Bitter People Definition
- Jack Selcher
- Jun 25
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 2
I had measles as a child. “Measles can cause serious health complications, especially in children younger than 5 years old. Measles is highly contagious. If one person has it, up to 9 out of 10 people nearby will become infected if they are not protected.”1 My brother was hospitalized with kidney nephritis resulting from measles when he was four years old.
Bitterness, a universal symptom of sinful heart disease, is also highly contagious. Sin’s captives are filled with bitterness (Acts 8:23). “Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats” (Psalm 10:7 NLT). Let's explore bitter people definition.
We have spread the plague of bitterness. Is it not true that those closest to us have the same negative attitude toward those who have hurt us as we do?
Where do you think that came from, if not from us? Like a virus, it passed from us to them invisibly.
We stored resentment, hostility, and animosity in our hearts toward offenders because of real or imagined ill-treatment. We justified our bitterness.
We were smoking mad, and the smell of our smoke lingered on others. Israeli and Arab people have drunk the Kool-Aid of bitterness against each other and passed it on from generation to generation.
We blamed our offenders for our suffering. They caused us deep anguish, distress, and extreme emotional pain as Job and Jeremiah reported after their losses (Job 7:11, 21:25; Lamentations 3:5, 19).
No one knew exactly how we felt (Proverbs 14:10) or fathomed the depths of our pain. Consciously or unconsciously, we influence significant others around us.
Our attitude became theirs. Our bitterness pill dissolved and spread like poison in the water to all who drank it, polluting us, those closest to us, and our offenders if our bitterness erupted into hurtful behavior against them.
If it did, our vengeful and foolish actions likely caused additional anguish and emotional pain for our loved ones (Proverbs 17:25). Our anger bore the fruit of sinful behavior (James 1:19). Joseph’s angry brothers bitterly sold him into slavery (Genesis 49:23).
Bitterness is associated with poison (Deuteronomy 32:32), the emotions of impending death (1 Samuel 15:32), negative and harmful consequences (2 Samuel 2:26), and injurious and unpleasant things (Amos 5:7, 6:12).
In Deuteronomy 29:18, bitterness refers to the poisonous fruit of valuing someone or something more than God. Make no mistake. Bitterness is poisonous, and only the Enemy of the faith profits from it.
Our offenses and virtuous living rarely, if ever, touch only one person. We have more enemies and friends than we realize. When we offend someone, we injure their whole family. When we bless someone, we bless their entire family.
Bitterness and blessing are both communicable. God has blessed us to bless others (Genesis 12:3). The Enemy uses our bitterness to keep us captive under his sway.
Bitter people experience potentially life-shortening stress. If we give bitterness permission to stay, we will discover it has a long half-life.
We must unload instead of embracing it (Ephesians 4:31) and put out all its storage containers for trash pickup. If we don’t, we are figuratively camping in the ruins of the Chernobyl power plant.
Bitterness is part of a gang. It is the first through the door, followed by rage, anger, brawling, slander, and all kinds of malice (Ephesians 4:31). As an emotion of darkness, it will steal from, kill, and destroy us (John 10:10).
Smoking a single cigarette shortens our life expectancy by 20 minutes.2 Similarly, the latest research has found that prolonged bitterness threatens good health. Allowing it to control us can affect metabolism, organ function, and immune response, and bring physical disease. For both smoking and harboring bitterness, the best time to stop is now. See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians.
See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com
God has empowered me to write “His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength.” It’s a free, evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship eBook. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead more than 5,190 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 12,615 people. I invite you to explore it.
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