Jealousy is an intoxicant that blurs one’s vision, clouds the mind, dulls judgment, and makes one behave strangely. It is a potent cocktail of empty-handed desire, possessiveness, and paranoid suspicion. Jealousy not only wants what others have, but it also doesn’t want them to have it. Galatians 5 and James 3 describe jealousy as a demonic sin.

However, in our Bible God also describes Himself as a “jealous God.” Paul exhorts the early church not to “provoke God to jealousy.” That raises a question, doesn’t it? How can the possessive jealousy of Saul be bad but the jealousy of God for His people be good? Or to put it another way, if God is a jealous God, why would it be wrong for imitators of his example (Galatians 5:1) to be jealous also? Listen in as we explore this question and more.