The big cities in this state are envy, strife,
Phil. 2:3, “[Let] nothing [be done] through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
James 3;16, “For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work.”
Envy: ζῆλος zēlos – “(zelos from zeo = to be hot or fervent) describes an eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something and can have a good sense but in context (and as used most often in NT) here zelos has an evil sense, meaning envy, jealousy, anger.”
Strife: ἐριθεία eritheia – “denotes “ambition, self-seeking, rivalry,” self-will being an underlying idea in the word; hence it denotes “party-making.” It is derived, not from eris, “strife,” but from erithos, “a hireling;” hence the meaning of “seeking to win followers,” “factions,”
Confusion: ἀκαταστασία akatastasia – “”instability,” (a, negative, kata, “down,” stasis, “a standing”), denotes “a state of disorder, disturbance, confusion, tumult,”
I was reading in Philippians 2 this morning and Blue Letter Bible took me to James 3:16 where I discovered the Greek word for confusion. Apart from Christ, in our fallen nature, we are unstable and in a state of disarray. Our souls are unregenerate and dead. They have no life, Eph. 2:1. We are separated from God’s love & life energy through His Son because of the hardening of our hearts and ignorance of the truth, Eph. 4:18. Before Christ, we are willfully ignorantly suppressing righteousness, Rom. 1:18 (NIV), “Wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness..” We suppressed righteousness in fear, but His perfect, beautiful, fulfilling love thrusts it out. There is no room for it.
1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
Perfect love, by its nature, habitually thrusts and throws out the imperfect. It builds up and edifies 1 Cor. 8:1. See The beauty of nullification. The imperfect could be the fragments of the old nature and lack that creates fear and separation from His love & life. These fragments of the old man are nullified, obsolesced, absorbed and absolved by the revelation of Christ and we grow from pattern to pattern, image to image unto the fullness of the Godhead bodily in us, Col. 1:19.
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