Gentleness

Let your gentleness be evident to all. Philippians 4:5

We were reflecting the other day, my wife and I, on the meaning of this verse in Philippians 4 – especially, on what the word “gentleness” means.

I remember, as a small child in Sunday School, singing about “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”. I remember too that once I had become a grown up Christian I learned that while this was fine, it was by no means the whole truth: it could give the impression that Jesus was weak as well as meek, and the Gospels make it clear that he was anything but! His action in “cleansing the temple”, for example (Matthew 21:12-13), and his ferocious words to “you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites… you snakes, you brood of vipers” (Matthew 23:13-33) make that very clear indeed.

Yet of course there was a gentleness about Jesus, for which, as sinners saved by grace, we can only be thankful. Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 10:1 of “the humility and gentleness of Christ”, using the same word as here in Philippians 4.

Language is a wonderful thing. How would we communicate without it? But it can be very frustrating too. Some words are virtually impossible to translate straight from one language to another – there just isn’t a word in the other language that conveys exactly the same meaning, so you have to be a bit flexible.

A quick glance through various Bible translations in this case makes this clear: I took “gentleness” from the New International Version, and the New Revised Standard Version is the same: but the Living Bible has “consideration”, the English Standard Version has “reasonableness”, and the King James Version has “moderation”.

And who would dare say any of those options are wrong! (The Message takes the one word and expands it into a whole sentence in order to cover every possible shade of meaning. And who would dare say that is wrong either?)

Confused? I don’t think we need be. The fact is that exact word-for-word translations are just not possible. But if we take all those possibilities and roll them, so to speak, into a ball, we get a pretty good idea of what Paul is getting at: that the Christians of Philippi should display calm, peacefulness, quietness, fairness, dignity, a willingness to forgive and forget, to see the other person’s point of view, to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Will that do?

Do you ever wonder how your church – not to mention yourself! – comes across to the non-Christian world?

To some of our neighbours we may be a bunch of weirdos; to others, completely irrelevant and out of touch; to others, perhaps, bigoted and narrow. Hopefully too there are those who, while they don’t understand us or particularly want to, feel there is something worthy of respect about the way we go about our lives.

The reason I ask this question is that Paul says explicitly that our gentleness (or whatever) should be “evident to all”. In other words, he isn’t talking about how we relate to one another within the body of the church – yes, of course the church should be a community of love and commitment to one another, that can be taken for granted. But how we come across to the outside world is vital too: our “image”, if you like, to use a bit of a cliché.

You could put it another way by asking if we are a good advertisement for the church, or if we are something of a turn-off. It’s a disturbing thought… could it be that something I have said or done, or something about the way I said it or did it, has in fact put somebody off turning to Christ? Have I ever caused someone to say, “Oh well, if that’s their Christianity, they can keep it. Include me out!”?

We must, of course, be careful not to display to the world a false gentleness. If we  do indeed have the kind of Christlike gentleness that Paul is talking about, well, it will simply be part of who we are through the work of the Holy Spirit within us. What Paul is urging upon his readers is pretty much the same as what Jesus told his disciples: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Those last five words are vital! – any goodness we may display to the outside world is for God’s glory, not our own. (Lord, save us from any hint of hypocrisy!)

Sometimes when we’re trying to sum up the meaning of a particular word we might say, “I’m not sure how to pin it down – but I know it when I see it”. I suspect that the gentleness Paul is talking about in Philippians 4:5 is exactly like that.

I invite us all to respond to the challenge of this tiny verse.

Loving Father, help me to make it the top priority of my life to show the gentleness of Jesus to everyone I meet – to be humble and holy, considerate and sensitive, godly and Christlike; and may all the glory go to you. Amen.