Tenderness and courtesy

 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. – 1 Peter 3.8-9

 

Finally, loves shows itself in tenderness and courtesy.

 

As a Christian man after salvation I was mostly in churches that stressed how men are to be rugged and tough and reach to fight. There wasn’t much room for being tender.

 

Somehow the term ‘act like men’ became ‘be the tough guy,’ even though the context is ‘do everything in love.’

 

Of course, we do need to be tough. We are told to fight the good fight of faith. We are called soldiers of the faith. But we are seldom taught about the importance of tenderness and courtesy.

 

Tenderness literally means tender-hearted. It means that we are aware of others and view them with kindness and tenderness. It means we show compassion. It means ‘full of pity.’ In fact, some translations translate this as ‘be pitiful.’

 

Be courteous literally means to be friendly. Instead of God’s people should always be friendly people. We are not to be friends with the world, but we must be friends with others. People we meet on regular basis ought to think of us as friends.

 

James is specifically speaking to the church here, but the character traits he invokes should speak to how we treat everyone. We develop this tender and friendly spirit so that we can encourage the brethren and show others the love of Christ.