I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience. It’s when you realise that someone unexpectedly has a problem with you, but not because of anything that you’ve done to them. Instead, it’s because they’re envious of your position.

Some call this phenomenon “letting you live rent free in their upstairs room”.

It’s a type of bad behaviour that is written about in the Bible.

Joseph’s brothers hated him, we read in Genesis 37, because he was his father’s favourite.

Now Joseph may have been a little wet behind the ears. He was, after all, only 17 and almost the youngest in the family.

He was unwise to tell them about a dream prophesying his future in which they would bow before him. But there’s a lot to be said for assuming that things we could interpret as putdowns are meant with good intent. That is surely the case with Joseph’s conversation with his family. Besides, even if the intent was bad, why rise to the bait?

Yet in the case of Joseph’s brothers, it fuelled their resentment.

The Bible repeatedly warns about that sort of obsessive hatred. In Luke 15, we come across the parable of the prodigal, or lost, son. But it is really a story about two lost sons. There’s the unsuccessful son, who gets his inheritance early and wastes it. And then the successful older brother who is jealous of his, now poor, younger brother.

If we flesh out the parable a bit, we would assume that the older brother’s resentment towards his sibling had existed for a long time. Now learning that his father is hosting a feast because the wayward son has rekindled years of envy and resentment.

Resentments like this cause damage to the person allowing themselves to obsess about other people’s status. It eats away at them and, actually, makes them unlikable. Hence, in Proverbs 14, we read:

A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones.

The theme is also picked up in the New Testament, with James writing (James 3:16-18 NIV):

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

So taking that message, the older son in the parable of the prodigal son should have been the peacemaker who was able to be an encouragement to his difficult brother.

It’s much a healthier place to be than obsessing about others failings. After all, given all the grace God has shown us, should we not offer it others?