📖 Biblical Definition
Malice is settled ill-will — the deliberate, deep-seated desire to injure another. In the New Testament, malice (kakia) is consistently listed among the works of the flesh that must be put off: "Put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth" (Colossians 3:8); "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice" (Ephesians 4:31). Children of God are commanded paradoxically to be "children in malice, but in understanding be men" (1 Corinthians 14:20): infantile in capacity for ill-will, mature in capacity for thought. The Christian man cannot afford even small reserves of malice. They poison the family, the church, and finally the soul that hosts them.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
MAL'ICE, n.
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Extreme enmity of heart, or malevolence; a disposition to injure others without cause, from mere personal gratification or from a spirit of revenge; unprovoked malignity; deliberate ill will. Malice prepense, in law, malice aforethought.
📖 Key Scripture
Ephesians 4:31 — "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice."
1 Corinthians 14:20 — "Be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children."
1 Peter 2:1 — "Laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings."
Titus 3:3 — "Living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern social media is malice with a content calendar.
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Paul's instruction is striking: in malice be ye children (1 Cor 14:20). A toddler does not nurse a grudge for six months; he forgets and goes back to playing. The Christian is to be infantile in malice, mature in everything else. Most of us have it backwards: childish in doctrine, geriatric in resentment.
Malice is the soil where almost every other sin germinates — gossip, slander, factions, schism, lawsuits among brothers. Peter ranks it first in the list of things to lay aside before drinking the milk of the Word (1 Pet 2:1-2). The man who comes to his Bible while still rehearsing the case against his brother will not digest a verse. Lay aside the malice; then read.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek kakia (G2549) — ill-will, malice.
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G2549 — kakia — malice; evil disposition; ill-will
G4189 — poneria — wickedness, depravity
Usage
"In malice be a toddler; in doctrine, a man."
"A heart full of malice cannot read the Bible profitably."
"Malice is the seedbed of every relational sin in the church."