ENVY:
A DEADLY SIN
By Timothy & Kathy Keller
A heart at peace gives life to the
body, but envy rots the bones.
(Proverbs 14:30)
The power of envy. In the Bible
we are told that God is a jealous
God (Exodus 34:14). But in God it is
jealousy for something. Jealousy is
“the proper intolerance of disruptive
intrusion and is thereby a mark of love
(as the opposite of indifference.)”
101 Jealousy in its essence is a
commitment to a relationship. It
is stirred up when it moves us to
maintain a threatened relationship
or restore a broken one. Paul speaks
of his jealousy that the Corinthians
18 Solutions
would be exclusively devoted to
God. This moves him to use some
strong language to wake the readers
up (2 Corinthians 11:2ff.).102
Sinful jealousy is not jealousy for
but of someone. Envy is wanting
someone else’s life. You see they
have something better than you do,
and instead of rejoicing in the good
they have, you weep over the fact
that you don’t have it. So envy is
wanting aspects of somebody else’s
life. As the second clause tells us, this
rots the bones. It can literally eat you
up—physically and spiritually.
Be honest and admit whose life you