In yesterday’s study, we looked at two reasons why people do not like when someone else succeeds. Today we consider some other reasons.
3. Some oppose others or their projects because they have a different agenda than they do. Of all the reasons for opposition to a good work, this one is probably the most valid. I place most of the opposition to Christian projects from today’s secularists in this category. For example, when a liberal group sues a New England township to have a manger scene removed from the town square at Christmas time, where it has been for scores of Christmases, the reason is not because the manger is a threat to them or because of jealousy but because any display of religion is opposed to the secular agenda of this group.
4. Some feel excluded. There may have been an element of exclusion in the opposition of Sanballat and Tobiah to the Jews’ rebuilding project. They were not Jews, and the Jews were conscious of their unique ethnic origins and history. They did not want the assistance of their non-Jewish neighbors.
Sometimes this is right, and the resulting feelings of exclusion and opposition are inevitable. For example, the church has a unique identity and should preserve it. Membership in the visible body of Jesus Christ is for those who have trusted in Christ as their Savior from sin and who are attempting to follow Him. The church is not a social club. On the other hand, churches more than all organizations should go out of their way to serve and offer help to all types of people.
5. People suspect the motivations of those they oppose. This was one of the spoken reasons for Sanballat and Tobiah’s opposition to Nehemiah, though it may only have been a cover-up for their less noble motivations. They accused the Jews of fortifying Jerusalem out of a desire to rebel against Persia. The Jews were not doing this, of course, but it was a convenient and damaging charge to make. In a similar way, the stands Christians take for personal or social morality are often twisted by others to appear as mere bids for power or as plots to destroy civil liberties.
6. Some people, especially leaders, lose face when others succeed. This is something any successful person needs to be aware of and do everything possible to eliminate. The best way, whenever possible, is to take other people into the project and make them part of the success.
7. Opposition comes from traditionalists, that is, from those who prefer the way things have been done in the past and do not want change. This is common in the church where, for many people, religion has become a comfortable thing that promises much and asks little. In a church where nobody is expected to witness or serve or reach out to anybody, a program to transform that deadly attitude and unleash the church’s potential will be rejected by most as undesirable.
8. A final reason for opposition, at least to spiritual work, is that it is opposed by Satan. Vos rightly cautions against attributing all opposition either in secular or Christian work to Satan. “It would be easy to blame all of Nehemiah’s difficulties on Satan’s opposition, but that is too simplistic… Satan merely needed to exploit already existing concerns.”1 That is true, of course. But it is also true that Satan is a powerful enemy and that he will do everything he can to destroy spiritual growth or Christian advance into territory he controls.
This is one reason why Christian work in the inner city is so difficult. The cities are Satan’s strongholds. Moreover, in Christian things, there are persons other than Satan who recognize God’s work and oppose it because they hate God.
1Howard F. Vos, Bible Study Commentary: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 100.
