Tolerance?!

First, I'm only being half-snarky when I say this word seems far "too big" for many in our times... and before I begin, I don't think it means what many of us think it does -and that especially if you are a serious Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ...

Tolerance?

If God wasn't tolerant many of us would be in hell that won't be due to His patience with us! "While we were yet sinners..." what?! Yep.

There are broad ideas about the actual dictionary definition but they include capacity to endure pain or hardship, ability to bear something unpleasant or annoying, to endure another's belief we don't agree with, that is, willingness to accept behavior and beliefs that are different from our own, even if we disagree with or disapprove of them.

Believers will nearly always immediately respond with "God doesn't like it" and one Rev. Dan Smith sang a great gospel blues song laying that very point out clearly. He himself by the way, refused to connect the term "blues" to his "sacred music" though the blues style was clearly in what he did both singing and harmonica. I get it. He's home with Jesus now. But he took issue with music style -you won't find God doing so anywhere in His Word.

Well, is God Himself intolerant? Yes and no. Yes in that when HE (note, not you, myself or this or that church) defines something in the negative, He doesn't quietly change His mind about it. In a word, the issue is sin.

Here's the yes part: He literally calls "all people everywhere to repent" and that term at core means to re-think, a genuine change of mind and heart, to go another way: His way on whatever the issue. He says we've ALL sinned and fallen short. So where's the tolerance in His nature?

Love, forgiveness offered, Jesus coming and dying for us and what He has determined is wrong. That when we were yet sinners Christ died for us! On and on we see the incredible PATIENCE AND GRACE of God extended to the most vile and wicked people, both Israel in in first Testament and to both Jews and gentiles in the New. And to me! Wow.

All this is continually threaded through the whole of the Bible, but the church (you and I dear Christ-follower) has a much more checkered past about it.

See, tolerance IS NOT about "anything goes" and turning a blind eye to His Word on any issue- but it is also not about us being perfect judges of all people in all places, that we are now somehow "God's agents of wrath".

Further, regardless of quoting Paul's comments about rulers bearing the sword -and yes, civil rulers have such power on earth-, injustice, lies, money-and-power-grasping leaders chocked full of sin and vainglory do not fulfill such as if they are all somehow automatically "agents of God" in terms of doing HIS will. If you take issue with this, keep reading please.

We see the Lord continually calling leaders out in both Testaments. Jesus Himself used the phrase "snakes and sons of snakes" about the very religious leaders who fully opposed Him and all He did in His earthly ministry. Free will and sin nature allows everyone including political leaders to make horrible and often wicked choices and all you have to know to underscore this fact is a solid study of God's Word and a bit of verifiable world history.

I suggest to my readers that loving isn't automatically agreeing. Whether someone thinks as I do or not doesn't equal their salvation or damnation simply because I, myself am convinced.

WHAT GOD THINKS AND SAYS is another matter.

And I hear the minds of readers: "What about each of our interpretations of scripture?" and I'll say among other things as I've already said above here: NOBODY gets "it' right 100 percent of the time and that means nobody including all of us.

Quite some years ago (and again recently) I studied the life of Roger Williams, founder of the present U.S. State of Rhode Island. I much admire him as the cream of the early founders of the American colonies! Though I am fully against colonization and slavery which were thoroughly part and parcel of the founding of the U.S., he stood so tall and was such a "before his time" man of God who understood the nature of God's love and justice far beyond his contemporaries. I'd urge you to study his life and interactions with Native people and the religious and civil authorities in New England, his response to their many cruelties exacted on both himself and so many others "in the Name of God", their exiling him (and countless others) and his own witness of what God's love, patience and grace are about via we human beings who are sometimes soooo inhumane!

One extreme is "everything's cool so don't judge" while the other is "because I'm convinced X, Y or Z is sin it is ...and I'm going to correct people whenever I perceive they're sinning pronto". Guess what? That's what the scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites did who were in the practical sense the people behind Jesus' unjust condemnation and crucifixion. The first is a judgment that you're being judged... and you could be quite wrong about God's view on the issue and yourself wrongly judging them.

The other extreme is considering yourself a 24 x 7 prophet who never makes a mistake in judgment so you're always righteous in "unloading" on someone but doing so without true discernment and worse, without Christ's love for them in the process.

Here's a brief but rather thorough study that I really think nails the issues: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-tolerance.html

A matter of real importance on our earthly walk? I think so.

And as always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn