PROVERBS 15: THE POWER OF A GENTLE ANSWER

Proverbs 15 begins with one of my favorite Bible verses. One reason I like this scripture so much is that gentleness was not a natural trait for me, but one I had to develop with God’s help. If people spoke to me harshly, my natural tendency was to lash out in response to them, but that is not God’s way.

Staying calm and answering someone gently when that person speaks angrily to us may be difficult to do, but it helps to calm down a situation. However, if we return anger for anger, we only increase the level of tension for everyone involved. God is wise, and all of His instructions for us in handling situations are intended to make our lives more peaceful and enjoyable.

Jesus dealt with many harsh people—those who accused Him of evil things, those who wanted to kill Him, and those whose goal was to stir up trouble for Him—yet He always answered them calmly with gentleness, or didn’t answer them at all but simply walked away (Matthew 27:14; Mark 14:61; John 19:9).

I think the reason Jesus often did not answer His accusers was that He knew that responding would be useless and the silence left them to deal with the foolishness of their false accusations. Whether you use gentle words to dispel anger or say nothing at all, one thing is for sure: Heated arguing never does any good.

Jesus says that people who make peace “will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Jesus “himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). We are imitating Christ when we love peace and do all we can to promote it.