What is Biblical tolerance?

Tolerance is from a Latin word, tolerantia, which meant endurance. The idea is that one “puts up” with someone else’s lifestyle choices. This was the meaning that most of our American forefathers had when they began teaching about tolerance. The idea of putting up with someone else’s wrong belief is intrinsic to the beginning usage of this word. We are to endure one another’s choices, even though they may set our teeth on edge.

When I study American history, I find the early immigrants to be people tired from being persecuted, mainly for their religious beliefs. Many, but not all, of the original colonies were settled by people who came across the ocean to find freedom to worship in the way that they chose. Roman Catholics settled Maryland, Baptists settled Rhode Island, Virginia was full of Anglicans, and Puritans settled Massachusetts. Each sect did not give up their beliefs when they formed the United States; rather they sought to keep and preserve their religious differences through state’s rights, something that figured very prominently in our early history. Thus, our forefathers tolerated, or endured other belief systems, and expected toleration of their belief system in return.

However, today’s tolerance has come to mean something quite different from endurance. Many take tolerant to be a synonym for permissiveness. I was explaining this definition of tolerance to a liberal friend once, whose countenance fell rather dramatically when she at last understood my definition of tolerance. “Eww!” She exclaimed, “I don’t think of tolerance in that way at all.” In her mind, I daresay, tolerance had come to mean a permissiveness accompanied almost by an embracing of what is different. Culture was the main medium to introduce this heresy back into modern thought (for it has entered into our thoughts many times before), and today, we are all taught not just to tolerate other cultures, but to embrace all cultures as having equivalent value—on the face of it, an illogical and thus preposterous notion.

Sometimes when I am trying to share what a life changing experience knowing Jesus has been, I am met with the casual comment: “Well, I suppose its wonderfully good for you to believe that, and I am glad for you.” There is a prevalent hidden seed from, perhaps, the dogma of toleration, where when one is challenged to change their lifestyle and believe God, they are able to defend themselves, saying tacitly, my beliefs work for me just as well. But, of course, they do not. Toleration has so confused their thinking that they no longer think in terms of right and wrong, but merely in what works for you or what works for me. In terms of moving away from Christianity, this generation’s move has been colossal.

My father’s generation, who for the most part did not know Christ, knew at least there was a right and a wrong. They may not have been able to point to the reason for right and wrong—most did not know the Source of morality—but they passionately embraced their notions of right and wrong. Most of the time their notions were fairly close. But the modern generation has lost any notion of morality—and that is bound to lead to deep disaster. Tolerance and inclusiveness are the deceivers of the day; it takes a rare person to build a foundation of morality other than that which the state routinely sets out.

Biblical tolerance was introduced in New Testament times when such a thing was almost unknown. I find it an irony that Paul is often berated for his attitude towards women, but most of the epic-setting free tolerance statements that we have, also come from Paul. Let’s examine the main toleration passages that he wrote, and try to contextualize them to see what they meant during Paul’s time. There are two epic toleration passages to look at:
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28


In these statements, evaluate for a moment just exactly what Paul was saying. He made Gentiles to be the equal of Jews, something that no good Jew of that day would ever have done. He made slaves to be the equivalent of their masters. He made male and female to be equal, something that would have been tantamount to rebellion against all the known rules of that day. The barriers of race are crossed here, and those barriers have forever been thrown down. With these two statements, Paul was negating the values and traditions of all of the known world.

However, as ecstatic as I am about these two great passages, there is one caveat. All belonged to the same club—to one Spirit—Paul says, or we are all in Christ Jesus. All were Christians. And here is one of the main differences in tolerance, as it is being taught today. All of us are together, but only if we are in Christ. We are to be tolerant, yea, more than tolerant, loving and giving toward one another. We are “to esteem others as better than ourselves” says Paul in another place.

And for the Christian, there is to be another deep difference in toleration. Jude tells us that, instead of embracing their different lifestyle, that we saints are to be merciful to those who doubt, snatching others from the fire and save them. . . hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (v.22,23) Somehow, our society has fallen into the trap of comparing lifestyles one with another. But there is no, not one, lifestyle which will please our Lord. It is not a question about whether you are as good, or better, or worse, than me. It is altogether another question. How will you stand before God? There is only one way—and that way is through faith that leads to repentance for what we are. Not one person will stand before God and be able to justify himself on the basis of being a little better than his neighbor.

