There are some pastors who have a lot of pastor friends. They are not typical. Most are very isolated from their peers, and often at odds with them. Why? They are the competition. And they feed into our darkest, least-talked-about disease: envy.

Can you think of the name of a fellow pastor you would secretly enjoy seeing fail in ministry? A person who, in your darkest, most deliciously evil moments, you would enjoy seeing exposed in tomorrow’s paper for having an affair, extorting money or reading their church had split apart?

If you’re going to be honest, you can. We all can.

There are some pastors who have a lot of pastor friends. They are not typical. Most are very isolated from their peers, and often at odds with them.

Why?

They are the competition. And they feed into our darkest, least-talked-about disease: envy.

Irish writer Oscar Wilde once told a fictional tale about how the devil was crossing the Libyan desert. He came upon a spot where a small number of demons were tormenting a holy hermit. The sainted man easily shook off their evil suggestions. The devil watched as his lieutenants failed to sway the hermit, then he stepped forward to give them a lesson.

“What you do is too crude,” he said. “Permit me for one moment.”

He then whispered to the holy man, “Your brother has just been made Bishop of Alexandria.” Suddenly, a look of malignant envy clouded the once serene face of the hermit. Then the devil turned to his imps and said, “That is the sort of thing which I should recommend.”

No wonder Herman Melville called envy “the rabies of the heart.”

Envy has its genesis when we see something desirable that belongs to another person. It could be physical appearance, a job, money, talent, position, a spouse, even children. The other person possesses something that we want. Envy is a vice of proximity—the closer someone is to us in terms of vocation, temperament, gifts or position, the more fertile is the soil in which envy grows. In the classic pattern, notes theologian Cornelius Plantinga, the prosperous envier resents the rich, the 3:58 miler resents the 3:54 miler, the pretty resent the beautiful, and the hardworking B+ student resents the straight-A student, especially the happy-go-lucky one who never seems to study.

When you give in to envy, you not only desire what another person has and resent him for having it; you want to destroy its presence in the other person’s life. What an envier ultimately wants is not simply what another has; what an envier wants is for another not to have it.

Most of the time this is subtle. For example, Chuck Swindoll says we can take the “but” approach. We say,

“He’s an excellent salesman, but he isn’t very sincere.”

“Yeah, she’s smart, but she doesn’t have any common sense.”

“She’s a good surgeon, but she doesn’t mind charging you for it.”

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