The Spirit of Envy
Acts 17:2-4
And Paul, as his manner was, went in to them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,…


Alas! for this spirit of envy and jealousy coming down through the ages. Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Saul and David, Haman and Mordecai, Othello and Iago, Orlando and Angelica, Caligula and Torquatus, Caesar and Pompey, Columbus and the Spanish courtiers, Cambyses and the brother he slew because he was a better marksman, Dionysius and Philoxenius whom he slew because he was a better singer. Jealousy among painters. Closterman and Geoffrey Kneller, Hudson and Reynolds. Francis anxious to see a picture of Raphael, Raphael sends him a picture. Francis, seeing it, falls in a fit of jealousy, from which he dies. Jealousy among authors. How seldom contemporaries speak of each other! Xenophon and Plato living at the same time, but from their writings you would never suppose they had heard of each other. Religious jealousies. The Mohammedans praying for rain during a drought, no rain coming. Then the Christians began to pray for rain, and the rain comes. Then the Mohammedans met together to account for this, and they resolved that God was so well pleased with their prayers He kept the drought on so as to keep them praying; but that the Christians began to pray, and the Lord was so disgusted with their prayer that He sent rain right away, so He would not hear any more of their supplication! Oh! this accursed spirit of envy and jealousy. Let us stamp it out from all our hearts. A wrestler was so envious of Theagenes, the prince of wrestlers, that he could not be consoled in any way, and after Theagenes died and a statue was lifted to him in a public place, his envious antagonist went out every night and wrestled with the statue, until, one night, he threw it, and it fell on him and crushed him to death. So jealousy is not only absurd, but it is killing to the body, and it is killing to the soul.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

WEB: Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,




The Force of Habit
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