What does the Bible say about gentleness?

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on gentleness. 

• Galatians 5:22-23, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (the fruit of the spirit)
• Ephesians 4:1-3, live with humility and gentleness (a life worthy of your calling)
• Philippians 4:4-5, radiate gentleness (let your gentleness be known)
• 2 Timothy 2:24-25, gentleness with opponents (correct others with gentleness)
• 1 Peter 3:14-16, gentleness and respect (respond to opponents with gentleness, keeping your conscience clear) 

Sermon ideas about gentleness

A sermon on gentleness can note that gentleness is sometimes derided as an ineffectual way to live in the world. Gentleness conjures up a cuddly lamb, a mother stroking a child's hair, and all manner of other images that trend to the soft and fuzzy side of human behavior. No one would want a gentle general to lead military troops into battle, and the prospect of a gentle CEO would seem an oxymoron. 

But true Christlike gentleness is rooted in strength and assurance. Christians are gentle not because they lack conviction but because they are so convicted of the truth of the gospel that they feel no need to scream about it or foist it onto others in brusque and brash ways. Gentleness may conjure up the image of a lamb and, if so, that is apropos to Christ as the Lamb of God. But Christ is also rightly depicted as the Lion of Judah. The gentleness of Christ as Lamb is rooted in the power of Christ as Lion. 

Convicted civility 

Sermons on gentleness can show that our gentle behavior finds its source in God's character. The theologian and philosopher Richard Mouw has written a good deal on how Christians should behave in the public square, particularly when facing opposition to the gospel or when encountering those who promote laws or practices some Christians find offensive. Mouw has argued that the fruit of gentleness plays a role in what he calls a kind of convicted civility that stands in stark contrast to the tactics many Christians have more recently adopted—shouting at people, picketing with offensive slogans on signs, and so on. 

"God has a gentle and reverent concern for public righteousness," Mouw writes. "The question of the divine character is crucial to [the topic of Christian civility]. Many convicted Christians place a central emphasis on the harsher side of the Bible's portrayal of God's character: sovereignty, holiness, power, wrath, and the like. . . . God is all-powerful — but his supreme power is displayed in the weakness and vulnerability of the cross. . . . In our efforts at public discipleship, we need to cultivate the traits that are associated with God's own kindness and gentleness" (Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World). 

Jesus' gentleness 

In ancient Greece, prautes (gentleness, humility) was prized as a civic virtue. The philosophers of Athens realized that if life in the much-prized Greek polis, or city-state, was going to work, then gentleness would be needed as the grease lubricating the gears of communal life. No one agrees with everybody else's ideas. In a polis of differing viewpoints, those who ever and only insist on their own way, who are so inflexible as to foment constant ugly confrontations, would be like sand in the gears. Life could soon grind to a halt.  

In the Christian context, apostles like Peter put their own spin on gentleness. It's not that they sheared the word of what it meant to the Greeks, but the apostles relocated the center of gentleness in Jesus. It is the gentleness of Jesus that sets the tone. Jesus was the gentle soul who attracted children, the gentle man with whom outcasts felt comfortable, the gentle shepherd who depicted himself as gathering up lost sheep in his arms. 

Excerpts about gentleness 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about gentleness: 

• "I wonder how many disagreements in the Church would be avoided if we were more concerned about our gentleness being known to all than our righteousness or orthodoxy? We falsely imagine that the nearness of a saint would make us get along, would bring clarity and end all dispute by the presences of the great "rightness" of the holy one. But the advice of "God's chosen vessel" is rather to let our gentleness be known by all–for the Lord is near." Gentleness by Fr. Michael Gills from Ancient Faith Ministries

• "Christian gentleness is softness with backbone to it—strength with a delicate, tender touch." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Dale Cooper from Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

• "Such was his gentleness that when he might have shaken the earth, and rocked the thrones of tyrants, and made every idol god totter from its bloodstained throne, he put forth no such physical power, but still stood with melting heart, and tearful eyes, inviting sinners to come to him; using no lash but his love, no battle-axe and weapon of war but his grace." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon from Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching