A little something to chew on...

We talked about jealousy in my Bible lesson with the kids last week in the context of Cain and Abel. Okay, no big deal, but when I was looking ahead at our Bible test and trying to prepare the students for it, I saw that there is a question that says, "What is jealousy?" Well I thought that was funny cause in the curriculum, it never actually has you go over the definition of the word with the students. However, they do have a glossary in the back of their books, so I looked it up there and found a definition that surprised me, mainly because of the way I usually use the word.
It said-
"being afraid that you will be replaced by another, or that you will lose something"
To which of course I said... huh?
At first I thought that maybe this was just a definition skewed by the publisher of the curriculum in order to get it's own point across (quite skeptical of me, huh?) So I looked jealous up in Merriam Webster and this is their definition-
1 a: intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b: disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness2: hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage3: vigilant in guarding a possession

So... roughly paraphrased into the Tammy-Webster dictionary, this means-
Definition 1. I hold (or think I hold) a special friendship with Person X and then new Person Y comes along. X spends more time with Y than I think is necessary and I begin to become jealous of Y and angry at X. (Does this only happen with girls?) I used this example with the students last week, so at least I was right about THAT aspect of jealousy!

Definition 2. Emmanuel Pahud is the most amazing flutist I have ever heard and because he is so good I move from admiring his ability to wanting to hurt him. Or remove him from the picture entirely so that he can't be better than me... (Cain and Abel....) Fyi... I do not want to kill anyone......

Definition 3. I am vigilant in guarding my flute. I don't normally let other people handle it and I carry it with me on the plane as much as possible. I jealously guard it.

So as you can see, jealousy doesn't always have the connotation that we give to it. Such as the Phillies are in the post-season and I don't get to watch the games I AM SO JEALOUS RIGHT NOW of the people at home!!!

Nor does it mean that a certain person has an iPhone and another certain person is jealous of him. It does mean however, that certain person 1 may be jealous (vigilantly guard) with his own iPhone haha.

I'm sure by now you've started to apply this to those sometimes-confusing verses in Exodus and 2 Corinthians.

It seems maybe (as we always suspected but could never really figure out) that jealousy is not always a bad characteristic. In 2 Corinthians, Paul uses it to describe his feeling that he wants the Corinthians to "save themselves" for the true Christ. He is jealous for them when they give over their minds to a preaching of a Christ that is not true. That is certainly a godly form of jealousy? And of course the passage in Exodus, which comes up in Bible studies everywhere (God is a jealous God), really just means what it says- that God does not tolerate unfaithfulness. That is not wrong and there is in fact, nothing confusing about it. If indeed this is the correct definition of jealousy then of course God is a jealous God.

Jealousy can certainly be a bad thing, but this is an interesting example to me of how sin twists something that can be good into something bad.

Finally, it puts a smile on my face to think of God within the third definition- He vigilantly guards us.

Anyways, just something to think about!