When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” –Genesis 30:1
Imagine for a moment being Jacob. You work for seven years to marry the love of your life only to find out the morning after your wedding that you married her sister. You agree to work seven more years for your beloved and receive her as a wife one week after your first marriage. For the rest of your life you have two sisters as wives who are constantly competing to out-do one another.
Imagine being Leah for a moment. You are an unwilling part of one of the greatest examples of trickery in the history of the world. You receive a husband who is upset the morning after your wedding. One week later he marries your sister and is very open with the fact that he loves her more. You spend your whole life trying to prove your value to your husband. The one way you can do that is by giving him sons, so far four of them.
Now, imagine being Rachel. Your husband loves you. He worships the ground you walk on. He’s also married to your sister. Things would be perfect except for one thing—you haven’t given him one child. Your sister has given him four sons at this point. Producing children—especially sons—was the greatest gift a woman could give her husband. You have given him none. She’s up four to zero. How long will you continue to be his favorite?
It’s no wonder the home of Jacob was filled with competition and strife. It was founded upon a recipe perfect for chaos. If we look from each perspective, it’s easy to see why the sisters were so competitive. It’s also easy to feel sorry for Jacob. He didn’t ask for the problem. But admittedly, he did help it grow. His favoritism for Rachel and later her firstborn son, Joseph, certainly didn’t create peace at home.
We ought to learn from the household of Jacob. While we read this story with criticism aimed at each party for their mistakes, we need to step back and make application to our own lives. Remember, this is recorded for our learning (Romans 15:4). The reality is that we often create similar situations in our lives. Not the negative effects of polygamy and competing wives. We create competitions in our minds within the spiritual family. We can easily get caught in the competitions of who gets to do more than we do or who may be a better teacher or song leader than I am or even issues as petty as this person is liked by more people than me. We then create competitions of brother against brother, sister against sister, and family against family. When this occurs, are we any better than Jacob’s family? Certainly not! Notice some of the negative effects of having a competitive mindset such as this:
It creates strife between people.
Obviously the greatest problem was the competition between Rachel and Leah. It created an atmosphere of trying to out-do one another, or one-upmanship. Rachel envied her sister and was going to “die” if she didn’t have children. Today, I have seen situations where brothers and sisters are some consumed with envy and jealousy they are convinced they are going to “die” if something doesn’t change. Paul said that people who were contentious and filled with strife were carnal and not spiritual (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). Strife between brethren can cause us to lose our soul!
It harms future generations.
In a few short years, the off spring of Leah and Rachel will continue the family tradition of striving with one another. The brothers will sell Rachel’s oldest son and their father’s favorite, Joseph, because of envy. We need to realize that our behavior now impacts the future generations. When our children overhear our negative conversations aimed at other brothers and sisters in Christ, the end results can be disastrous. Often the children either grow up like their parents as curmudgeons or they leave the faith all together because after all, who would want to be a part of a spiritual family like that? It is very rare that children rise above the conduct of their parents.
It causes us to forget we are one.
The greatest problem in Jacob’s home was that it was completely divided. There was no family unit concept. It was always Leah’s brood against Rachel’s. They lost sight of the fact that they were all on the same “team.” When Christians fuss and fight with one another because of envy and strife, they forget we are all on the same “team.” It’s not about this person or that person being a better song leader. It’s about us collectively worshipping and encouraging one another. It’s not about this person or that person being more liked. It’s about a love for all brethren that is not conditional on whether they like us or not.
I often hear complaints in churches today about cliques. It is true there are cliques in churches. They occur naturally. Cliques occur because of gender, generation, geography, pre-existing relationships outside of the church (i.e. family, co-workers, etc), etc. The reality is when people complain about cliques within a congregation those complaints are often rooted in envy and strife. Their complaints are not spoken because they desire the removal of the perceived cliques but rather because they desire inclusion in the clique.
Brethren, we need to quite scanning the room for cliques and assuming we are being neglected and start focusing on the fact that we are a family. We are all one. We are a family. Getting upset about such things and creating strife and envy in our hearts does nothing but give Satan an open door to destroy the church.
I feel sorry for Jacob and his household. Their life was certainly filled with misery at times. If we aren’t careful, we can create the same misery in our own spiritual family. May God help us to mature spiritually and lay aside all strife and envy from our hearts.
5 Comments
January 21, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Good stuff.
About cliques: on the one hand, I completely agree. I think this is one of those situations like in marriage counseling where there is wrong on both sides but when talking to the wife you talk about the wife’s sins and when talking to the husband you talk about the husband’s.
When talking to those who are complaining about not being included, we need to point out that they have just as much ability to develop relationships with other people instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining because no one is coming to them.
On the other hand, we do need to be very careful about our circles and cliques. We sometimes don’t realize how closed off we are to other people. We don’t realize the hoops we make people jump through to actually have a family relationship with us because of our cliques.
Finally, I do think we need to restructure our view of how congregations will work. Just think for a moment about Jerusalem. They started with 120. However, on the day of pentecost they immediately had 3000. Then very shortly 5,000-10,000. Do we remotely think everyone had a deep relationship with everyone? I’m guessing folks passed each other by in the street market and didn’t even know they were both part of this new group. Were they whining about how some particular person they saw at the assembly didn’t come shake hands with them? Did they whine because they had received personal attention from each one of the apostles or from any of them? No. They must have had a very different view of how those relationships in the congregation worked than we typically have today.
Okay, so I know I’ve circled around a bit and seemed to take both sides of the discussion. I think that is because this is a complex question and cannot be dealt with by simply saying, “We shouldn’t have cliques” or by saying, “Quit worrying about cliques.” The crux of the matter is if my heart and desire for relationship with my brethren is right, then I’ll do what I need to.
January 21, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Oops. By the way, the statement about the apostles should read “Did the whine because they had not received personal attention…”
January 21, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I thought you had something profound to say Edwin. You ended up writing a novel
Good points.
January 29, 2009 at 2:33 am
This is a touchy subject for me but I like the way Edwin looks at both sides. I have been told many times that the congregation is not a social club. I agree, but sometimes I (we) go 180 degrees the other way. From a personal experience, I found myself purposely avoiding two particular brothers awhile back, because I felt I had nothing in common with them and was personally comfortable with an occasional “hey how are you” and move on. Then as time went on I stepped out of my comfort zone and became best friends with one and found out that the other was in desperate need. If I stayed within my little happy box, neither experience would have ever happened.
January 29, 2009 at 2:34 am
LAST COMMENT FROM RICHARD HEALY