I am not saying Christian men should be rude, stereotypically macho, unsocial, or unhelpful. I’m not saying it’s bad for a man to smile, to be likable, or to be a good host. But rather than use the word “nice” to describe a godly man like this, I believe it’s better to use the word “kind.”
Kindness, not niceness, is a fruit of Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It takes strength to be kind. When someone is a jerk to you or unappreciative and you still possess the power to be kind, that’s godliness (Matthew 5:38-48).
But when someone is a jerk to you and you are exposed as a pushover who doesn’t know how to standup for himself and others, this is what I call “being a nice guy.” To me, niceness is when your first priority is to be liked, to not offend, and to be accepted.
A godly man shouldn’t make it his goal to be unlikable, offensive, or rejected; but as he stands for truth no matter the cost, he can’t sacrifice his witness for Jesus in the name of niceness (Galatians 1:10).
Kindness is when you are willing to love someone in a respectful way, whether that be through charity, a rebuke, or through enforcing justice for those who need justice.
With all the said, here are 4 reasons Christian women don’t fall in love with nice guys.
1. A Nice Guy Is Not a Comfort to Her When She Thinks About the Unknown Struggles Life Will Bring
I was recently listening to someone explain why the military emphasizes discipline so much on things that don’t seem that important: making your bed, addressing people by a certain title, how you march, and so on.
He explained that a real battle requires you to have an immense amount of discipline. For example, if your friend gets shot, your natural instinct will be to stop and help him. But if you stop fighting, the enemy will come and kill you all.
Therefore, you need discipline to keep listening to your commanding officer and to keep fighting even though your friend is lying their bleeding to death and you’ll want to stop fighting to help him.
His point was that the military can’t make a training simulation real enough to genuinely give you that experience in a training environment. So the best way they have discovered to train new soldiers for the discipline needed in real battle is to develop over all discipline that hopefully transfers in those moments of truth when it really counts.
Having your shirt tucked a certain way, cleaning your weapon in a certain order, or running up a mountain without stopping are not the main point. The discipline these things are forming in you for the real battles are the main point.
Likewise, in our own lives, when moments of moral tests come our way, we are less likely to succeed if we generally lack discipline, boldness, and strength (Proverbs 5:23, Proverbs 22:15, Luke 6:39-40).
Even if a woman doesn’t know why she’s not attracted to a nice guy, deep down she will reject him because she knows the future holds threats to her and her future children. She doesn’t know what those threats are.
She doesn’t know what her and her future husband will need to do to overcome those threats. She just knows something bad will happen someday and she wants to know her future husband will be man enough to face those challenges.
When she just sees niceness in a man, this does not give her the confidence that this man will be able to take care of her when the war starts.
2. A Woman Will Not Like a Nice Guy Because She Wants to Be with a Man Who’s Respected By Other Men, and Nice Guys Don’t Get Other Men’s Respect
Of the Proverbs 31 woman, verse 23 states, “Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.” In Song of Solomon 2:3, the woman says to the man, “As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men.”
1 Samuel 18:1 states, “And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.’” And historically, before a woman married a man, she needed to know her father approved.
When she sees other men giving you respect, this increases her attraction to you because she then knows you really are a strong man because other strong men are validating this for her.
I’m not a very good chess player. So if you showed me ten different professional chess players, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is better. But if nine of those ten chess players are giving more respect to one of them, I’m going to assume that one chess player is the best.
In a similar way, even though a woman is not a good man herself and thus doesn’t fully know what it takes to be a good man, a woman knows a man is really a good man when other good men respect him.
The point is, a woman is attracted to a masculine man; but for her to know he has a true strength, he needs to be compared to other men who have already shown themselves to also have a strength.
This is why historically she wanted her father to approve of her choice in a husband. She wants a man who can be a man in the world of men.
Nice guys are not respected by other men. They may be liked. They may be included. But they are not respected. Men respect men for strength, not niceness.
3. Niceness Is Not Conducive to Raising Children as a Godly Father
A godly father must be gentle with his children. He must be patient. He must not lash out in anger. He must be humble. He needs to know how to communicate love and that he is proud of his kids.
But niceness, as I’m using the word, allows children to control the father rather than the father controlling the children during those years when they need to be controlled. When it states the qualities needed to lead in the church as an elder, 1 Timothy 3:4-5 states:
He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”
Ephesians 6:4 states, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” A godly father will know how to discipline his children in a loving way that builds them up rather than tears them down.
But a nice guy type of father will create spoiled children because he will just feel like it’s his job to make them happy at all cost. This is not a father’s role. His job is to raise them in the Lord so they can thrive in life, not have the easiest, most self-centered life possible (Hebrews 12:6-11).
4. A Godly Woman Knows “Niceness” Is Not an Essential Quality that Goes Into Husband Material
Women like nice guys as women like their girlfriends. They like to talk to nice guys, laugh with nice guys, go through seasons of singleness with nice guys – but they don’t look at nice guys as husband material.
A biblical husband must be the pursuer, protector, provider, and spiritual leader in the home. Being a man who is more concerned with being liked by everyone than he is with leading those he’s called to lead means he lacks the qualities of a godly husband.
A godly woman knows she is strong, so if she is going to willingly submit one day in marriage to a man, she needs to know that man is strong enough to handle her.
Godly women don’t marry men who act like their girlfriends. They marry men who can lead them as a husband is called to do (Ephesians 5:25-33).
