Selfishness
Selfishness in scripture is the disposition that puts one's own goods, comfort, honor, or claim ahead of a brother in need or of God himself. It surfaces in the patriarchs and judges, in kings and priests, in the disciples around Jesus, and in the closing-days catalog of 2 Timothy. Paul's counterweight is direct: "each of you not looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others" (Php 2:4).
Different Forms
A pointed definition comes from Paul's last-days portrait, where self-love heads the list of vices: "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy" (2 Tim 3:2), and the catalog continues, "without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (2 Tim 3:3-4). John frames the same disposition in a single test of charity: "But whoever has the world's goods, and looks at his brother in need, and shuts up his compassion from him, how does the love of God stay in him?" (1 John 3:17).
The Wisdom literature works the form out concretely. Withholding what others need draws a curse: "He who withholds grain, the people will curse him; But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it" (Prov 11:26); "He who gives to the poor will not lack; But he who hides his eyes will have many a curse" (Prov 28:27). Refusing to act when others can be saved is itself a charge: "Deliver those who are carried away to death, And see that you hold back those who are ready to be slain" (Prov 24:11). The plea that one did not know is no shelter — "If you say, Look, we did not know this; Does not he who weighs the hearts consider it? And he who keeps your soul, does he not know it? And will he not render to man according to his work?" (Prov 24:12). Sirach states the principle abruptly: "He who is evil to his soul, to whom will he do good? And he will not meet with his good things" (Sir 14:5). Even the bias of one-sided argument falls under the same critique: "He who pleads his cause first seems just; But his fellow man comes and searches him out" (Prov 18:17).
The prophets sharpen the indictment when selfishness operates at scale. Isaiah pronounces a woe on the engrossing of property: "Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!" (Isa 5:8). Habakkuk turns the same accusation into a taunting proverb against the conqueror: "Will not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him who increases that which is not his! How long? And that loads himself with pledges!" (Hab 2:6). Hosea sees it in the prosperity that fattens worship: "Israel is a luxuriant vine, that puts forth his fruit: according to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars; according to the goodness of their land they have made goodly pillars" (Hos 10:1). Ezekiel pictures the well-fed who spoil what remains for others: "Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the remainder of your pasture? And to have drank of the clear waters, but you must foul the remainder with your feet?" (Ezek 34:18). Zechariah unmasks fasting that is actually self-indulgence: "And when you eat, and when you drink, don't you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?" (Zech 7:6).
Selfishness Toward God's House
A particular form of selfishness is preferring one's own house and one's own honor to the worship of Yahweh. Haggai confronts the exiles who had paneled their own dwellings while the temple lay in ruins: "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lies waste?" (Hag 1:4). The drought that followed is named for this disorder — "You looked for much, and, look, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew on it. Why? says Yahweh of hosts. Because of my house that lies waste, while you run every man to his own house. Therefore above you the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit" (Hag 1:9-10).
Micah frames the same selfishness in the leadership: "The heads of it judge for reward, and its priests teach for wages, and its prophets tell the future for silver: yet they lean on the Speech of Yahweh, and say, Is not Yahweh in the midst of us? No evil will come upon us" (Mic 3:11). And Malachi gives voice to Yahweh's weariness with offerings made grudgingly: "Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says Yahweh of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand" (Mal 1:10).
Examples
Selfishness shows up in the human story in its first generation. After the murder, Cain's reply to God is a refusal of brotherly responsibility: "And the Speech of Yahweh said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I don't know: am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9).
The wilderness narratives furnish further cases. The sons of Gad and Reuben prefer settlement east of the Jordan to crossing with their brothers, and Moses rebukes them: "Will your brothers go to the war, and will you sit here?" (Num 32:6). Edom denies Israel a passage: "Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: therefore Israel turned away from him" (Num 20:21). Later, the princes of Succoth withhold provisions from Gideon's exhausted men: "Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?" (Judg 8:6).
Nabal in Carmel gives the classic refusal of hospitality to David and his men: "Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men of whom I don't know from where they are?" (1 Sam 25:11). In the court of Persia, Haman betrays the same self-absorption when Ahasuerus invites him to suggest honors for an unnamed man: "Now Haman said in his heart, Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?" (Esth 6:6).
