Dear Christians,
Stop being nice.
P.S. Niceness is meretricious. It is self-congratulatory unkindness. It masquerades as aromatic fruit of the Spirit, but is inspired by the insipid fumes of Gehenna. Niceness is a secret handshake with the world conceding the point that all this Jesus stuff doesn't much matter in the end. Its eschatological aim is a world where everyone holds hands and gets along because no one worships Jesus.
Romans 11:22
Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
God is kind, not nice.
Nice is optional. It is pleasant and will not ruffle any feathers, but because it refuses to mix it up, it cannot save. It cannot atone for sins because it attempts to cover them by refusing to count them. What sin? No sin to see here! How nice! How pleasant. A judgment free zone. Heaven on earth.
But there is not dust or sweat or blood in any of it. It cannot atone for sin because it will not die. When you remove the hills worth dying on, you aren't left with peaks of joy, but only valleys of despair -- dark places where everyone smiles and everyone dies outside of God's favor.
Don't sleep on God's severity. It isn't nice either. More obviously so I suppose, but nevertheless worth pointing out. If niceness were godliness, then one could accuse God of acting out of character when He is severe. But wisdom takes note of God's kindness and His severity. He is not nice. Nice would never be so kind as to die for someone. Nice would not require anyone to die for anything.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Forgiveness is accomplished by kindness. God sent Christ to die because He is kind. Christ gave Himself for sin because God is severe. Nice attempts to split the difference -- eliminating the need of the Cross and accusing God for requiring one. Niceness is the idolatry of assuming that there was another Way, that the servant's debt could actually be paid back if given enough time, and that all the dust and blood were, in reality, a bit showy and unnecessary if it's being honest (which it isn't and won't be anytime soon, because, after all, that wouldn't be... nice.)
1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
Niceness is impatient. It refuses to suffer any discomfort for any reason. it envies its own imaginations of a eschatological kumbaya and boasts that it knows better than God. It is arrogant enough to assume that God only got things off to a good start and that we can take it from here.
2 Timothy 2:24
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.
To be kind to everyone is to teach them. But that assumes and presupposes that they don't know something that they need to know and assumes that you do. But that's not very nice. Which is precisely the point. Niceness refuses to teach because teaching makes a negative statement of the student's insufficiency. Kindness seeks to teach and to patiently endure the evil wickedness of other's niceness.
Jesus calls us to love our enemies, but He also assumes we have some. Niceness would rob us of the ability to love our enemies by refusing us the right to have any. But God calls us to be at enmity with the world with which we are engaged in loving.
"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people." - G.K. Chesterton
Jesus assumes you will have neighbors and enemies by commanding us to love them. You can fix the problem of being tempted to hate your neighbor by not having any. You can move to an isolated place where there are no neighbors to hate or despise, but you cannot fulfill Jesus' commission by living on an island anymore than you can obey His will by living without enemies.
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