Why Reconcile Quickly–The Danger of Animosity, Bitterness, Murderous Contempt and Divine Judgment
Jesus explains his command to go and be reconciled in the preceding two verses:, I dehumanize the objects of my anger in three steps : 1) holding onto ordinary anger long enough that, instead of me controlling it, it controls me; 2) telling myself or other people that the object of my bitterness is worthless to me, less human than I am, because of what they did; then 3) showing contempt that tears down another person’s humanity directly, by speech and action pointedly directed at them. Then, I am only a step away from murder.