The Fruit of the Holy Spirit - Chapter 8
Patience and Kindness
We finished the last study by pointing out that patience was necessary in our relationships with each other. We have to bear with one another’s faults and failings.
It is also very needful in our teaching of each other about our faith, and in our trying to help each other on the Christian way. We do not all learn as quickly as each other, and with some of us it takes a long time for the truth to sink in, and for us to see just what we ought to do.
We need to be patient with each other, and try to help each other, especially the slower ones who find life harder. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 2, to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. And that reminds us of another thing about patience; it never gives in or gives up; it is always hopeful and persistent.
There is one other thing about this patience. It is patience with joyfulness. Many people are long-suffering, but very obviously so! They are patient, it is true, and they do not actually grumble, but there is no joy in it.
The New Testament speaks about joy in everything, as we saw in a previous study. Paul, in Colossians chapter 1 verse 11, writes about having endurance and patience with joy. Some versions put the joy with the thanksgiving that follows. It could as well be either, but whichever way it is, the joy is there. In the midst of all our patience there should be this joy.
So may this fruit of patience truly grow and ripen in our lives.
Now we must turn to the next on our list which is gentleness. Gentleness is the word used in the older translations of the Bible, but the same word is translated ‘‘kindness’’ in other places. The modern translations use the word ’’ kindness’’ here in Galatians chapter 5, and this is probably the best way to think of this fruit.
The word is used in both the Old and New Testaments when speaking of the nature of God. It is not always exactly the same word, but the idea is expressed in our English Old Testament by words like ‘‘loving-kindness’’, ‘‘tender mercy’’, and ‘‘steadfast love’’.
In the New Testament, though, we find the very same word as is used here in Galatians, used twice when Paul is talking about God’s saving grace. In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7, he speaks of God’s saving grace being expressed in His kindness in Christ Jesus. Then again in writing to Titus, in chapter 3 verse 4, he says that ’’ the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared’’.
So, you see, God is kind to us in spite of our sin. He longs for our salvation from sin and for us to be His people. Also He has done all He can for us in the coming in the Person of Jesus Christ to die for us. It is this kind of attitude which is the fruit of the Spirit.
It is this kind of attitude that He wants us to have to one another. It is good, too, to remember that compared with what God has had to put up with of sinfulness, rebellion and unbelief in us, what we have to put up with in others is very little.
We have to be careful in our thinking of this fruit. Kindness is another word, like love, which often loses its true meaning. In the minds of many, kindness is a soft, sentimental sort of thing. To them there is no sense of right or justice in it.
God’s kindness is not like this. The very fact that He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sin shows this. Sin is awful to God, and He does not just overlook it. He does, though, do His utmost to get us to come to the cross of Christ, the only place where there is forgiveness and deliverance.
Someone has described kindness as ‘‘warm goodwill towards all others’’. This is how we are to be. We will want the very highest for them, and will do all we can to help them see and gain it. We will want the very best for them continually.
This is real kindness. But we will do it in the right way. We will try to understand their circumstances, their problems and their heartaches. We will be mindful of these things at all times when seeking the best for them. In all our seeking to be kind, we will be considerate and thoughtful. We will not be unnecessarily blunt, and we will not be unfeeling.
This kind of attitude is to be shown also in the way in which leaders are to reprove, rebuke and teach others. Here it is very much like the patience we were thinking of earlier. It must work, too, in both directions, not only in the giving of reproof but also in receiving it.
Reproof, when given, must be tempered with love; it must not be harsh and hard. We must be like a mother caring for a sick child, or a surgeon operating so carefully on his patient.
I wonder what someone from another world, who knew nothing of this world, would think if he went into a room where a surgeon was operating. How cruel he would think we were! But it is not so. The surgeon operates in a very careful, kindly way, and his purpose in the end, is not to give pain but to take it away.
This is the way in which God reproves and rebukes His children, and so we, too, must act in the same kindly way if we have to reprove or rebuke someone.
It works the other way round as well. We have to be kind when we have to receive rebuke, when someone feels it is necessary to tell us of something wrong, or not for the best in our lives. We must not be touchy or impatient; we must not feel bitter. We must take it in the love with which t is given. We must think about it, and if the rebuke is right, do something about and change our lives or course of action.