Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Power of Kindness | Redefining Love (1 Cor. 13)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to drive across town. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we are working through 1st Corinthians 13, which is Paul's definition of love. There's a great book called The Secret Life of an Unlikely Convert by a woman named Rosaria Butterfield. And she tells the story about how she came to faith in Christ. And what makes it so great is that it's a really interesting story about how someone far away from God, moved closer and closer to Christ until now she is a wholehearted Christ follower.

Starting point is 00:00:41 It starts when she is a professor at Syracuse University. Upstate New York, she's a very liberal, progressive professor. She's in gender studies, women's studies. She's in a lesbian relationship, considers herself a lesbian. And she writes an article for the local newspaper in which in the article she critiques evangelical Christianity. And of course, like you might expect, this gets a lot of different responses. And kind of they fall into two camps.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Either those people who love what she said or those people who are attacking her for what she said. And so she's sitting one day going through all of these letters in her office, all the responses, and she puts two boxes on her desk. One box is for those who really like what she said and what she would call her fan mail. The other box is the hate mail, the people who are attacking or upset with her. those kind of things. But she comes across this one letter. Now, it turns out this letter is by a pastor in the area, and she doesn't know what to do with it. Does it go in the fan mail or hate mail? Well, neither. And she says, the reason is because here's a letter that really disagrees with her, but

Starting point is 00:01:50 was characterized by such kindness and generosity that she didn't know what to do with it. It stood out. She couldn't put it in the fan mail because he clearly disagreed with her content, but she couldn't put it in the hate mail because it was so kind. And so she left that letter on her desk. And a few days later, she reached out to this pastor and she became friends with him and his wife. And over a long period of time, you'll have to go read the book to get the whole story. This is part of how God brought her into a relationship with Christ. Kindness is powerful. But unfortunately, for too many of us, it is underrated. We think of kindness as something that is just cheesy. You know, maybe it's a smile, or we've watered down kindness so much that there's nothing remarkable

Starting point is 00:02:39 about it. But to understand biblical kindness is to understand its power, because we live in an age that is characterized by harshness, sarcasm, exploiting another person's weaknesses, piling on. And so when we express a Christ-like, kindness toward other people. That's something that stands out. We're going through 1st Corinthians 13, and this is a chapter in which God defines love, in which he tells us how love is manifested or demonstrated in our life. And what we've seen is that love is of primary importance. You could say that nothing matters really without love. It doesn't matter how gifted you are or how smart or how much to the Bible you know, none of that matters. All the places you serve, all the money you give,

Starting point is 00:03:33 none of that matters without love. When we read 1st Corinthians 13, what you could say in a sense is that we are reading about Jesus, the kind of life he lived, the kind of character he demonstrated, the way he treated people. Because these verses in 4 through 7, just for instance, You know, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth, it always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. You could put Jesus's name in there for love. Like love is personified here to be a person, to appear to be a person, to appear to be a

Starting point is 00:04:26 person, and I think if love was a person, or if love is a person, that person is Jesus. Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy. Jesus does not boast and is not proud. Jesus does not dishonor others. Jesus is not self-seeking. Jesus is not easily angered. Jesus keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus' love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus' love always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. If we want to know what love looks like, we look at Jesus. But understand this. Understand this.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Before we look more at how Jesus exemplifies and demonstrates love to us, understand that in 1st Corinthians 13, love is very active. There are 15 verbs in this short chapter. Love is not a wishy-washy feeling. love is an aggressive action toward other people. So now we get to kindness. And how does Jesus show us what kindness is? Well, in Titus 3-4, it says, but when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. When the kindness and love of God, our Savior appeared, in other words, when the

Starting point is 00:05:51 kindness and love of Jesus appeared. He saved us, not because of what we've done, but because of his mercy. And so kindness is demonstrated in mercy. It sees need. And instead of doing the natural or sinful thing to do to pull back from it, kindness in Jesus goes forward to meet needs. Kindness is merciful. It always helps other people.

