Love Does not Envy or Boast

"Love does not envy or boast" -1 Corinthians 13:4.

These two words, envy and boast, are an interesting couple. At first they appear to be very different in nature. Envy is that man in the corner who is bitter because everyone else got a peanut butter bar. Boasting is that man who is proud because he is the only one to have received a peanut butter bar. Complete opposites, right?


Although they take on very different faces, envy and boasting are both rooted in a false sense of ownership, either over what someone else has (envy) or what you yourself have (boasting). 

- Envy is falsely assuming that something outside of your possession is rightfully yours and thereby wrongly desiring it.

- Boasting is falsely assuming that something inside your possession is rightfully yours and thereby falsely taking pride in it.

- Righteous jealousy, on the other hand, is rightly assuming that something outside your possession is rightfully yours and thereby rightly desiring it. 
- Finally, righteous boasting is rightly assuming that something inside your possession is rightfully yours and thereby taking pride in it.

I take these definitions to be self-evident and will not attempt to defend them here. 

As fallen humans, we deserve nothing and therefore have no room to boast. As Christians, we have been given the right to be called children of God (John 1:12) and therefore are able to make our boast in Christ who gives us that right. Only in Christ do you deserve what you own. Therefore, only in Christ can you boast in what you own. Apart from Christ boasting is both wrong and unloving. 

“Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14)