Outside the Camp

This month’s ele­ment of the fruitage of the spirit, is “kind­ness”. Kind­ness is very deed ori­ented as it is impos­si­ble to show kind­ness with­out recip­i­ents. Kind­ness thus pro­motes works that can be called “acts of kindness”.

The Hebrew word for kind­ness, che’sedh often calls for not sim­ply peform­ing a pass­ing act of char­ity, but rather kind acts moti­vated from a sense of devo­tion and loy­alty toward another party. There­fore, it is at times trans­lated as “loy­alty”, “lov­ingkind­ness”, or “loyal love”. Chesedh is well exem­pli­fied in Ruth’s for­sak­ing her nat­ural fam­ily rela­tion­ship to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, an act of kind­ness deemed praise­wor­thy by Boaz. (Ruth 2:12) Another exam­ple of this type of kind­ness is King David, who swore an oath of kind­ness and loy­alty toward Jonathan and his fam­ily. (1 Sam 20:14–15, KJV) David praised the peo­ple of Jabesh Gilead for show­ing kind­ness in redeem­ing and bury­ing the body of Jonathan’s father, King Saul. (2 Sam 2:5–6) David fur­ther expresses his kind­ness to the remain­ing fam­ily of Saul by invit­ing Jonathan’s son Mephi­bosheth to eat at his table. (2 Sam 9:1–7) Inter­est­ingly, David speaks of this act of kind­ness as com­ing, not from him, but from God.

We can sim­i­larly be avenues for express­ing God’s kind­ness. Proverbs says, “The one who despises his neigh­bor sins, but who­ever is kind to the needy is blessed.” (Pro 14:21) The apos­tle Paul encour­ages us to, “remem­ber the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35)

At its incep­tion, the Chris­t­ian Con­gre­ga­tion man­i­fested kind­ness in giv­ing that was far and above even the nor­mal high stan­dards of hos­pi­tal­ity enjoyed by the Jews. They gave every­thing they had so that no one had need among them. (Acts 4:32–35) Paul shared this stan­dard to the Gen­tile churches he ser­viced as he implored them to help out the Jerusalem church that was under­go­ing hard­ship. Paul viewed the min­is­tra­tion to their needs as a sacred respon­si­bil­ity. The kind­ness of the Gen­tile con­gre­ga­tions was there­fore expressed in their char­i­ta­ble giv­ing to the Jerusalem church. (2 Cor 8:6–14)

In the mod­ern, west­ern cul­ture acts of kind­ness are rare. Too often kind­ness is only expressed through an imper­sonal dona­tion to a char­i­ta­ble cause. But there are real bless­ings to show­ing per­sonal con­cern and care for those around us. We can be alert for oppor­tu­ni­ties to show kind­ness to cowork­ers, neigh­bors, and our Chris­t­ian broth­ers and sis­ters. This can be through a kind word, help­ing with a need, or show­ing hos­pi­tal­ity. When it comes to show­ing kind­ness it would be a shame to limit this to only those we know because bless­ings can be had from serv­ing strangers. (Hebrews 13:1–2)

Almighty God is the pri­mary exam­ple of lov­ing kind­ness. In each of the verses of Psalm 136 it is repeated, “his loyal love endures.” The Psalms fur­ther speak of the dif­fer­ent ways that God expresses his kind­ness. By res­cu­ing and deliv­er­ing us (Ps 6:4), giv­ing pro­tec­tion (Ps 61:7), and bring­ing relief in times of trou­ble (Ps 31:16, 21).

The Lord’s kind­ness is often expressed in his great mercy. When Moses pleaded on behalf of the way­ward nation of Israel he called upon God’s kind­ness say­ing, “The LORD is slow to anger and abun­dant in lov­ingkind­ness, for­giv­ing iniq­uity and trans­gres­sion.” (Num­bers 14:18, NASB) There­fore, kind­ness and grace are linked together in redemption.

Due to the fall, mankind has been alien­ated from God and unde­serv­ing of his good will. Although man chose a course of self-will and inde­pen­dence, God kindly “teaches sin­ners the right way to live”. (Psalm 25:8) It was God’s kind­ness that prompted his pro­vi­sion of sal­va­tion through Jesus. (2 Peter 2:3) The Father gen­er­ously and kindly gave his very best, his only-begotten son as Paul writes to the Romans, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, gra­ciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32–33)

It is act of kind­ness of God that leads us to accept this pro­vi­sion and to repen­tance. (Romans 2:4) He kindly gifts us a new birth by means of the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:4–7) All of this present kind­ness is com­pletely unde­served. (Romans 11:22) And yet through God’s kind­ness he will bestow upon his elect even more bless­ings in the age to come. (Eph 2:7)

As we are per­fect as our Father is per­fect, kind­ness is expressed in our for­giv­ing of oth­ers just as we have been for­given. (Eph 4:32) We need to reflect God’s kind­ness even toward unkind peo­ple. Jesus tells us, “But love your ene­mies, and do good, and lend, expect­ing noth­ing back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to ungrate­ful and evil peo­ple.” (Luke 6:35) Slaves of the Lord are admon­ished to be kind toward all and Chris­tians are encour­aged to wear kind­ness as a gar­ment. (2 Tim­o­thy 2:24; Col 3:12) Kind­ness rightly moti­vated through Jesus’ love becomes an iden­ti­fy­ing mark of true Chris­tians. (John 13:35)