Are you gentle? How would you know? The fruit of the Spirit is seen in the Christian who is gentle. Gentleness, or meekness, is often defined by culture as softness, usually implying weakness. Christians sometimes define it as controlled strength.
But the seventeenth-century Dutch pastor and theologian Wilhelmus à Brakel points us to a description more consistent with the New Testament uses of the term. He observes that the root of the Greek word is “a derivative of the word ‘to transfer,’ ” and thus that the gentle person is one “who readily establishes contact with others and with whom others easily make contact in turn.”
In short, gentle people are approachable people. Meek people have something worth communicating or transferring to the souls of others, and they work to do so. They also know that they need to receive from others, so they are ready to listen.
People know instinctively that the gentle of heart build bridges to transfer the treasure with which they’ve been entrusted. And they sense that it is safe to connect with them in order to receive that treasure. The gentle person keeps lines of communication open; he is approachable, even to opponents or strangers. He is more than just “nice.” Communication is easy, or at least looks easy, for the Christian who has disciplined himself to bear such fruit. Gentle people reach out to others in ways that make others want to reach out to them.
Conversely, what kind of man or woman lacks gentleness? It is easy to see that the loud, insensitive, rough person fails the test of gentleness. But the withdrawn, shy person also fails to qualify as gentle. The work of the Holy Spirit is necessary for each of these souls to become gentle.
A gentle person can relate to all kinds of people. Even when situations are awkward or when difficult matters must be discussed, meek saints leave others knowing that they love them even in the midst of conflict. And that, indeed, requires great strength. Jerry Bridges wrote, “Gentleness is illustrated by the way we would handle a carton of exquisite crystal glasses; it is the recognition that the human personality is valuable but fragile and must be handled with care.”

Whatever your circumstances may be as a child of God, that your all-seeing God has his eye upon you to direct you as you step forward in life and to deliver you from all harm you may face.

We grow so much when we pray with God’s people and meditate together on the truth. For instance, I have grown in appreciating God’s omniscience through the prayers of a particular fellow church member of mine. She prays for God’s blessing on a particular person or family and often concludes with the beautiful phrase “…with your eye upon them.” She borrows this moving expression from Psalms 32 and 33 which teach us how our God actively cares for his children.
It’s a profound privilege to know that our God has his eye upon us as his people. He is no passive observer!
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We should learn to minister to others around us with Jesus’ kind of intentional and purposeful compassion. We need to “speak the language” of our hearers so they will know the love of Christ and most effectively hear his word. Even preachers can learn from the account a little something more of how to minister to congregations by seeing when to make note of the original language in a sermon, and by implication, when to stick to the language of the immediate audience.

Why did Mark, the gospel writer, use the Aramaic word “Ephphatha” in Mark 7:34? Just sounding out the word is an exercise in oral calisthenics. He did it to “speak the language” of his hearers so they would observe and know the love of Christ and most effectively hear his word.
The funny thing is, “Ephphatha,” is an Aramaic word; Aramaic wasn’t the language of Mark’s readers. That’s why he immediately translated the word meaning “be opened” into Greek as he recounted Jesus’ Aramaic declaration to the deaf mute. So how was the Aramaic word going to help Mark’s Greek-speaking audience? How do we know he wasn’t simply acting like a young preacher seeking to convince his audience that he really knew the original language of the event?
Like Jesus in the original story itself, Mark knew what would communicate most effectively to his intended audience. That included his original audience and even us today.
To understand more clearly, let’s revisit this gem of a story recorded in Mark 7:31-37 that features the healing power of Jesus so compassionately exercised:
Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (ESV)
Jesus had healed the Gerasene demoniac in this region earlier; the friends of this afflicted man likely knew of Jesus’ power from that miracle. Jesus stopped to meet their friend, and he took six actions that all demonstrated his empathy for the man. Observing each of these will help frame the context of the exclamation “Ephphatha!” Jesus didn’t just heal the man, he walked him through a process that communicated love, concern, and a desire for the man to know who Jesus is.
First, observe that Jesus took him aside from the crowd, so that he could have one-on-one interaction.
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