{"id":19580,"date":"2020-06-17T08:49:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=19580"},"modified":"2020-06-17T08:54:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T13:54:30","slug":"4-reasons-pastors-ought-to-be-gentle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=19580","title":{"rendered":"4 Reasons Pastors Ought to Be Gentle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As leaders of God&rsquo;s people, we all long to make a difference for Christ. We don&rsquo;t want to be unfruitful. We want our lives to matter. We see the clock ticking and know that we&rsquo;ll be dead soon, our one opportunity to make an impact gone forever.<\/p>\n<p>And so it is easy to let zeal and ardor and intensity and hurry to color our ministry&mdash;our preaching, our counseling, our staff reviews, our newsletters, our emails.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LESSONS IN GENTLENESS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What may get overlooked in this is the pursuit of a gentle spirit. Consider what the Bible says about gentleness:<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;A gentle tongue is a tree of life . . . &rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/Prov.%2015%3A4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Prov. 15:4<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Blessed are the meek . . . &rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/Matt.%205%3A5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt. 5:5<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . gentleness . . . &rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/Gal.%205%3A22%E2%80%9323\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gal. 5:22&ndash;23<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;With all humility and gentleness . . . &rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/Eph.%204%3A2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eph. 4:2<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Pursue . . . gentleness.&rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/1%20Tim.%206%3A11\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1 Tim. 6:11<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The wisdom from above is . . . gentle . . . &rdquo; (<a class=\"esv-crossref-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/James%203%3A17\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James 3:17<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In this short article, I&rsquo;d like to ask pastors to consider cultivating gentleness in their leadership. Let me give you four reasons why, and then propose a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am asking you to consider stepping into a gentleness your life and ministry have, perhaps, never known.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[312],"class_list":["post-19580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-leadership","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19580"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19583,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19580\/revisions\/19583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}