“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue” .(Proverbs 31:26, ESV)
Ponder these two questions. Can a person be nice but unkind? Conversely, can a person be kind but not nice?
Being kind and nice are not the same. Many within the church today argue that Christians have become too nice. They argue that followers of Jesus don’t want to say something that might offend someone else or create conflict.
In general, niceness involves doing something that is pleasing or agreeable to others. By contrast, kindness involves doing something that is helpful to others. For example, a nice person may tell a friend they feel sorry that their buddy is feeling badly. A kind person, however, may drop off a container of soup or pick up some medicine at the pharmacy.
Moreover, a nice person may tell a classmate who is being bullied at school that she doesn’t deserve being treated so badly. In this situation, being nice is not necessarily being kind. On the other hand, a kind person may intervene and find a teacher to put a stop to the bullying. Being kind in this instance may be viewed as unpleasing from the bully’s point of view, and thereby not nice.
The writer of Proverbs thirty-one makes the claim that God’s children should employ wisdom when offering kindness to others. Whenever possible people should be both kind and nice. One may call out someone who makes a joke at someone else’s expense by nicely saying, “I don’t get it. Help me understand why you think what you said is funny.”
Yet there will be moments when the truly kind response may be viewed as displeasing by the recipient. For example, bullies don’t like being called out by another party. However, the intent of kindness is to be helpful, not for the sake of the bully but for the welfare of the one who is being harmed.
Wisdom also dictates that the absence of both kindness and niceness do the greatest damage of all. Shouting at a driver whose car has stalled at a red light without offering help to move the vehicle to the side of the road does nothing but create conflict. Road rage often begins by one driver acting in a way that is both unhelpful and displeasing to the other.
The character, Frank Burns, in the sitcom Mash once said, “It’s nice to be nice to the nice.” Well, being nice isn’t always possible especially when someone is not being nice. Being kind, on the other hand, will never go out of style.