Good jealousy and bad jealousy in dating relationships is the topic today. It's not an uncommon question. We get it quite often, but it's one we've never gotten to until now. So here we are. It arrives in the form of an email from a listener named Charles. "Hello Pastor John.

I'm very thankful for your ministry and the profound impact God is making through you for the kingdom. I have battled with jealousy and control in my romantic relationships all of my life. I pray to be fully delivered from it one day, but it hasn't happened yet. Is jealousy normal in dating, and Pastor John, how can I fight it?" I think we should put the question of jealousy first in its wider biblical context.

Not just start with dating, but start with God, then move to people in ordinary relationships, and then dating. Exodus 20, verse 5, and 34, 14 say that God is a jealous God. That means He has a strong desire that all the affections that belong to Him in the hearts of His people come to Him rather than going to other persons or other things.

And the form that this strong desire takes when affections of His people belong to Him, go to Him, is joy. And the strong desire, if they go somewhere else, these affections go somewhere else, is anger. So jealousy itself can be expressed positively as a joyful desire for the affections of the beloved, and negatively as anger over the misplacement of the affections of the beloved.

In either case, jealousy can be good, a proper emotion in the heart of God. And we shouldn't have the notion, lest anybody go there, that, "Oh, well, that's just kind of an Old Testament view of God." I remember reading that Oprah Winfrey was led away from traditional Christianity because she heard a sermon on the jealousy of God, and she didn't think it was right, didn't think it was New Testament.

Well, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, 22, warns Christians, "Don't provoke the Lord to jealousy." In other words, don't give your heart away to anybody but Him when it belongs to Him. And then there's jealousy for the Lord from us. God commended Phinehas in Numbers 25, 11 for being jealous with his jealousy, jealous with God's jealousy.

In other words, it's right for us to feel with God a jealousy that He get the affections from us and from others that belong to Him. There should be a joy within us when affections are flowing to God which belong to God, and there should be indignation in us when affections that belong to God are flowing to something other than God.

It's jealousy. It's good jealousy that we share with God. We have His jealousy. Now, when it comes to jealousy among people, to each other, the New Testament is clear that there's a good kind and a bad kind. The New Testament has lots of warnings against the bad kind, the sin of jealousy.

But the very word translated "jealousy," the noun "jealousy," can also be translated as "zeal" in a good way. "Zeal for your houses consumed me." That's a good thing, a good kind of jealousy. So the difference is not in the word that's used, it's in the context, in the way it's used.

So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:4, "Love is not jealous." Sometimes translated, "Love does not envy." Well, there is another word for envy, and sometimes they overlap. But it simply means love doesn't grasp for and demand affections from the beloved that don't belong to it. It's not excessive. It's not grasping.

It's not holding on. It's happy. It rejoices when the beloved's affections go toward other things and other people that are appropriate. Affections from mom or dad or friends or a night out or nature. We're not all grasping. "I want those! I want those! Those are mine!" No, they're not.

And love knows the difference. So we don't demand that all affections come to us from our beloved. We're not loving if we do. James 3.16 says, "Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist there will be disorder in every vile practice." On the other hand, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11.2, "I feel a divine jealousy for you." James 3.16, bad, bad, bad.

Jealousy's bad. And 2 Corinthians 11.2, "Ah, this is good. I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to your one husband, Jesus Christ, to present you as a pure virgin to him." So what's the difference between good jealousy and bad jealousy? And I think the answer lies in the emotional root that gives rise to the feeling and the behavioral fruit that flows from the feeling.

My definition of good jealousy is a joyful desire that you receive, that I receive, if I'm feeling the jealousy, a joyful desire that I receive the affections from another person which really belong to me. Or that you feel when they really belong to you, that you feel an appropriate indignation if the affections that belong to you are not being given to you.

It is not automatically a sin if a fiancé feels jealousy because the fiancé's dating another guy or a gal. Clearly, we know the difference between affections that belong to us at various stages of our relationships, at least if we're healthy, we do. So I would define bad jealousy as jealousy that is rooted in fear and insecurity and lack of trust in God's promises.

In other words, bad jealousy has an inappropriate need, need for too much attention from the beloved because of an insecurity and fear and unwillingness to trust God to take care of the beloved and provide for our needs. And another kind of bad jealousy would be jealousy that comes from selfishness or pride.

In other words, you feel jealous because you want to look like you're the only person the beloved spends time with. You want to be made much of by this person instead of having her or him go after other people and spend time with them and act like they matter.

You want them to act like you're the only thing that matters. That's just sick. That's not healthy. That's an unloving kind of jealousy that's rooted in pride and not in love. Good jealousy is rooted in a peaceful confidence in God for your own identity and security so that you have a wonderful, free, loving disposition to allow your beloved to have appropriate relationships besides the one he or she has with you and to have appropriate emotions toward family and friends which don't at all compromise his or her affections for you.

And good jealousy can discern the difference between what affections belong to you and which don't because good jealousy is shaped by genuine love and genuine trust in Christ. So that's the aim, Charles. You said, "How can you work against it?" Those two things, grow in trust and grow in love.

Such good counsel, Pastor John. Thank you. And Charles, thank you for the question. That's a very good and important one that I know a lot of people have asked us in the past. I'm glad we could finally get to it. And thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

Stay current with our episodes through your favorite podcast application. And now every episode is also published on YouTube. That's right, in YouTube. You can go to our feed there at youtube.com/desiringgod. And you can see how it is done. And you can subscribe there. And if you're already listening through YouTube, well done.

You know how it works. Be sure to subscribe to the channel for the latest from Desiring God. And if you have a question for Pastor John, send it to us through our podcast homepage at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, I'm not entirely certain, but I believe on Friday we're going to return to address a really important question related to racial harmony among Christians.

And the question is over whether or not Reformed theology can be used by a predominantly white Reformed church as an excuse to distance themselves from non-Reformed black churches. It is a really good question, one we need to address head on. And we will on Friday. Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

We'll see you then.