The gooey, saccharine-sweet niceness demanded of us by politicians isn’t found anywhere in the Bible.

When it came to the ruling elite of the day, those people who profited from self-dealing and cronyism, Jesus was anything but nice. He called them “serpents” and a “brood of vipers.” He described them as “whitewashed tombs” and murderers. These words weren’t directed at the occupying Romans, or the atheists, or adherents to other religions; they were pointed at His fellow Jews.

As Michael Quinn Sullivan explains in this podcast, there was nothing “nice” about those words. But they ware true, honest, and actually a kindness by giving voice to those who were oppressed.