The friends of the psalmist withdraw in his suffering: "My friends and my companions stand aloof from my plague; And my kinsmen stand far off" (Ps 38:11). Isaiah likens the leaders of Israel to insatiable appetites: "Yes, the dogs are greedy of soul, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds who cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter" (Isa 56:11).
In the Gospels, the parable of the man fallen among robbers is built on selfishness in those who should have helped: "And by chance a certain priest was going down that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side" (Luke 10:31-32). Among the twelve, James and John approach Jesus with their own request: "Grant to us that we may sit, one on your right hand, and one on your left hand, in your glory" (Mark 10:37). Paul's own circle is no exception: "For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ" (Php 2:21), and even of Timothy he must say, "For I have no man likeminded, who will care truly for your state" (Php 2:20).
The selfishness of empty almsgiving has its own example: "If a brother or sister is naked and may be in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled; and yet you don't give them the things needful to the body; what does it profit?" (James 2:15-16).
The Duty Set Against It
The corrective is stated plainly. "Let no man seek his own, but of another" (1 Cor 10:24). Love itself is described in terms that exclude this disposition: love "does not behave itself unseemly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take account of evil" (1 Cor 13:5). The Philippian formulation gathers it up: "each of you not looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others" (Php 2:4).
The duty extends to deference in matters where one's own freedom would wound a brother. "It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything by which your brother stumbles" (Rom 14:21); "For if because of meat your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don't destroy with your meat him for whom Christ died" (Rom 14:15). Paul presses the same logic into a general rule: "Now we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his fellow man for that which is good, to edifying" (Rom 15:1-2). And again, "Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2).
Jesus had already cut off the calculation that lends, loves, and does good only when there is something to be received: "And if you love those who love you, what thanks do you have? For even sinners love those who love them. For even if you do good to those who do good to you, what thanks do you have? Even sinners do the same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thanks is it to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much" (Luke 6:32-34). The death of Christ recasts the believer's whole orientation: "and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Cor 5:15).
The Contrary Pattern
Scripture gives a long line of figures whose conduct stands against selfishness. Abram yields the first choice of land to Lot: "Isn't the whole land before you? Separate yourself, I pray you, from me. If you will take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left" (Gen 13:9). After the rescue of Lot, Abram refuses the spoil offered by the king of Sodom: "that I will not take a thread nor a sandal strap nor anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich" (Gen 14:23). Joseph reassures his brothers after their father's death: "Now therefore don't be afraid: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke kindly to them" (Gen 50:21). Judah pleads to be made a slave in place of Benjamin: "Now therefore, let your slave, I pray you, remain instead of the lad a slave to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brothers" (Gen 44:33).
Moses delivers the daughters of Reuel from the shepherds (Exod 2:17), and at Sinai offers himself in place of the people: "Yet now, if you will forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray you, out of your book which you have written" (Exod 32:32). When Joshua resents that others are prophesying, Moses answers, "Are you jealous for my sake? Oh that all Yahweh's people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his Spirit on them!" (Num 11:29). Jephthah's daughter accepts the vow that costs her life (Judg 11:36). Ruth has left her own land for Naomi (Ruth 2:11). Jonathan strips off his royal apparel for David (1 Sam 18:4) and acknowledges that David, not he, will be king: "you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you" (1 Sam 23:17). David himself refuses to drink the water that the three mighty men risked their lives to bring him: "shall I drink the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their souls?" (2 Sam 23:17). Esther approaches the king at risk of death: "if I perish, I perish" (Esth 4:16). Daniel waves off the king's gifts before reading the writing on the wall: "Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another" (Dan 5:17). Moses by faith chose ill treatment with God's people "rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb 11:25).
The pattern Paul holds up is Christ. "For Christ also didn't please himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me" (Rom 15:3). And again, "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9).
Paul presents himself as a pupil of that same pattern. He will eat no flesh forevermore if it would make a brother stumble (1 Cor 8:13); he does all things "for the sake of the good news, that I may be a copartner of it" (1 Cor 9:23); he aims "not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved" (1 Cor 10:33); he counts all things loss "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" and regards them as crap "that I may gain Christ" (Php 3:8); he will glory in his weaknesses rather than on his own behalf (2 Cor 12:5); he endures all things "for the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim 2:10); and to the Corinthians he writes, "I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?" (2 Cor 12:15).