Patience is a virtue. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. Patience is an amazing gift given to believers at salvation so that we can demonstrate God’s ability to lead us and guide us through the raging waters of life. However, patience has its own set of difficulties and challenges. This first of several slippery challenges is tolerance.
Tolerance means different things to different people. “Not long ago, the word ‘tolerance’ meant ‘bearing or putting up with someone or something not especially liked’. However, now the word has been redefined to ‘all values, all beliefs, all lifestyles, all truth claims are equal’” (http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/tolerance.html). Do you see the difference? Do you see the slippery slope? While tolerance is helpful, do you see how tolerance can lead you to a place you might not want to visit? We know all truth claims are not equal because all truth claims are not truth. However, we must balance Scripture’s truth with tolerance of others as we demonstrate God’s love to a world desperately in need of a Savior.
Godly tolerance does not mean giving up on your beliefs
“Bigots! You church people are absolute bigots! You are all so intolerant!” The truth is that godly patience may lead us to become tolerant of so many actions and thoughts that are ungodly. This scares Christ-followers because it groups causes us to have to associate with those who believe differently than we do. As people who follow Christ and believe without any doubt that His word is truthful, we should be able to extend tolerance towards others who do not believe as we do. This does not mean that we accept unbiblical views as truth and validate sin. However, what it does mean is that we work to build intellectual and spiritual bridges of respect for someone else’s beliefs. What does this do? It demonstrates value for the other person.
Godly tolerance does not mean accepting someone else’s belief as equal
What makes Christianity unique is that Godly tolerance is based on a solid belief in the truth of God’s word. Their belief is certainly not equally valid. This is where the slippery slope of tolerance can become an issue in the life of a believer. At what point can we no longer tolerate? You’ve probably heard it most of your life “hate the sin and love the sinner.” After living 40 something years as a believer those words ring very hollow in my life. When I say “hate the sin and love the sinner,” I am giving myself permission to raise my nose in the air and look down on others who struggle with certain sins. Some of you reading this are much better than I am because you can hate the sin. However, I want to challenge you to do something differently. I want to challenge you to love the sinner. That’s right. Love the sinner. When we hate what a person thinks, does, or says it becomes a “us vs. them” mentality.
Godly tolerance displays God’s unconditional love
Godly tolerance says that we are willing to bear the misguided and sometimes uninformed thoughts of another simply because we are demonstrating God’s love towards them. What we sometimes fail to remember is that we also (Christ-followers) once did, and continue to have misguided and uniformed thoughts. Think about how tolerant God has been with us throughout our lives. Think about how often God has to “put up with” or “tolerate” our own sin and unbelief. Why does He do this? He does it because He loves us and desires for us to come to our senses and repent. Do we demonstrate that same kind of love towards others?
Please understand, when I say tolerant I am speaking of “extended patience” for the purpose of being able to share Christ’s story with someone. Tolerance is not a means in itself to simply share the Christ’s story, it is a demonstration of God’s love. It is not our job to change lives. That job is best left to the Holy Spirit. Our job is to demonstrate God’s love.
Godly tolerance is a result of godly love (1 John 4:19). We love others because God loved us. That’s right. That’s the key to it all. It really is. Jesus never hated people into salvation. He never placed people into different ethnic groups and then condemned them. He never ignored people just because they believed differently. He spoke and demonstrated truth through His matchless LOVE. This love is something He did, not because it was an avenue to share His story, but because Jesus IS love.
Building a wall so high that people cannot climb over it is the wrong way to approach salvation. I fear that many people in churches have built walls so high and have become so isolated from their own communities that it is impossible to love them as Christ does. We have built obstacle courses that even the most seasoned Ninja Warriors could not complete. For what? Why?
So where’s the slippery slope?
The slippery slope with tolerance is that it can potentially move us to accept non-biblical thoughts as truth. It’s that simple. Tolerance quickly leads us to acceptance. Either the Bible matters or it doesn’t. The Bible is either God’s word or it isn’t. If it is, and I believe it is, then we cannot overlook what God calls sin. However, the difficult part is loving people the way God loves them in spite of their sin. Remember, God loves us in spite of our sin. Why can we not love others in spite of their sin?
Be careful to not let tolerance lead you down the avenue to acceptance.