A Gentle AnswerSample

The gentle answer that comes from Jesus defuses wrath instead of fanning its flame (Prov. 15:1). Within it resides the power to subdue fruitless arguments; break vicious cycles; turn enemies into friends; end wars and change history. Within it resides the power to create a future where wolves dwell in harmony with lambs, leopards with young goats, and lions with fattened cows (Isa. 11:6). Animals will cease devouring each other, and so will people. Jews will dwell in harmony with Gentiles, blacks with whites, the rich with the poor, political liberals with political conservatives, and those who have been injured with the people who have injured them. Within the gentle answer resides the power for stories to continue emerging where one person will say of another, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal. 1:23). Hope for this kind of world and future has a prerequisite. Before our hearts can be warmed by the idea of such radical reconciliation and peace, they must first be melted and softened. We must become settled in the truth that whatever Jesus asks from us, he has already done for us. Only then can we grow thicker skin, do anger well, receive criticism graciously, forgive all the way, bless our own betrayers, befriend our fellow sinners, resist our inner moralist, disarm guarded postures, and anything else of the sort. At the cross of Calvary, he confronted our violence with his nonviolence, our hostility with his forgiveness, and our wrath with his gentle answer. It is never our repentance that causes God to be kind to us. It is only God’s kindness that causes us to repent (Rom. 2:4). Because Jesus Christ has instituted and sealed this love relationship with those of us who were once his former enemies, we are now able to navigate the world in the same manner as our Lord. Only when we embody a bold gentleness will our outraged world begin to notice that we are distinctly his disciples (John 17:1–26). When we do this, and only when we do this, will an outraged world stop identifying Christians as a core part of the problem, and instead begin believing that Christians are a most necessary part of the solution.