Christians are called to cultivate gentleness – but what does that look like in practice?
You are driving to work, and a car aggressively cuts you off. How do you respond? After a long and difficult day at work, you are leading a Bible study and the always-awkward-and-disruptive member of the group makes another off-topic comment about their favourite hobby horse. How do you respond?
The way that God wants us to respond – the response enjoined by Scripture – is that of gentleness.
The call to be gentle is made more frequently in Scripture than we often realise. Paul tells the Galatians that gentleness is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23) and reminds Titus that a Christian is to “be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone” (Titus 3:2).
The idea of gentleness can be present even when the word is not used. Famously, Jesus taught that “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:39). Jesus modelled this on the cross as he prayed for those who had so grossly mistreated him, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). In a similar vein Peter exhorted his readers, not to “repay evil with evil or insult with insult” (1 Peter 3:9).
In fact, references to gentleness permeate the New Testament. Most obviously, Jesus describes himself “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). To be gentle demonstrates that we are “wise and understanding” (James 3:13). When we answer an unbeliever, we are to do so with “gentleness” (1 Peter 3:15). As Christians we are to be “completely humble and gentle” with one another (Ephesians 4:2) and clothe ourselves with gentleness (Colossians 3:12).
Christian leaders are, of all people, to model gentleness. The overseer is to be “not violent but gentle” (1 Timothy 3:3) – Timothy is actually told to “pursue” gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11). Even when relating to opponents, the Christian leader must be gentle (2 Timothy 2:25). In the context where someone has sinned and been disciplined, they must be restored gently (Galatians 6:1).
But what actually is gentleness? One helpful way of thinking about it that I have come across is to consider gentleness having as two senses: one passive and the other active. The passive sense is calmness in response to a negative situation. So, in the scenario above where you are driving to work, the gentle response is to smile and let the other driver through.
The active sense of gentleness is the refusal to (even rightly) exercise our power. So, in the Bible study illustration above, the gentle response might be to calmly thank the group member for their contribution before directing everyone’s attention back to the passage. There may need to be follow-up, but that is also something to be done gently.
Gentleness obviously overlaps with other words and concepts in the New Testament. So, the passive side of gentleness has parallels with the ideas of patience and longsuffering. The active side – refusing to exercise our (right) authority – is picked up particularly in reflections on how a pastor is not to “lord it over” (1 Peter 5:3) his congregation, or how Paul strikingly describes himself as the Corinthians’ servant/slave (2 Corinthians 4:5) for Jesus’ sake and how he refuses to make use of his rights (1 Corinthians 9:15).
The other question is: must we always be gentle? Jesus’ words to the Scribes and Pharisees do not seem like the most obviously gentle words: “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:33). Similarly, Paul seems to give the Corinthians an option: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?” (1 Corinthians 4:21). Is gentleness, then, simply one option?
I think it is helpful to consider another passage where Paul treats the topic of gentleness, namely 2 Corinthians 10:1-11. He entreats the Corinthians in verse 1: “By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you – I, Paul, who am ‘timid’ when face to face with you, but ‘bold’ toward you when away!”
The two words that he uses here – humility and gentleness – actually reflect the two senses of gentleness we have been considering. His basic stance to them, his basic motivation for appealing to them, is gentleness. However, this is not the only dimension of Paul’s stance in ministry. As he continues, he speaks about warfare:
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
Even in his humility and gentleness, Paul is engaging in spiritual warfare. There is a negative aspect to his exercise of authority. Being gentle doesn’t mean that he just “lets things go”. The language is strong – he demolishes or tears down arguments and opinions which are raised against the knowledge of God.
There is a robust, negative aspect to Christian authority. Christian leadership involves warfare and warfare involves destruction. Christian leadership does not just involve preaching the truth, it means preaching the truth in a way that it exposes and destroys error. But warfare also has a positive goal. Paul notes that his aim is to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”. The goal is submission to Christ as Lord, and so Paul’s reason for acting this way is “for building you up rather than tearing you down” (10:8).
What this means is that gentleness is not niceness! Gentleness does not mean that we endlessly concede other people’s arguments. No, gentleness does not rule out warfare. Warfare is necessary – to protect God’s people with the goal of building them up. That is the goal of Christian leadership. But although Paul destroys arguments, he doesn’t destroy God’s people: no, he builds them up.
Spiritual leadership means being gentle with people (even our opponents) but being strongly aggressive against arguments. Again, perhaps our culture is not great at distinguishing those. We tend to conflate people and arguments – if you oppose my argument you oppose me. But Paul is gentle with people but aggressive with arguments – it is warfare, so that God’s people are built up.
I want to conclude with a verse that does not use the word “gentleness” but which applies the concept in a way that I think gives a profoundly radical critique of an aspect of modern life: victim culture.
In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul is discussing the case of believers going to court against one another. He rebukes them for this practice. Surely there are people in the court who can settle these disputes – after all, Christians will judge angels (6:3). But rather than sorting this out in-house, these believers are taking one another to court “in front of unbelievers” (6:6).
The whole situation is a mess. Paul’s solution, though, has three components, one of which I think is particularly striking. First, the whole practice of taking one another to court has simply got to stop. Second, they are not to “cheat and do wrong” to each other (6:8). But tucked away in these verses is Paul’s remarkable exhortation in verse 7 when he tells them not to sue one another but to “rather be wronged” (1 Corinthians 6:7).
Why not rather be wronged? This is Paul’s application of Jesus’ “turn the other cheek” teaching. It is important to clear away some misapplications – Paul is not talking about a criminal situation. He was very clear that those who do wrong in a criminal sense should remember that the state “bears the sword” on God’s behalf to punish the wrongdoer (Romans 13:4). Nor is he talking about cases of family violence (again a matter of criminal law which is not in view here). No, the context here is that these are two equally empowered people taking one another to court.
However, in our right desire to clarify what this verse does not mean, we mustn’t evacuate it of its force. There is a basic Christian principle that sometimes it is actually right to allow someone to wrong us, to turn the other cheek, to “take” the insult. This goes against our culture’s weaponisation of victim status where even the slightest insult or “misspeak” results in the offender being “cancelled”. As Christians, in contrast, we follow a master who suffered unjustly, who turned the other cheek, who prayed for those who persecuted him and who “suffered wrong”.
I am not saying this is easy, nor am I saying it will always be easy to work out when and how we apply this idea. But if we cultivate the same character of gentleness as the Lord Jesus, we will be very slow to insist on our rights and fight back when someone wrongs us.
Gentleness, then, is a high calling for the Christian. Many of us, myself included, will recognise how far short we fall of the gentle character of the Lord Jesus. But to have this kind of control of our emotions and our actions is not something that we can produce in ourselves alone. It is the fruit of the Spirit’s work in us.
This is actually a wonderful encouragement. Even as gentleness is something that God commands, it is something that he supplies by his Spirit. Will you join me in crying out to God to produce more gentleness in your heart by his Spirit?
By: Peter Orr
