Why is God Jealous?

Why did God send Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take the Jewish people into captivity? Is God bitter and jealous or loving and kind?

The celebrity Oprah Winfrey claims that the teaching of God as a jealous God is what made her leave Christianity. Once, she recounted the time she heard her pastor in a sermon declare that God is jealous. She says about that moment, “[...] something about that moment didn’t–didn’t feel right in my spirit, because I believed that God is love [...].” 

All throughout the Bible, there are commands to love God and to worship Him. A major example of this is Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Additionally, the Bible has many commands to not worship other false gods or idols; for example, we are told in Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

But if we really stop to think about these commands, it can often be somewhat bothersome to us. We think to ourselves, “Why would God tell us to worship Him? Isn’t that a little self-centered of Him?” To make things worse, the Bible shows that God doesn’t take it lightly when we fail to comply with these rules; instead, He deals out severe punishments because of it. It can even cause us to think of God as mean, unkind, selfish, insecure, or cruel. Why does God command us to worship and love Him?

We are given the answer in Deuteronomy 4:23-24: “Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord, your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” We are told in these verses the reason is that God is a jealous God.

Pastor Ray Ortlund describes God’s jealousy this way: “The jealousy of Yahweh is His profoundly intense drive within to protect the interest of His own glory, for He will admit no derogation from His majesty.” Basically, God’s jealousy is His holy devotion for His own glory and fame, which moves Him in pursuit of the worship He rightly deserves from His creatures. 

 “Can we truly love a God who is jealous?”

In this message we consider this question and dig into the heart of worship, and why our responsibility to love and worship God may be one of the greatest blessings that God could offer us.