Love Is Kind
by Chris Simmons
I Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Having considered in the last article the first attribute of agape love that Paul mentions in I Corinthians 13:4-7 that “love is patient,” we move on to study the attribute of kindness. There are two major aspects to the word “kind” that warrant our attention and focus.
First, the word for “kind” is from the Greek verb chresteuomai and according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary means to “show oneself useful, i.e., act benevolently.” This first component of kindness reminds us that love is more than a feeling or an attitude, it is something you do for others – for your family, your brethren, and even your enemies – to make yourself useful to those to whom your love is due. To be useful is to add value to other people’s lives.
It’s to help them with what they need, first in regards to their spiritual needs. That means our love and our kindness may require that we help bear one another’s burdens. Paul wrote in Galatians 6:1-2, “Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” But our love, our kindness, our usefulness to one another in regards to our spiritual needs also includes the need to “admonish,” “encourage,” “help,” and exercise “patience” (I Thessalonians 5:14), as the situation may call for. Kindness means that we will be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) as we seek to find the word of edification “according to the need of the moment” (Ephesians 4:29).
It also means that we be useful to others in regards their fleshly needs. John wrote in I John 3:16-17, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” Matthew 25:31-46 clearly teaches that our eternal destiny is dependent on our personal willingness to meet the temporal needs of one another – of “one of the least of these.” Paul calls upon us in Titus 3:14 to “learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, that (we) may not be unfruitful.” Love and kindness means we always look to be useful by “contributing to the needs of the saints” (Romans 12:13).
Secondly, Thayer adds that this word also includes the idea of “showing oneself to be mild” and to that point Mike Willis in his commentary on I Corinthians says that “love is not caustic or sharp-tongued; it is mellow and kind. It softens all that is harsh or austere; roughness and bitterness are banished by love.” Thus, the second aspect of kindness is in regards to our response to other people. That we indeed show ourselves to be mild in all our relationships – even when the same has not been extended to us. Love and kindness are not reserved for those who do the same for us but are needed all the more when our family, brethren, or our enemies have been harsh, unfair, or even hateful towards us. Note that Paul followed the admonition to have “all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31) with the exhortation in the following verse to “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Kindness is always to be on display, but how much more when bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor have been introduced into the home or in the church?
More than simply because we are commanded to, should we not show our love through our kindness because of what God has done for us? This is what Paul asks in Romans 2:4, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” Do we think so little of God’s kindness towards us that we are unwilling to demonstrate it in our love to our family, brethren, and neighbors? Paul points out in Titus 3:3-5 that God exercised His kindness towards man despite our sinful choices, “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy…” Peter points out that our duty, in response to God’s kindness, is to continue to hunger for God’s word and be committed to our spiritual growth. I Peter 2:1-3, “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” If our kindness isn’t what it should be, we must seek to grow in it then.
When we consider God’s kindness towards us, we should then see the importance of obeying the command found in Colossians 3:12-14, “And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”