Gentleness Is Not Silence

The last chapter ended at the foot of a mountain, with a man holding two stone tablets. Before we stand beside him, there is an objection to hear, and it is a fair one.

“The Torah tells me to rebuke my neighbor,” someone says, “but the New Testament also tells me how to do it. It tells me to be gentle, and what you are describing does not sound gentle.”

The objection rests on a real verse, so that is where we begin.

The Verse on Gentleness

2 Timothy 2:24-25 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them metanoia μετάνοια met-an'-oy-ah(repentance, spiritual domain) leading to the epignosis ἐπίγνωσις ep-ig'-no-sis(spiritual, complete knowledge) of aletheia ἀλήθεια al-ay'-thi-a(truth),

We receive this word exactly as it stands. The Lord’s servant is not to be quarrelsome. He is to be kind, patient when wronged, and gentle.

Yet in the very same sentence the gentle servant is correcting. Gentleness is the manner, and correction is the task. The hope Paul names at the end is that God may grant the other person metanoia (μετάνοια), a turning of mind and direction, “leading to the epignosis(spiritual, complete knowledge) of aletheia(truth).” Gentleness serves the truth; it does not take its place.

The real question, then, is not whether to be gentle but what gentleness means, and Scripture answers it with a person.

The Gentlest Man on Earth

Numbers 12:3 And the man (ish אִישׁ eesh) Moses was very humble, more than all the men (adam אָדָם aw-dawm') who were upon the face of the ground (adamah אֲדָמָה ad-aw-maw').

The Hebrew word is anav עָנָו aw-naw', humble, lowly, meek. Moses was more anav than any other person on the face of the earth. Anyone looking for a picture of a gentle man has been handed one by the Torah itself.

Now watch the same man come down the mountain:

Exodus 32:19 And it came to pass, as he drew near to the camp, that he saw the calf and the dances; and Moses' anger burned, and he cast the tablets from his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain.

In his hands were the tablets, the work of God and the writing of God (Exodus 32:15-16). He saw the calf and the dancing, and he threw the tablets down and broke them at the foot of the mountain. The next verse tells us that he then burned the calf, ground it fine, scattered it on the water, and made Israel drink it (Exodus 32:20).

The gentlest man on earth did that, and Scripture does not say that he stopped being anav that day. It records both things about one man.

Yeshua stands in the same place. He described Himself this way:

Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain), and you will find rest for your psyche ψυχή psoo-khay'(souls).

The same Yeshua who called Himself “meek and lowly in kardia(heart, soul-domain)” said this to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:

Matthew 23:33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the krisis κρίσις kree'-sis(judgment) of Gehenna(valley of Hinnom, place of fiery judgment)?

Two words carry the weight. The first is ophis ὄφις of'-is, serpent. The second is gennema γέννημα ghen'-nay-mah, offspring, that which has been begotten, and so it is rendered “brood.” A brood of vipers is a family line of snakes. These are hard words, and they came from the One who called Himself meek.

What Gentleness Is Not

These things do not fit together by deciding that Moses lost his temper or that Yeshua spoke in a moment of frustration. They fit once we see what gentleness actually is. Gentleness does not fight for itself, but neither does it stay quiet while the word of God is trampled.

Picture a kindergarten teacher who never raises her voice. The children tug at her sleeve, spill paint on her shoes, and on a bad afternoon call her names, and she smiles and carries on. Then one day a five-year-old lets go of her hand and runs toward the street, and she shouts his name loud enough to stop traffic. No one who saw it would say she had stopped being gentle. They would say they had finally seen what her gentleness was for.

Moses did not break the tablets because someone had insulted him. Later, when his own brother and sister spoke against him, he said nothing in his own defense, and that is exactly where Numbers 12:3 stands. He broke the tablets because he saw the calf and the LORD’s people dancing before an idol. A gentle man does not fight for himself, but he does fight for the truth.

The Letter That Hurt

Paul faced the same choice. He once wrote a letter to the church in Corinth that hurt them, and he knew it. Afterward he wrote this:

2 Corinthians 7:8-10 For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, metamelomai μεταμέλομαι met-am-el'-lom-ahee(do not regret, soul-domain); though metemelomeen(did regret, soul-domain) — for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while — I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain); for you were made sorrowful according to God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to God produces a metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain) that is ametameleton(without-regret, soul-domain), leading to Salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

Two different words for a change of heart run through this passage, and the YLV marks them both. One is metamelomai (μεταμέλομαι), the feeling that comes afterward, which is regret, and Paul admits he once felt it. The other is metanoia, the turning itself. The sorrow his letter caused, he says, produced the second, “a metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain) that is ametameleton(without-regret, soul-domain), leading to Salvation.”

Paul did not judge his letter by whether it stung but by where it led. A sorrow that ends in turning back to God needs no apology, because it leads to life. The other kind, “the sorrow of the world,” leads to death.

“Love Does Not Brag”

One more objection remains, and it too rests on a real verse, from the description of love read in the last chapter. Love, Paul says, “does not brag and is not arrogant” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Is firm correction, then, a kind of bragging, a way of setting oneself above someone else?

The answer lies in how Paul used the word. What he forbids is the boasting that builds up oneself, yet he speaks freely of boasting of another kind. He tells the Corinthians that they are his boast “in the day of the Lord Yeshua” (2 Corinthians 1:14). He hopes to have reason to glory on the day of Messiah, because he did not run in vain (Philippians 2:16). And he writes to the Thessalonians:

1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 For who is our elpis ἐλπίς el-pece'(hope) or joy or crown of boasting? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Yeshua at His parousia παρουσία par-oo-see'-ah(presence-coming)? For you are our glory and joy.

The word here is kauchesis (καύχησις), boasting, and its close relative kauchema καύχημα kow'-khay-mah, that in which one glories, is the word Paul used in 2 Corinthians 1:14 and Philippians 2:16. Paul’s boast was the people he had served, standing before the Lord at His coming. He states the rule plainly:

2 Corinthians 10:17 But he who boasts is to boast in the Lord.

Boasting as such is not the problem; the problem is boasting that points back to oneself. A word of correction spoken so that someone may turn and be found standing on that day is the very opposite of building oneself up.

What Scripture Calls Pride

Scripture has also defined pride, and it does not define it as a strong tone of voice. In Chapter 19 we saw Moses warn that a lifted-up heart forgets the LORD by not keeping His commandments (Deuteronomy 8:11-14). We also saw the psalm that names the zed, the insolent, as those “who stray from your commandments (mitzvot מִצוָה mits-vaw')” (Psalm 119:21). In Scripture, pride is departure from the commandments, and the one who calls a brother back is not the proud one.

Where Love Was Defined

To correct wrong teaching firmly, then, is not pride; it is the commandment of Leviticus 19:17. To see wrong teaching and cover it over gently is not love; it is the whitewash of Jeremiah 6:14, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” Love “rejoices with the aletheia(truth)” (1 Corinthians 13:6). And when John set out to say what the love of God actually is, he did not leave it to our feelings. As we read in Chapter 21, “this is the love of God — that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:3). Love has a definition, and the definition is the commandments.

That brings us to a sentence often spoken as grace in its purest form: “You don’t need all that. Just believe.” The New Testament has its own answer to it.