KINDNESS . The pattern of all kindness is set before us in the Bible in the behaviour of God to our race. He gives the sunshine and the rain, and fruitful seasons and glad hearts, food and all the good they have to the just and the unjust alike ( Matthew 5:45; Matthew 7:11 , Acts 14:17 ). But the exceeding wealth of His grace is shown unto us in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus ( Ephesians 2:7 ). God’s glory no man can look upon and live. It is a light that no man can approach unto. It is inconceivably great, incomprehensibly grand, unimaginably exalted above the grasp of man’s mind. But the kindness of God is God’s glory stooping to man’s need. It is God’s power brought within man’s reach. It is God’s mercy and God’s love and God’s grace flowing through time and through eternity, as broad as the race, as deep as man’s need, as long as man’s immortality. The Bible reveals it. Jesus incarnated it. In His life the kindness of God found its supreme manifestation ( Titus 3:4-7 ). All the children of God are to be like the Father in this regard ( Matthew 5:48 , Romans 12:10 , Colossians 3:12-14 ). The philanthropy of God ( Titus 3:4 ) is to be reproduced in the philanthropy of men ( 2 Peter 1:7 ).

D. A. Hayes.

Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Kindness'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/k/kindness.html. 1909.

Bible Dictionaries Kindness

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Bible Dictionaries
Kindness