Why do we blame others?

Genesis 3:12-13The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”

We blame others to avoid facing the truth of what we have done. Adam managed to blame both Eve and God for his choice to ignore God’s instruction. It wasn’t just the woman, but the woman “you gave me” who was responsible for Adam’s disobedience. Both his and Eve’s admissions of guilt (“I ate it”) came with a lame excuse deflecting to others the responsibility for what they had done.

Genesis 16:5Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!”

Sometimes we blame others to avoid facing our regrets. When unintended consequences complicate a situation, we can quickly turn on others and hold them responsible for a plan that we ourselves had set in motion. Abram should have known better, so he rightly bore part of the blame. But the charge “This is all your fault” was clearly Sarai’s effort to escape her own guilt.

James 1:13-15Remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

We blame God to avoid taking responsibility for our sin. James reminds us that temptation always arises from something in us: our desires, needs, or values. Satan, the world, and our own thinking bring those things into focus, and we turn them into sin. Refusing to blame God helps us take responsibility for our sin.

1 Samuel 22:13“Why have you and the son of Jesse conspired against me?” Saul demanded. “Why did you give him food and a sword? Why have you consulted God for him? Why have you encouraged him to kill me, as he is trying to do this very day?”

We blame others because we assume the worst about them. Saul was accusing Ahimelech, an innocent priest, of conspiracy. This level of blaming escalated into a death sentence for the priest, his entire family, and his entire town. Tragically, sometimes there is no way to undo the damage done when we blame someone in anger.

Exodus 14:11-12They said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves for us in Egypt? What have you done to us? Why did you make us leave Egypt? Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’”

We blame others when things don’t turn out the way we wanted. We rationalize our criticism by dwelling on what might have been. We say, “if only this” or “if only that.” We also forget or distort our previous conditions (what slavery was really like) in our determination to blame someone for our present conditions. This simply takes responsibility off us and pins it on someone else.

1 Samuel 30:6David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

We blame others when we experience a painful loss. Sadly, blaming a friend for a loss can become a double loss—the loss itself and the loss of the friend. David had lost as much as his own men, but they were blaming him for the actions of others. David was guided and strengthened by God, and he successfully focused their attention away from blaming onto taking action to restore what they had lost.

John 11:21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

We blame others when we fail to see the bigger picture. Martha was respectfully confronting Jesus with what she saw as his failure to intervene in Lazarus’s sickness. Fortunately for her, Jesus changed her perspective by giving her an unforgettable lesson in God’s power to change sad circumstances.

John 9:1-2As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”

We blame others when we have false assumptions about God. The only explanation the disciples (and many of those who shared their culture) had for explaining tragic circumstances like blindness from birth was that it must be punishment for the sins of the parents or the child. But there are many other causes, including original sin and God’s purposes, that might explain difficult circumstances. Don’t assume that a person’s misfortune was his or her own fault.

Exodus 32:21-24He [Moses] turned to Aaron and demanded, “What did these people do to you to make you bring such terrible sin upon them?” “Don’t get so upset, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know how evil these people are. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.’ When they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!”

We blame others because of our own pride. Aaron’s sin is shocking because it was so blatant, but his response is even more shocking because he refused to take responsibility for it. He had created a golden calf while the rumbles of God’s voice were still echoing off Mount Sinai and the column of cloud and fire towered in the background. Like Aaron, we are often too proud to admit that the problem was our own fault, or at least that we were part of the problem. We don’t want others to know we are sometimes weak and vulnerable. And we don’t want to admit how easily we wander from God.