open to every kind of foolish invasion.
Our proverb today draws a sharp, clean line between two kinds of men, two kinds of spirits. On one side is the man of great understanding, whose wisdom is demonstrated by his long fuse. On the other is the man who is hasty of spirit, who is quick on the draw with his anger, and in doing so, he doesn't just commit folly, he exalts it. He promotes it, puts it on a pedestal, and crowns it as king of his life. This is not a minor character flaw. It is a fundamental choice about how you will live in God's world: governed by His wisdom or driven by your own combustible passions.
The Text
"He who is slow to anger has great discernment, But he who is quick-tempered raises up folly."
(Proverbs 14:29 LSB)
The Bulwark of Discernment (v. 29a)
The first half of the proverb lays out the great virtue of patience.
"He who is slow to anger has great discernment..." (Proverbs 14:29a)
The virtue commended here is not an inability to be angry. The Scriptures do not teach that anger itself is a sin. A godly man is not a man who is never angry. After all, Paul tells us to "be angry, and sin not" (Eph. 4:26). Jesus Himself looked around the synagogue in anger at the hardness of men's hearts right before He healed a man's withered hand (Mark 3:5). His anger was righteous, holy, and constructive. The problem is not anger, but our anger. The problem is carnal, thoughtless, selfish, hair-trigger anger. The wrath of man, James tells us, does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20).
So the man of wisdom is not anger-proof; he is slow to anger. He has a long fuse. Why? Because he has "great discernment," or great understanding. The two are linked as cause and effect. His discernment is the reason he is slow to anger. A man with understanding sees the bigger picture. He doesn't just react to the immediate provocation. He is able to step back and assess the situation. He knows that the first report is not always the whole story (Prov. 18:17). He knows that there are two sides to every conflict. He knows his own heart is prone to selfish indignation. His understanding acts as a brake, a governor on his spirit.
This slowness is a form of imitation of God Himself. Over and over in the Old Testament, one of the chief attributes of God is that He is "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love" (Ex. 34:6; Ps. 103:8; Neh. 9:17). When we cultivate a spirit that is slow to wrath, we are becoming more like our Father in heaven. We are learning to be gracious and merciful, just as He is. James echoes this proverb perfectly when he instructs us to be "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (James 1:19). Notice the sequence. A man who is quick to listen and slow to speak will naturally be slow to become angry. He gathers information before he detonates. The fool does the opposite. He is slow to hear, quick to speak, and therefore quick to anger.
This great discernment is a defensive wall. It protects a man from making foolish decisions in the heat of the moment, decisions he will almost certainly regret later. Anger is not only unkind; it is also profoundly stupid. It narrows your vision down to the offense right in front of your nose, and you lose all peripheral vision, all sense of proportion. The man of understanding refuses to be trapped like that. He keeps his head while others are losing theirs.
The Coronation of Folly (v. 29b)
The other side of the coin is the man with a short fuse, the man who is "hasty of spirit."
"...But he who is quick-tempered raises up folly." (Proverbs 14:29b LSB)
The contrast is stark. One man has great understanding; the other is "quick-tempered," or as the Hebrew says, "short of spirit." He has no capacity to absorb an offense, to consider a matter, to defer his wrath. As soon as the spark lands, the powder keg of his soul explodes. And what is the result of this explosive nature?
He "raises up folly." The King James says he "exalteth folly." This is a powerful image. He doesn't just do a foolish thing. He doesn't just say something stupid that he later has to apologize for. He lifts folly up. He promotes it. He puts it on a throne and hands it a scepter. He makes folly the ruling principle of his life. His quick temper is the ceremony, and the crowning of King Folly is the result.
When a man gives way to a hasty spirit, he is advertising to the world that he is governed by foolishness. His outbursts are declarations of allegiance to the kingdom of chaos. A wrathful man stirs up strife (Prov. 15:18), and strife complicates everything. It's like letting water out of a dam; once it starts, you have no idea the damage it will do or how far it will run (Prov. 17:14). The quick-tempered man is constantly letting out that water, constantly creating messes that the slow-to-anger man has to come in and appease.
This is why Scripture warns us not to even associate with such a man. "Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul" (Prov. 22:24-25). This kind of temper is contagious. You hang around a man who exalts folly, and pretty soon you will start to think that folly is normal. You will learn his ways. You will get used to the explosions, the shouting, the slammed doors. You will either become like him, or you will become an expert in enabling him, which is its own kind of folly.
Mortify the Temper, Activate the Zeal
So what is the takeaway for us? This proverb is not just a nice piece of moral advice for self-improvement. It gets to the very heart of our sanctification. We are all born hasty of spirit. We are all born sons of Adam, which means we are born with a desire to be our own gods, to judge all things instantly, and to execute our wrath on anyone who crosses us. Our default setting is to exalt our own folly.
Therefore, the Christian life requires a two-fold action. We must mortify our temper, and we must activate our zeal for righteousness. Mortification means putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit (Rom. 8:13). This is not a passive thing. It is warfare. You must declare war on your short fuse. You must confess your sinful anger for what it is: not just a personality quirk, but an exaltation of folly, an act of rebellion against the God who is slow to anger.
When you feel that flash of heat rising in your chest, you must, by the Spirit, grab hold of it. You must refuse to let it have the throne. This is what it means to rule your own spirit. And you must do it again and again. A man of great wrath will suffer punishment, the Proverb says, because if you deliver him once, you will have to do it again (Prov. 19:19). The only real deliverance is the hard, daily work of mortification and repentance.
Conclusion: The Gospel for the Quick-Tempered
But this is not simply a matter of gritting your teeth and trying harder. The power to do this comes from the gospel. Where do we get the resources to be slow to anger? We get it by meditating on the fact that God has been slow to anger with us. Think of the patience of God toward you. Think of the multiplied thousands of provocations, sins, and rebellions He has patiently endured from you. His fuse, when it comes to His elect, is infinitely long. He absorbed the full, explosive wrath of God against our sin on the cross, so that He could show us nothing but patience and mercy.
When Jesus hung on the cross, He was surrounded by foolish, quick-tempered men. They were hasty to judge, hasty to mock, hasty to condemn. They were exalting their folly at the foot of the cross. And what was His response? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). This is the ultimate example of being slow to anger. He had every right to call down legions of angels. He had every right to righteous indignation. But instead, He absorbed the offense and prayed for His tormentors.
That is our pattern, and that is our power. Because God has been slow to anger with us in Christ, we now have the grace and the obligation to be slow to anger with others. The discretion that defers our anger is a gift of the Spirit, bought by the blood of the Son. Every time you choose, by grace, to lengthen your fuse, you are demonstrating the wisdom of God. You are showing the world what it looks like to be governed by understanding, not passion. You are tearing down the throne of folly in your heart and building instead an altar to the God of patience and peace.