We use envy to manipulate people. We are never satisfied with our own part. Not our jobs, our marriages, our families. Envy tells us that as long as someone else has better, what we have will never be enough. Taken on Tik Tok:

“The married wants to divorce, the single wants to get married. The unemployed want to work, the worker is fed up with his job. The poor want to become rich, the rich are prisoners of their wealth. The famous hides, the frustrated wants to be seen. Black wants to be white, white wants to tan. The woman seeks the complete man, the man seeks the complete woman, but they forget that God created them so that they complete each other…“

Envy is one of the sins prohibited by the Ten Commandments; it consists of Man coveting what does not belong to him. The object of envy can be material goods, as well as immaterial things (beauty, success, virtue Ecclesiastes 4:4). Indeed, having hope in God presupposes that everything that Man possesses comes from God.

“Every good grace and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor the shadow of variation” (James 1:17).

Furthermore, it is important that God gives everyone exactly what they need according to God’s plan. The desire to possess what God has given to someone else thus by definition thwarts the Creator’s design. Furthermore, envy contains within it the aspiration of Man to achieve his will despite the will of God. This is indeed why envy is destructive for humans:

“A calm heart is the life of the body, but envy is decay of the bones” (Prov 14:30).

Envy becomes the cause of cruelty and violence against others: the envious person tries to obtain what does not belong to him. (Micah 2:2). Thus, for all Men, envy like many others is a departure from the law of love of neighbor (Rom 13:9). Page 22 of 139 In the epistle to the Galatians, the apostle Paul includes envy in the list of “the works of the flesh” by contrasting them with the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:19-21).

Additionally, in his letter to Timothy, the apostle makes special note that envy is not necessarily directed toward material goods. Its very essential reason remains in the desire for supremacy and power. The most vivid and tragic example of envy is: the Pharisees and scribes envied the Lord Jesus Christ, which led the Savior to die on the Cross.

This text is an extract from the book “The Enemies of Man” written by Jérémie TCHINDEBE.

We invite you to read the following article “The Animal Man“.