Stubborn is the pejorative way of saying "stick-to-itiveness". Resolve can be a positive virtue or a negative one, depending on what it alights on. For someone to be stubbornly love you, for example, is a good thing. To be stubborn in our dedication to God is a good thing, right? But the word stubborn, when used, is usually negative and implies that the thing being hung-on-to ought be more sensibly let go.In Scripture, stubbornness is generally used to describe "slowness to repent" or slowness to receive instruction / grace from the Lord. It is a stubbornness to do what God says we should, or to do it His way. Sinful stubbornness is generally related to pride, rebellion, or stupidity.
Ex 13:15 (NIV) When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt.The opposite of "stubbornness" is to be submissive, to be receptive. It is to be "poor in spirit", to be "hungry and thirsty for righteousness", to "seek the Lord while He can be found". It is to be humble, and subservient and lowly and obedient. This is something God delights in, for it is "fit" for us.Ne 9:29 (NIV) "You warned them to return to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, by which a man will live if he obeys them. Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen.
Ps 78:8 (NIV) They would not be like their forefathers--a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.
Ps 81:12 (NIV) So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
Isa 46:12 (NIV) Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are far from righteousness.
Jer 5:23 (NIV) But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away.
Jer 7:24 (NIV) But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.
Zec 7:11 (NIV) "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears."
Ro 2:5 (NIV) But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath.
Prov 29:1 (NIV) A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed--without remedy.
Ho 4:16 (NIV) The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the Lord pasture them like lambs in a meadow?
Jer 15:16 (NIV) When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty.Mt 13:23 (NIV) "The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
1Th 2:13 (NIV) And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.
1 Pet 3:4 (NIV) Instead, [your beauty] should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
Mic 6:8 (NIV) He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
1Pe 5:5 (NIV) ...All of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Heb 10:22 (NIV) let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith...
