Gentleness Is a Force to be Reckoned with
How gentleness preserves unity and restores sinners in the local church
Good morning, friends. I’m still on break from Substack until the end of the week - at which point Samantha and I will be headed to Nashville for the Getty Sing conference! We look forward to this each year. Amidst the busyness, I’m still writing and have a couple different articles in the works right now. As always, please like, share, or leave a comment. Blessings!
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22–23
What comes to mind when you think of gentleness? My guess is you tend to think more passivity than activity. To be gentle is to hold back, to restrain, to avoid conflict, to turn the other cheek…right? Those qualities do, indeed, capture some of what it means to be gentle but it’s not a wholistic picture of what gentleness is. Because when we look at gentleness in the Bible, it’s actually a powerful and active force for restorative good.
Consider Proverbs 15:1:
"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
This is an Old Testament picture of gentleness. Notice the similarity and the contrast between the soft answer and the harsh word. Both are doing something. The harsh word creates. It penetrates into a situation it does not belong and births conflict that did not need to be. It stirs up the undesirable. It is active - but active in the destructive sense. It is out for blood.
The soft answer, meanwhile, is an active response. It looks into the eyes of an unnecessary, boiling wrath, but it does not simply accept it. It doesn’t roll over and play dead. It acts. It has the power to turn away a barreling freight train of rage. It steps into the inferno and competently pours water in all the right places to subdue the fire. The seemingly unstoppable force is competently redirected - not by passivity, but by a controlled strength.
Gentleness is a force to be reckoned with.
Yet biblical gentleness does more than defuse intense situations. Its goal is never merely the absence of conflict because gentleness is never indifferent to the real, imago-dei bearing person behind the wrath it turns away. It is always in pursuit of the other person’s good.
Take Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church, for instance. As he writes from the confines of prison, he calls the church to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3).
Gentleness is not a stand-alone virtue. It runs alongside humility, patience, and love, each of these qualities working eagerly together for the preservation of unity amongst brothers and sisters. Unity gets plenty of lip service, but to actually maintain it comes at cost. This is because the church - and I realize I am dropping a profound insight here - is full of sinners. Sinners who are prone to see themselves as the center of the universe. Sinners who easily mix up wants with needs; preferences with commands. Sinners who will lash out and wound. Even small wounds can add up and feel like death by a thousand cuts. How in the world does a church survive the inevitable familial conflicts? How will you survive it?
By humbly and gently bearing with one another in love. It requires willingly absorbing heat at times. It means taking some shots across the bow and not returning fire. Every sin within the church is an opportunity for a civil war if we will let it. A harsh word stirs up anger. Unity comes at cost.
Yet, again, gentleness is not passive. The unity gentleness aims to preserve is a unity that’s going somewhere - towards maturity in Christ.
“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every join with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” - Ephesians 4:15–16
Gentleness creates a context in which growth happens. It allows for and even pursues hard and loving conversations where sin gets exposed, repented of, and increasingly put to death. It forms a space where we can pursue a momentum of holiness together. This is why, in another letter, Paul calls for brothers and sisters to be restored gently:
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” - Galatians 6:1
Notice how all encompassing Paul’s words are. If anyone is caught in any transgression, the spiritual (filled with the Spirit) saints should restore them. How? In a spirit of gentleness.
This is the default way that Christians restore and build back up their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Notice also that Paul is calling for real restoration, not a simply a new layer of paint. This passage doesn’t say, “Let you who are spiritual pat them on the back and say, ‘There, there.’” It doesn’t say, “Let you who are spiritual remind them that none of us are perfect and so they shouldn’t worry about their sin so much.” Gentleness restores. It is willing to say hard things without harshness. Just as gentleness is not the absence of conflict, it is neither the absence of judgment. It takes care of the log in its own eye as much as it is able to and then, by faith, it goes in for the speck in the other’s eye. Bearing with one another in love does not mean ignoring sin. It means addressing it in such a way that the church joins together in a pursuit of increasing Christ-likeness.
I’ll admit, as I’ve been reflecting on the nature of gentleness in God’s Word, I’ve felt the weight more than once at how utterly impossible this is apart from a heart that is settled on genuine love (and the help of the Holy Spirit). As much as appreciate my church, there are some sheep who have a tendency to step on my toes (something I, of course, would never do to anyone else). As all pastors find out rather early in ministry, some sheep even have a biting habit. When I encounter toe-stepping or hand-biting sheep, I can, with surprising agility, turn “bearing with another in love” into “tolerating one another just enough to get by.” You don’t need to be in ministry to feel this same temptation with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
And this is exactly where the gentleness of the Spirit is needed in the life of the church. I desperately need a gentleness operating within me that is wise enough to know when to cover up a sin and when to address it. And when addressing it, how to do so in a way that isn’t primarily about me but is primarily about loving that brother or sister unto Christ-like holiness and maturity. Love must anchor my interaction with that person. In other words, I need the wisdom of James 3:17:
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”
Lord, grant me that wisdom!
Where do you need to pursue gentleness in your life? Where are the gentleness gaps? The blind spots? Ask the Spirit for his wisdom. Ask him to so root you in the love of Christ that the fruit of the Spirit begin to appear more and more in your life, and ask him to help you love your brothers and sisters in Christ with such sincerity that your interactions with them are marked more and more by gentleness, humility, and genuine care. This isn’t cowardice.
It’s love.
Love this wonderful picture of gentleness. One of my favorite quotes regarding gentleness comes from John Piper regarding who Christ is in Revelation 5, Christ is a "Lion like lamb, and a lamb like lion."