Gentleness. Gentleness is related to “meek” found in Matthew 5:5 from the Beatitudes Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount, and the King James Version actually translates this word as meekness. This meekness is rooted in the Old Testament (Numbers 12:3, Psalm 22:26, Isaiah 11:4, Zephaniah 2:3). The difference between Matthew 5:5 and Galatians 5:23 is that the Matthew usage is a verb, whereas the Galatians usage is an adjective. Thayer’s Lexicon entry for “meek” as used in Matthew 5:5 states:
In the Old Testament, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend against injustice. Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He is using them to purify His elect, and that He will deliver His elect in His time (Isaiah 41:17, Luke 18:1-8). Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest. It stems from trust in God’s goodness and control over the situation.
Gentleness, therefore, is exactly what it sounds like it means and is how we treat people around us. One of the responses people have today toward major crimes which grieves me deeply is that they (especially people who say they are Christians) want to fight back, defend themselves with weapons, and kill the criminals. This is far, far away from gentleness. None of us wants to see injustice, especially injustice against our own selves. However, nowhere in the Bible are we given the authority to respond to hate with hate. The Lord actually tells us to do the opposite and to let Him have the revenge. When we take matters into our own hands, it is an expression of our distrust of God and our lack of respect for Him.
Where turning the other cheek is an act (verb) of meekness, William Barclay in the Daily Bible Study on Galatians uses the adjective form of meekness to describe a person in the middle “between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness, as the quality of the man who is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.” It is a “spirit which is submissive to God, teachable in all good things, and considerate to its fellow men.”
In one sense, it is very similar to self-control because meekness describes a person who is not easily rattled or disturbed when wronged. Meekness was the power behind Jesus’ ability to remain silent when wrongly accused, beaten, stripped and tried and sentenced to death on the cross. Meekness originates in submission to God and relies on His promises. When the Lord promises to avenge those who do wrong against us, meekness trusts that the Lord will follow through and that the punishment the Lord exacts will be sufficient. No other punishment or intervention on our part is required.
I imagine meekness as a person who does not wish to fight but in response to a challenge shows its strength. It is the person who walks away from a fight, a person who stares down the barrel of a gun in a robbery knowing full well that heaven awaits if the Lord so chooses to allow the criminal to pull the trigger, and the martyr who stands firm in the face of certain death. When my son started school, he had a problem with a few students who were bullying him. Once I figured out what was happening, I told him first that these children were not his friends because a true friend would not treat him poorly. I told him these children were not worth his time and that he should not associate with them at all. The expression on his face was one of sadness because when they were not bullying him, he actually liked spending time with one of the boys. Second, I told him that to turn around and walk away is a position of strength and that he takes all the power out of the bullies by walking away from their taunts. Once again, I could tell that he did not believe me because in his mind if he ignored their taunts then he was admitting defeat. When I showed him that by responding to the bullies he was giving them power over him, he seemed to understand. He later reported to me that turning around and walking away felt good.
Meekness is a re-orientation of ourselves and adopting a new perspective. It is aligning our compass on truth and trusting that as long as the compass shows we are headed in that direction everything will turn out alright.
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