Grumbling’s evil twin is discontentment. Refusing to recognize the providence of God—that He is sovereignly in control of my life such that the circumstances I face are not random fate—will lead to discontentment. Discontentment inevitably leads to grumbling and vice versa. They go hand in hand, and they are also contagious.

I’ve recently tried to reflect on why I’m so prone to grumbling. The Collins Dictionary defines grumbling as “to murmur or mutter in discontent; complain sullenly.” I’m not the first to struggle with this sin. It has been a constant for the people of God.

The first instance of grumbling in the Bible is in Exodus 15:24. The newly redeemed people of God were fresh from joyfully singing the Lord’s praise:

The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him. (Ex. 15:2)

Just three days later, they grumbled against Moses in the wilderness, saying, “What shall we drink?” (Ex. 15:24). What began in Exodus 15 as a trickle of grumbling becomes a torrent in the next chapter. In Exodus 16, verses 2, 7, 8, 9, and 12 all make reference to the people’s grumbling, and it moves from grumbling about Moses to grumbling “against the Lord.” In Numbers 14–17 we see the same pattern: the people grumble against Moses and Aaron and about their situation, but when God addresses them, He states that their grumbling is actually against Him.

When the people of the Lord lost sight of who God was, what He had done, and how He had provided, they very quickly began to grumble, an action to which they often reverted.

Grumbling reappears in the Gospels when the Pharisees and the scribes (those socially upright and religious leaders) murmured at Jesus’ receiving and eating with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 5:30; 15:2; 19:7). The Jewish people grumbled at His teaching, “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41–42). This is a mirror image of the people of Israel complaining in the wilderness. The disciples followed suit, grumbling to themselves that Jesus’ teaching was too hard (John 6:60), and from that point on, many turned away from Him (John 6:66). In the Gospels, grumbling reveals a heart of unbelief.

The Danger of Grumbling

When we come to Epistles of the New Testament, there are commands to be obeyed, imperatives to be heeded: “Do all things without grumbling” (Phil. 2:14), “Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged” (James 5:9), “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9).

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