"Christian people are mistaking natural qualities, niceness, a cultural veneer or politeness, for true Christian grace. It seems that we are no longer capable of differentiating between the two. How often today is affability mistaken for saintliness! ‘What a gracious man he is,’ they say. What they really mean is this: he never criticizes and he agrees with everybody and everything. I know of nothing more dangerous than that. These so-called gracious men are of course, altogether nicer than John the Baptist or the Apostle Paul! I do not hesitate to go further -- they are very much nicer than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who denounced the Pharisees! Affability is not saintliness. A mere intellectual, oral flabbiness, is not synonymous with graciousness and with the possession of grace!"
~MLJones, Romans Saving Faith
Gracious speech is not grace. One is a cultural nicety, the other is spiritual and doesn't ignore sin. Too often people think "speaking the love in truth" means being gracious and tolerant of all manner of sin and heresy which goes against the very Scriptures they think they are using to shut down discernment.
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