What does jealous god mean

God promised to be faithful to his covenant and he expected them to be faithful and to avoid making covenants with the Canaanites. Forty years after giving the Ten Commandments , God renewed his covenant with the people of Israel.

They were about to enter the Promised Land and their leader, Moses, warned them to avoid idols of any kind. Deuteronomy reminds them,. Deuteronomy 5 restates the Ten Commandments and reminds the people, again, that God is a jealous God. In the New Testament, Paul explains a similar jealousy for the hearts of new believers. He does not want them to be led away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ 2 Corinthians God passionately loves his people because he chose them.

In the Ten Commandments, God contrasts his passionate love and zeal for his people to idolatry as evidence of their hate Exodus It is to be distinguished from jealousy. Jealousy fears to lose what it has; envy is pained at seeing another have. Two Greek words are translated as jealousy and envy. What does that mean? God breathed the breath of life into the first man. He breathed this life into every person. God jealously yearns for — desires — this spirit in us.

God does not want our spirits to be consumed by this world or by the god of this world, who is the devil. God wants a relationship with our human spirit, so that He can instill His good will within us.

If this good relationship is established, He will guide us to a good and peaceful life. However, the god of this world, the devil, is active as well. He also wants to get a hold of our human spirit, to influence us to do his will.

We are concerned when it is missing. God is jealous of us because he loves us. Where there is no love there is none of this kind of jealousy. The goal of the covenant love of God is that he should have a people on earth as long as history lasts, and after that should have all his faithful ones of every age with him in glory. If you are reading Knowing God with me as part of Reading Classics Together, please read chapters 19 and 20 for next Thursday.

If you are not yet doing so, feel free to join us and catch up with the reading. We are very nearly at the end of the book! The purpose of Reading Classics Together is to read these books together. This time around the bulk of the discussion is happening in a dedicated Facebook group.

You can find it right here.