Philippians 4:5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Gentleness is a character trait that is greatly missing in the behavior of most people today, myself included. We are a society that is quick tempered, fast to judge, and very often wrong on both accounts. There was a certain gentleness about Jesus that captivated people and made them want to be near Him. When He was provoked, He did not respond. When misaligned, He trusted His reputation to the Father, caring not what men thought of Him.

“Let your gentleness be known to all men”,  speaks of not only being a gentle person, but letting the fact of your gentleness be made know to all men. In other words, this is not a person who is gentle once in awhile, but someone who is so consistently gentle, that over the course of many years they have developed a reputation for being gentle to everyone.

If it were not possible to gain control over one’s temper and to obtain a gentle spirit, then the Holy Spirit would not have placed this verse in the Bible. The fact that these words are here means that it is possible to become more gentle than we are now, and to continue to do so consistently over time. Perhaps the reason that there are not more persons who have “a gentleness know to all men”,  as Philippians 4:5 speaks of, is because many of us do not knw that it is possible to improve our gentleness as we practice it every day.

Rob Robinson

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