Nice or Good?

In a small group in my church we’ve been reading Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. It’s a pretty good book, it’s about what it means to be a godly man, but one thing that really made me think is when Eldridge talks about Jesus. Nowadays we have this image of Jesus as a “nice guy”, a gentle easy going person who just wants to be nice to everybody. A main theme of the book is that as men we don’t want to be “nice guys” we want to be “dangerous”. Now the first thought that enters your head might be “Hey what’s wrong with wanting to be nice to people?” Well, there is a difference between being a nice guy and a good man, and Jesus was the latter. Looking at the Gospels Jesus was definitely good, there is no question about that, but He wasn’t exactly nice, I mean, He openly accused the Pharisees of their evil ways – that doesn’t sound nice to me. C.S. Lewis wrote of God “Safe, of course He isn’t safe, but He is good.” Jesus is not safe, He stands up for what is right at all times and let’s His voice be heard. That, I believe, is how we should act. I would much rather be described as good over nice, nice implies conceding, fear, and walking on eggshells, good implies strength, honesty, purity, and justice. In our culture people tend to shun the church as thinking it’s a boring place full of nice people, but really God is dangerous; the same God that made sunsets and flowers made lightening and wild animals, looking at this world there is no way we can say it is a safe place, but it is good. I guess my point is this, Christianity is not boring, the Jesus of the Bible was a loud, fearless, passionate guy, but the Jesus we portray to the world is a solemn, quiet, nice, person.