Starting point is 00:06:19 But we also see kindness modeled by Jesus shows itself or is kind toward people who don't care much about Jesus, don't have any interest in Jesus, don't believe in Jesus, or bored with Jesus, ignore Jesus, take advantage of Jesus, mock Jesus. So you don't deserve kindness. Not the way Jesus modeled. Jesus modeled a kindness toward all people. He never divided the world up into people he would be kind to and people he wouldn't. He was kind to everyone. Even when that meant he had to have a hard conversation with someone, it was motivated by kindness. He always wanted the best for them. He was always trying to reach them with the truth. He was always trying to get them to open their eyes and open their heart to receive what he wanted to do. the good he wanted to do for them. So what does kindness look like in our world and in our life? One scholar-author, a guy named Lewis Smeads, defines kindness as enhancing the lives of other people. Another scholar, this one named Gordon Fee, defines kindness as actively pursuing the good of another person.

Starting point is 00:07:38 So what would it look like if you tried to enhance the lives of people in your office. Maybe that would mean something like this. You walk into the office and you have a long to-do list for the day, but you see somebody struggling. So you set aside your agenda for a few minutes to just go listen to their problems. Maybe you can't solve them. You probably can't. Most problems in life are way too complex for any one conversation to solve. And yet, by sitting and listening and asking questions, that's a mark of kindness. Or maybe someone has made a mistake. Instead of piling on, you say, that's okay. I've made that kind of mistake myself. You empathize with them. You get in the hole with them. Or you at least don't make a big deal out of someone else's weaknesses.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Or maybe kindness means sharing credit with people, making sure that Others know that you didn't do this project on your own, but you had a lot of help. And you're more eager to talk about the people who worked on the project with you than your particular role. Maybe kindness has manifested in how you speak to others. So sometimes kindness, it takes the form of an encouraging word. What if you thought, when I walk into my house, when I see my roommate or my family, whoever it is I'm going to be there with, what if you thought, what's one encouraging thing I could say to each person to get this time started in the right direction? What would be good for each person to hear? Is there a compliment I could pay them? Is there something I could thank them for? Could I acknowledge some good that they've done that day? What can I do? Because see, kindness is something that should mark every Christian. This blows my mind. But in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul is talking about his apostleship and what are the things that demonstrate that he really is an apostle of Christ? And maybe you'd say,

Starting point is 00:09:48 gosh, he did miracles, or he had this power, he saw visions, he taught in some really powerful way. And all those, in one way or another, are demonstrations of his apostleship. But in 2nd Corinthians 6, he specifically mentions kindness. In other words, the mark of a Christian should be that we are kind toward other people, not moving away from their needs, but like Jesus, moving toward their needs. one of the best-known early Christians was a man named Turtulian, and he was born in about 155 AD and lived in what we now think of as modern-day Turkey. And he said that sometimes people outside the church made the mistake of calling Christians people of kindness. And it really was a mistake.

Starting point is 00:10:35 In their language, the word for Christian or Christ follower, was only one letter off from the word meaning a person who practices kindness. And so it really was a mistake. They meant to say Christian, instead they said kindness. But then he says maybe it really isn't a mistake. Maybe that's exactly how people should think about us. The people who follow Christ are people who practice kindness. Not just wishing people well, but doing them well. Is there somebody in your life today?

Starting point is 00:11:09 Somebody you'll see soon. Somebody you'll interact with. somebody you'll have an email exchange or somebody you'll have an opportunity to run into and have a few words with. Is there anybody today that you could be kind to? A word of encouragement, taking time out, trying to meet a need. If you're like me, it's easier to be kind of strangers sometimes than it is those who are closest to you. But I think God would be pleased if we started with those closest to us and then moved out to everybody in the whole world. maybe join me today in praying, God, would you build in me by your power, would you build in me a sense of kindness toward other people? God, you've been so kind to me. I want to show that kindness to others. Lord, I didn't deserve any of your kindness.

Starting point is 00:12:01 And you were so freely giving it to me. So now, Lord, I want to freely give away your kindness to other people, taking an interest in their lives and meeting real needs. Lord, would you do that in our life today? Amen. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Power of Kindness | Redefining Love (1 Cor. 13)

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