“If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies” — Desmond Tutu

Four weeks ago I wrote about joy as the antidote to fear and stress, mentioning that joy is, according to Galatians 5:22-23, one of the fruits of the spirit. Today I would like to look at another fruit of the spirit: kindness. So what is kindness and how is it different to friendliness?

As Mother Teresa said: “If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are, do not wait for leaders do it alone, person to person. Be kind and merciful, let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.”

Friendliness is about a positive attitude towards others, to be polite and gentle, in particular in our communication, both verbal as well as non-verbal.

The word friendly obviously stems from the word friend, meaning friend-like. Kindness comes from the word kin, like next of kin and kinship.

In German, which is closely related to English the word kind actually means child, which is the closest relationship we can have, as a child shares 50 per cent of its DNA with both its mother and father. So kindness is about how we would treat our closest relatives.

Another definition of kindness says: kindness is love in action. The Bible has a lot to say about kindness.

The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (New International Version): “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” Thus, kindness is one of the attributes of love.

To me kindness is a virtue that sees what is needed and lends a helping hand. Let us learn to love one another and to be kind. Acts of kindness can be, but don’t have to be huge.

It can be that you bend down to pick up what another person dropped, or hold the door to let one in. It might be helping out with a quarter at the cash register or stopping on a journey to help changing a tyre, because you know how to do it. It might be sharing your lunch in school with the kid who did not bring lunch. Those are random acts of kindness that make our world a little bit friendlier and lighter.

Desmond Tuto said: “Do your little bit of good where you are, it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” It is an attitude of gratitude.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12, NIV)

It takes strength and gentleness to be kind. Everything we have in our lives is from kindness from God.

One of the most famous examples of kindness that Jesus gives in the Bible is the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37. The Samaritans and the Jewish people had lots of antipathy and prejudice for each other, and still, when a Samaritan found a man who had been robbed and almost killed, he stopped, helped and even took the victim to an inn and paid the innkeeper for him to stay there until he recovered. This parable also shows that being kind is not just towards those who we like or who are like us. We can be kind even to strangers or people who have little in common with you.

Bishop Tutu said at the height of apartheid: “A person is a person because he recognises others as persons. Be nice to the Whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity, as God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realise that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness and compassion.”

In a world where we are more polarised than ever before, we can counter the hostility, lies, lack of hope and thoughtlessness and meanness from others by being kind. As 1 Thessalonians 5:15 (NIV) states: “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

When Galatians lists kindness as a fruit of the spirit, it actually becomes more than just a commandment. It becomes an inner desire of true Christians.

James argues in his letter that faith without deeds is not yet true faith. For him faith is not just acknowledging the existence of God, which, according to James 2:19, even the demons do (and shudder). To him faith is not so much believing certain facts from the Bible you don’t have other proof for, but to put your trust in God’s promises and let him change you inwardly.

That is what the Spirit does. It makes us want to do good, not to achieve anything from God, but because in Christ we have already achieved peace with God and thus can let go of our fears and selfishness.

Kindness helps us to realise we are safe and protected by God. This actually can make us feel good, releases happiness hormones in both, the one who receives kindness and the one who offers it. Kind people tend to be happier and act more kindly.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s