{"id":595,"date":"2016-10-02T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.org\/blogpastor\/?p=595"},"modified":"2016-10-01T21:42:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T02:42:45","slug":"what-does-the-bible-say-about-malice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/2016\/what-does-the-bible-say-about-malice\/","title":{"rendered":"What does the Bible say about malice?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cAnd do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.\u201d Ephesians\u00a04:30\u201332<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maliciousness is a word that sounds as bad as it really is. No matter how we may want to sugarcoat a spiteful act it will never reach a redeeming purpose, for it has its taproot stuck in the muck of malice. In fact, God relegates malice to the realms of the unsaved; never is it to find expression by a saint.<\/p>\n

Malice means extreme enmity of heart, malevolence, a disposition to injure others\u2014without cause, for mere personal gratification, or from a spirit of revenge. The word comes from the Latin word malitia<\/em> from the root word malus<\/em>, literally meaning evil. Many English words use the same Latin word as a prefix: words such as malediction, malefactor, malevolent, malfeasance, malign, malignant, malingerer, malnutrition, malodorous, and malpractice. No wonder maliciousness has such bad connotations.<\/p>\n

The Greek word most often translated malice is kakia<\/em>. It means character of badness, evil in quality, to be generally evil and vicious. This emphasis is on character and is distinct from another word for evil, poneros<\/em>, which refers to malignancy\u2014the injurious, and destructive influence of evil. Kakia<\/em> is the root from which all manner of poneros<\/em> injury and malignancy arises.<\/p>\n

Another Greek word, kalos<\/em>, is the opposite of kakia<\/em>. It means excellent, fair, admirable, good character. Kakia<\/em> is also distinct from agathos<\/em>, a word signifying a beneficial, useful and good act. In summary, the word kakia<\/em> signifies evil at its root, useless and incapable of redeeming quality. Instead, it is the breeding ground and launching point of poneros<\/em>, malignant acts that can only destroy. Now you can easily see the depth of meaning of Lincoln\u2019s words in his second inaugural address, \u201cWith malice toward none, with charity for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since malice has no redeeming qualities it is easy to see that maliciousness is a sign of an unrepentant, depraved heart. The devolution of man\u2019s spiritual condition begins with rejection of God\u2019s spiritual and moral truth; maliciousness is inevitable. Romans\u00a01:21\u201332 reveals that God gave unsaved man over to \u201cuncleanness\u201d (verse\u00a024), \u201cvile passions\u201d (verse\u00a026), and finally a \u201cdebased mind\u201d (reprobate, verse\u00a028). Verse\u00a029 explains the meaning of reprobate: \u201cbeing filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness\u2026.\u201d Natural man\u2019s bilious core is a corrosive, noxious poison that taints everything, and must be bridled at every opportunity or it will run rampant over everything good, uplifting, and beneficial to all. God sets Himself squarely against all malice (Psalm\u00a010:14).<\/p>\n

When a man becomes born again, God works within him to rid him of his malicious, evil character. Titus\u00a03:2\u20134 reads, \u201cFor we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

God enlists us to the task of ridding ourselves of malice. Colossians\u00a03:5\u201310 states, \u201cTherefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.\u201d<\/p>\n

We each have a great need to be constantly putting off sin as God reveals it to us. I find that God reveals my sin to me most often by study in the Word of God (James\u00a01:21). Sometimes He reveals my sin to me through the admonitions of others. But the starkest of all revelations of my sin is when something triggers a malicious response within me and the Holy Spirit chastens my conscience. Sin must be put off in each instance, but when malice is detected it is a sure sign to me that I still have a deep-rooted, depraved nature within that must be put off and the new man put on.<\/p>\n

When malice finds safe harbor in the heart of the saint, he is grieving the Holy Spirit. The epistle of 1\u00a0Corinthians was written to a spiritually smug church with multiple problems. Malice is mentioned twice. First, in the context of communion, purging out personal sin and church discipline, Paul declares in verse\u00a05:8, \u201cTherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice [kakia<\/em>, evil in character] and wickedness [poneros<\/em>, evil in effect], but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.\u201d Then, in verse\u00a014:20, Paul explains that malice gets in the way of the Holy Spirit\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Though we easily recognize malice in the hearts of others, we rarely remember that malice is hidden away in our \u201cold man\u201d and must be diligently guarded against (1\u00a0Peter\u00a02:16), and never coddled or nourished (Ephesians\u00a04:31), lest we become disqualified for the Master\u2019s use (1\u00a0Corinthians\u00a09:26f). Trust and obey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.\u201d Ephesians\u00a04:30\u201332 Maliciousness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hanoverbaptistchurch.dreamhosters.com\/blogpastor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}