“Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another” (Gal. 5:26). This article explores the remedy for envy, showing how love can transform envy into compassion. It’s funny that the Old Testament’s references to envy focus on God’s people looking outward to the world; the New Testament warns believers against envying each other. For those of us who know church life, the shift from outward envy to inward love is revealing — a phenomenon that can even surface as envy among pastors.
It’s funny that the Old Testament’s references to envy focus on God’s people looking outward to the world (“sinners”). They were not to envy wrongdoers, a call that intersects with the broader task of cultivating virtue over envy in community life.
The New Testament’s references, by contrast, are directed inwardly, warning believers against envying each other. For those of us who know the inner workings of church life, we fully understand the change and its pastoral implications, from comparison and jealousy in ministry to practical steps for avoiding envy in leadership.
Now, a confession first.
As I reflect on the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, avarice, anger, sloth, gluttony and lust), the one that interests me least is this one: envy. What’s exciting about envy? Nothing. No funny stories to tell, no dramatic scriptural stories to relate.
Something inside me insists that envy is not a problem in my world. I honestly don’t know anyone sitting around stewing over the neighbors having a car and wishing it was in their own driveway. I know of no preachers fuming because another pastor received a doctorate which he should have rightfully received. So, maybe envy is no longer a problem to moderns.
The reason for that strange–and erroneous–conclusion is the narrow definition I was applying to the concept.
If to envy means to wish we owned something another person now possesses and only that, few of us would be guilty. But that’s far too thin an interpretation of this obese transgression.
Here then are several observations on envy, what I’m calling “the sneakiest” of the seven deadly sins.
1. Envy is ugly.
Henry Fairlie, in the Seven Deadly Sins, a book I’m leaning heavily upon for some of these insights, writes: It has been said that envy is the one deadly sin to which no one readily confesses. It seems to be the nastiest, the most grim, the meanest. Sneering, sly, vicious. The face of envy is never lovely.
In fact, he goes on to say, envy is not even pleasant. The other six sins provide at least a measure of pleasure–self-gratification–in the early stages. Lust provides titillation, avarice the pleasure of possessing, pride a sense of self-fulfillment at least momentarily, and sloth the joy of snoozing. But envy provides no pleasure at all.
It has the ugliness of a trapped rat that has gnawed its own feet in its efforts to escape. (Fairlie gives that line as a quote, but never attributes it.)
2. Envy causes us to lower standards.
We envy those who make good grades and win awards, and so what do we do? We work within the educational system to throw standards out the window so that everyone makes high grades. Grade inflation, it’s called. Some schools refuse to even assign grades, because they look upon the students (and their parents) as customers and don’t want to offend them.
People envy the talented artists and poets and writers, but unable to achieve the high standards they have attained, they lower the standards. They produce art that is rubbish, poetry with no standards, and books and movies that insult our intelligence.
Such are the works of envy. Fairlie calls this “the revenge of failure.” Since we cannot succeed in this field, we get our revenge by changing the rules and branding our work a success.