Moses had everything—an Egyptian palace upbringing, the finest education, and the highest social standing possible. He also had a fierce temper. When his principles and passions collided, he murdered an Egyptian slave master and spent forty years in the wilderness as a shepherd, a vocation the Egyptians considered an abomination (Genesis 46:34). Yet those desert years transformed him. When God called him back to lead Israel, Moses became the humblest of men. Years later, facing bitter criticism from his own brother and sister, his response was not anger but intercession: “O God, please heal her” (Numbers 12:13). Of this man, God himself recorded: “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Meekness, it turns out, is not weakness. It is controlled strength—and it is available to every believer who walks in the Spirit.
The Explanation of the Harvest
The Greek word translated “gentleness” in Galatians 5:23 is rendered in some translations as “meekness.” It denotes gentleness of attitude and behaviour as opposed to harshness. In classical Greek it described a gentle breeze, a soft voice, or a tame animal—particularly a horse brought under the control of the bit and bridle. It is this image that captures the biblical meaning precisely: not the absence of strength, but strength brought under God’s control. Aristotle saw meekness (gentleness) as the mean between excessive anger and cold indifference. Someone put it well: A meek person is angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.
Synonyms help fill out the picture. The same Greek root is rendered “gentleness” (2 Corinthians 10:1), “humble” (James 4:6), “moderation” (Philippians 4:5), and “lowly” (Matthew 11:29). Jesus described himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). This gentleness entails a refusal to stand on one’s rights—not because one has no rights, but because the gentle person has surrendered those rights to God. This is why God cannot be meek: Meekness presupposes dependence, and God depends on no one. Jesus, however, the eternal Son who took on human flesh, lived in conscious dependence on his Father. He experienced hunger, fatigue, and temptation, and that dependence drove him to his knees. If the sinless Son of God cultivated meekness, how much more should sinners saved by grace?
The Imitation of the Harvest
Like every aspect of the Spirit’s fruit, gentleness has a counterfeit. The imitation comes in two main forms: spineless passivity and false modesty. Neither is genuine.
Spineless passivity is often mistaken for gentleness, particularly in religious settings where clergy are caricatured as mild-mannered pushovers. But Moses stood before Pharaoh, the world’s most powerful ruler, and refused to back down. Jesus drove merchants from the temple and called Israel’s religious leaders “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27). Gentleness never capitulates to falsehood; it simply refuses to defend self.
False modesty is more subtle. It is the refusal to acknowledge God-given gifts and abilities—a refusal that appears humble but is often thinly veiled pride, fishing for reassurance. True gentleness neither boasts about its gifts nor denies them. It receives them with gratitude, uses them for God’s glory, and deflects praise back to the giver. As one writer has observed, we should accept ourselves as God has endowed us—but always with the recognition that we are what we are because he has created us and bestowed his grace upon us. Moses never denied his God-appointed authority, but he refused to use it for self-promotion, committing every challenge to God instead.
The Application of the Harvest
Paul applies the harvest of gentleness in at least four directions.
First, gentleness is essential for unity. Paul exhorts the Ephesians to walk “with all humility and gentleness … bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3). The Spirit’s unity already exists; gentleness guards it. Where pride operates, disharmony follows. The disciples quarrelled about greatness on the very eve of the crucifixion (Luke 22:24). Gentleness is the antidote.
Second, gentleness is indispensable for both teaching and learning. Paul instructs Timothy that “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone … correcting his opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:24–25). Truth must be held firmly but presented gently. Equally, the learner must “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). No one can truly receive God’s word while insisting on their own prior conclusions.
Third, gentleness is necessary for effective evangelism. Peter commands believers to “always be … prepared to make a defence … yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15–16). Clever articulation never argued anyone into the kingdom. When Al Mohler appeared on American television alongside a combative opponent, he calmly redirected the discussion to the cross of Christ, with neither anger nor apology. That is gentleness in action.
Fourth, gentleness is most clearly visible under pressure. It was in the record of conflict that God inserted his editorial comment about Moses (Numbers 12:3). Jonathan Edwards, widely regarded as the finest intellect colonial America produced, was unjustly driven from his church after 23 years. When a pastoral vacancy arose, he returned to fill the pulpit for three months without once referring to his mistreatment. When the congregation later sought his forgiveness, he said simply, “I forgave you a long time ago.” Gentleness shines brightest when the conditions are most adverse.
The Cultivation of the Harvest
Peter describes Christ’s gentleness at its most costly: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). That is the model. But how is such gentleness cultivated?
First, through regeneration. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be manufactured by the natural person. Gentleness is not a temperamental trait; it is a supernatural product of the Spirit’s work in the believer.
Second, through humiliation — a reckoning with our dependence upon God. Moses spent forty years learning that he was nobody, before discovering that God can use anybody. By the time he met God at the burning bush, his confident “I will deliver Israel” had become a trembling “Who am I?” (Exodus 3:11). Christ himself took the same path: “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). The road to gentleness runs through the valley of self-forgetfulness.
Third, through a deepening appreciation of grace. Paul, who described himself as “the foremost” of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), was profoundly gentle precisely because he never recovered from the wonder of being forgiven. When we contemplate our own sinfulness alongside God’s holiness, and then consider that this same God has poured out his grace upon us in Christ, the impulse to defend ourselves fades into insignificance.
Fourth, through devotion to God’s word. Deuteronomy 17 commanded Israel’s kings to write out God’s law by hand and read it daily, so that their hearts would not be lifted up above their brothers (Deuteronomy 17:19–20). Regular exposure to Scripture reminds us that we are also under authority. It is gentleness-producing precisely because it consistently reorients us away from ourselves and towards God.
The Manifestation of the Harvest
The supreme manifestation is Christ himself. Isaiah foretold it: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3). Matthew applies these words directly to Jesus (Matthew 12:20). The all-powerful Creator stoops towards the bruised and the barely-burning, binding wounds and fanning embers rather than crushing them. He has every right to exercise instant justice. He chooses instead the path of gentleness.
This is the life the Spirit produces in us—a life of conscious dependence on the Father, security in his love, and freedom from the need to vindicate ourselves. Gentleness is not the absence of passion or principle. It is passion and principle held in the hands of God. Walk in the Spirit, keep your eyes on Christ, and the harvest of gentleness will follow.
About the author
Doug Van Meter is the pastor-teacher of Brackenhurst Baptist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is married to Jill and together they have five daughters, four sons-in-in-law and a growing number of grandchildren.
