June 14
Kindness vs Weakness
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ––Ephesians 4:15
The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. ––Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world likes passive men—until real leadership is needed. ––Paul Coughlin
Though I’ve heard variations of this phrase, my friend KC’s dad, Bob, had a small plaque on his desk that read:
Don’t confuse kindness for weakness.
Bob was a successful executive with a Fortune 500 insurance company, but he was also a Christian and one of the nicest guys around. At times, competitors inside and outside the company misjudged Bob’s kindness for weakness, and thus the plaque. It served as a kind of warning that said, “Just because I’m nice, don’t think I’m a pushover.” And Bob wasn’t.
In his excellent book No More Christian Nice Guy, speaker and author Paul Coughlin quips, “Jesus wasn’t always nice. I’m nice. I’m not like Jesus.” His point is that men in the Church often default to being nice, rather than being good. More specifically, Jesus doesn’t call us to just be nice (though kindness is important). Why? Because being nice all the time can lead to conflict avoidance and truth evasion. Coughlin’s argument is that “niceness” isn’t the same as goodness, and that Christians should pursue courageous, truthful goodness rather than conflict-avoiding niceness.
Man of God, you aren’t called to be the nicest guy in the room—you are called to be the most Christ-like. Strength. Honesty. Truth. Compassion. Hey, it’s great to be nice—if it’s authentic. But many Christian men I know have buried their emotions under real or imagined expectations of what a male follower of Jesus living in 21st century America “should” look and act like. When we cosplay a “Christian guy” that is not based in truth and authenticity, we begin to operate in the flesh; we begin to define ourselves by outside metrics rather than allowing Jesus to work from the inside out.
Coughlin puts it well:
Jesus was kind, but never weak. He comforted the broken, but He also confronted sin, hypocrisy, and cowardice with clarity and courage. When Peter spoke against God’s plan, Jesus corrected him directly (Mark 8:33). When merchants corrupted the temple, Jesus overturned tables (John 2:15). His love was never passive. Real biblical masculinity carries both compassion and conviction. –Paul Coughlin, No More Christian Nice Guy[1]
Christian men are often taught to be nice, but Scripture calls men to something deeper: strength under control. Too many confuse kindness with passivity and avoid confrontation because they fear conflict, rejection, or appearing harsh. Yet avoiding necessary confrontation is not love—it can actually be selfishness disguised as peacekeeping.
One more excellent piece of advice from Coughlin:
Confrontation done biblically is not aggression. It is clarity wrapped in humility. Ephesians 4:15 says to speak “the truth in love.” Truth without love becomes brutality. Love without truth becomes compromise. God calls men to carry both.
Father, make me a peacemaker rather than a peacekeeper. Strip away any false sense of what it means to be a Christian man—strip away those rags, and clothe me in Your righteousness.
[1] No More Christian Nice Guy, Paul Coughlin, Bethany House Publishers, Bloomington, MN, 2016.