God is identified as being jealous to the point that he is named Jealous:
Ex 2:5: & Deu 5:6 "...for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God..."
Ex 34:14: "...for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God"
Deu32:16: "They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods..."
Yet, jealousy is identified as a sin in the bible:
Prov 6:16-18: "These six things doth the Lord hate... A proud look... an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations... and he that soweth discord among brethren."
Prov 6:34: "For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance..."
SoS 8:6: "...jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire..."
Job 5:2: "For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one."
Prov 14:30: "A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones."
There are many other references to envy & jealousy in the bible. Doesn't that make the Christian view of God that of a sinful being?
2006-08-16 12:57:19 · 16 answers · asked by Physh 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
For those who used this question as an opportunity to either blindly proclaim your faith without actually addressing the question, or those who just as blindly used this as an opportunity to spout off about how there is no God: Grow up. Go find some other soap box to stand on.
To those mature enough to have an open discussion about religion and your beliefs without feeling the need to attack one side or another... congratulations. I welcome more feedback of the same.
No, I'm not an Athiest. No, I'm not a Christian hater. Yes, I do believe in God. This question was meant to open a dialogue amongst people. It is too bad some people can't recognize it as such.
If people cannot calmly discuss their beliefs, how can they ever hope to sway people to their line of thinking?
And for those who decided child jibes were in order... Yes, I have read the bible. I own three of them.
Have a blessed day!
2006-08-16 14:20:45 · update #1
Shell, you said: "When you are proud you are not god and have no reason to be proud because you are no better than any other man."
So according to what you said, doesn't that mean that when God becomes jealous, he is no longer God?
2006-08-16 14:24:54 · update #2
When the Bible speaks of God's anger it is using an anthropomorphism (just as when is speaks of His "hands" or "eyes"). While it is natural for us to attempt to grasp God's nature using human terms, God exists outside any of those human qualities.
For instance, in the case of God's "jealousy", it is different from human jealousy. Our jealousies comes from our self-centeredness. God's jealousy comes from His love and desire to have a right relationship with us.
2006-08-16 13:08:58 · answer #1 · answered by Seven 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well, God can be jealous because Being Jealous is not a sin. It is how you act on it.
Like being mad is not a sin, yet what you do while mad can be.
lets look at your examples
Prov 6:16-18 says what God hates, And Jealousy is not listed there.
Prov 6:34 Don't take this out of context, go back a few versus and read what this is talking about. Not about God being Jealous, It is about a man. And what he does while jealous.
Envy and Jealousy are not the same.
While God is a Jealous God, He is not an Envious God. You have nothing for him to be Envious about..
So, no.. God is not a sinful being
2006-08-16 13:41:43 · answer #2 · answered by jadamgrd 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You must be joking surely. God is the greatest mass murderer in history, nothing more than a sophisticated serial killer, if you believe in the Bible of course. Consider these facts.
God is the greatest mass murderer in history.
References: Genesis 6:11-17 and Genesis 7:11-24
Some examples:
GE 6:13 - And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
GE 6:17 - And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Seems to me that God (for you believers) is annoyed with humanity other than his buddy Noah, and decides to kill (murder) every living thing on the face of the earth, except of course Noah and his family - got to have a few friends left.
God allowed women raped and your little children slaughtered.
From God’s so called Bible - Isaiah 13:15-18
“Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.”
How any decent person can believe and follow the Bible is beyond imagination, seems like religious people just ignore the bits they dislike and twist the rest into a happy delusion, much like the behaviour of drug addicts.
2006-08-16 13:02:11 · answer #3 · answered by Brenda's World 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
No, jealousy means that God will not suffer His people to go to other gods. He is jealous for our affection. Note that jealous is only our close equivilent word for what God is. We do not have a proper equivilent for the greek or hebrew word, so we use the closest word we have or the word jealous in this case.
2006-08-16 13:09:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You make a valid point. One I also like to bring up is, if God is perfect and divine, how could he create Lucifer the kind of all lies?
Perfection???
We are made in the image of God, is God fallible like us? Or is it free will, that makes the difference? These answers wont be found here on earth. So I guess we will never no.
2006-08-16 13:04:59 · answer #5 · answered by Jon H 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not really because he is the only true god and when you have other gods you are being misled and the truth is not in you.
So he is trying to keep you from a lie.
When you are proud you are not god and have no reason to be proud because you are no better than any other man.
So that would be a lie and a sin.
2006-08-16 13:04:11 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
1)Jealous=upset/sad/mad that he isn't getting the praise he deserves-which he does
2)Lord hates bad stuff, who wouldn't. How could he love it? So hate isn't bad if it has good intentions.
3)Even if God gets mad at things, it was our fault in the first place.
I know that if you are athiest, you won't give me best answer. I'm just defending my beliefs.
2006-08-16 13:06:14 · answer #7 · answered by krackocloud 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Christian Bible is full of those kinds of contradictions. Good question, though.
2006-08-16 13:02:41 · answer #8 · answered by peaceful_sorceress 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
If you had a son and that son wanted to be with the neighbors and loved the neighbors and hated you, how would you feel.
God calls it jealousy, Rightest jealousy!
2006-08-16 13:26:05 · answer #9 · answered by Grandreal 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
What you ask makes sense, I don't understand how it can be that way...but, if I understood my God completely then He wouldn't be much of a God would He?
2006-08-16 15:00:33 · answer #10 · answered by melilot0079 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