What causes hostility?
Galatians 5:19-20When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,
Sin creates hostility between us and others.
Romans 8:5-8Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
Sin creates hostility between people and God.
Genesis 4:5-8He [the Lord] did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
Genesis 27:41From that time on, Esau hated Jacob because their father had given Jacob the blessing. And Esau began to scheme: “I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob.”
Genesis 37:4His brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.
Genesis 49:6-7“May I never join in their meetings; may I never be a party to their plans. For in their anger they murdered men, and they crippled oxen just for sport. A curse on their anger, for it is fierce; a curse on their wrath, for it is cruel. I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob; I will disperse them throughout Israel.”
Judges 18:25The men of Dan said, “Watch what you say! There are some short-tempered men around here who might get angry and kill you and your family.”
Proverbs 27:4Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous.
Proverbs 29:22An angry person starts fights; a hot-tempered person commits all kinds of sin.
Acts 17:5-7Some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd. Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council. “Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world,” they shouted, “and now they are here disturbing our city, too. And Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king, named Jesus.”
The root source of hostility is sin, which can come in the forms of anger, jealousy, and hatred. These fuels feed the fire of hostility. To prevent hostility, we should work to control and defuse our anger, release our jealousy, and pursue forgiveness. On our own, it may not be within our power to end the hostility in a relationship, but we can certainly do our part to make it possible. In time, that may inspire others to come along and do the same.
Matthew 24:9“Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.”
Mark 13:13“And everyone will hate you because you are my followers. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
Luke 12:51-53“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against. ‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’”
John 15:18-19, 21“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. . . . They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me.”
Acts 9:1-2Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.
2 Timothy 3:12Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
1 Peter 4:15-16If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs. But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!
1 John 3:13, 15So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. . . . Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
Following Jesus in a world that pursues evil causes hostility. Those who hate Jesus will also hate his followers. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must not respond to that hostility in kind. The evil one is our enemy—not the people he torments and twists into his service.
Psalm 27:12Do not let me fall into their hands. For they accuse me of things I’ve never done; with every breath they threaten me with violence.
Psalm 55:3My enemies shout at me, making loud and wicked threats. They bring trouble on me and angrily hunt me down.
Psalm 69:4Those who hate me without cause outnumber the hairs on my head. Many enemies try to destroy me with lies, demanding that I give back what I didn’t steal.
Psalm 109:3They surround me with hateful words and fight against me for no reason.
Lamentations 3:52My enemies, whom I have never harmed, hunted me down like a bird.
Hostility can also be unjust, without a specific identifiable cause. But this should not be surprising in a world that has rejected God. People may be hostile toward us because of false assumptions about us or simply because we are different from them in some way, or perhaps because of something they heard about us.