Before I conclude, I ought to say something about that parenthetical remark above—this kind of modern tolerance has entered our society before. Though I know little of the study of the rise and fall of civilizations, it seems to me, at least, that this modern definition is taken often by societies just before they collapse. We do not have to look further than Paul to find evidence of a confused church, confused over the right way to tolerate. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul directs the man with his father’s wife to be expelled from the church. Most likely, the Corinthians had thought themselves “tolerant” for accepting this man. In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul directs the church again, this time to take the man back into the church, because he had repented of his misdeeds. In both cases, the early church was already committing our modern sin—redefining tolerance to be something that it should not be.

Those Christians who would be biblically tolerant would do well to remember the words of the Lord: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). According to Jesus, losing our lifestyles is the only way in which we can find our own lives. We are not to be engaging in pitiful contests with each other, vaunting the comparative nature of our lifestyle. We are to be humble and penitent, lest we neglect the treasure which we have now found. The spreading of the gospel has been properly defined as one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. The Bread is not to be found in lifestyles. We are but beggars.

 

Why is the Bible Important to Me?

Why is the Bible Important to Me?

I suppose I should start answering this question by first showing that the Bible is important to me. This objective, I think, should be easily accomplished by first giving my testimony. I was saved in May of 1972, after a couple of college friends witnessed to me about the last times. Now I was, up to this time, skeptical in the extreme of those who said that God was real, and I was quite used to challenging other friends about their church habits, wanting to know what it was that interested them in church. Never receiving a rational answer, I was growing a little more confident all the time in my skepticism, that is, until I listened to these two college friends. For several hours around lunch time, they prattled on like they actually had read the Bible, something that no one I knew admitted to doing, and once more, they actually acted like God was real and speaking through these books of the Bible. I was invited to receive Christ as my Savior, but far too independent to allow myself to be pushed into anything, I went home, somewhat rattled.
I had lots of questions, many of them partially answered by my friends referring to the Bible. They kept quoting this book they referred to as Revelation, so I went home and began doing what I do best: read. I turned to the table of contents and found Revelation, tucked in right at the end of the Bible. I read Revelation all through chapter 22, and then remembering some of the other books they had quoted, I read Ezekiel, Nahum, and Daniel. After praying to God for understanding: God, if you are really there and caring, and part of what I read in the Bible, show yourself to me, that I may know. And believe me when I say, he answered the prayer in a dramatic fashion. I saw all the times of my life when God had been revealing himself to me. Even while I ignored him, he called to me, and now he was calling me again. I believed God, repented, and began a new life.

In my lifetime of being a Christian, over 40 years now, I have found maybe one other Christian who claims to have read Revelation before believing. It is almost unique. So, I think you should readily see that I consider the Bible very important, and I think it essential for anyone who wants to understand what God is doing in our world. Revelation is the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to its reader; try it and see for yourself.

But it didn’t stop there for me—I mentioned that I love to read, and it was not long before I became convicted to use that love for the Bible. I began a Bible reading program that included one major book a day, and I get through the entire Bible about seven times a year. Along with it, I have committed many chapters of scripture to memory, just because they are such wondrous words. So you see, when you are asking why the Bible is important to me, I do want you to realize the magnitude of its importance.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, the two college friends that talked so patiently with me—one is now my wife of forty-one years, and the other remains a close friend. That is enough of the how of the Bible’s importance, and now it is time to deal with the meat of the question, why is the Bible important to me?

I have long observed that a Bible which is falling apart usually belongs to a man who isn’t. A truism, perhaps, but it contains the next truth that I am trying to establish. Look at what the Bible has done. Millions, perhaps several billion, of people have radically changed their living because of this one book. Of course, I realize that includes some people with whom I would disagree on foundational doctrine, but nonetheless, I recognize that this singular book has had more to do with changing mankind than any other book. Tozer tells us that, “The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”

Christianity, founded on the Bible, is, I think, radically different from any other book. Christianity alone points to man as the problem in the communication between God and man, and alone, of all the religions, tells man that he is completely beyond fixing, broken beyond putting back together, and then, offers love and renewal to those who will recognize their brokenness.

I wonder at the American myth that each day is a new page, and I surmise that this famous myth of man being able to start completely anew, is out of the larger Christian story that tells of a grace freely offered to all, that anyone partaking of it might find an unlikely source in starting over. I will cast your sins into the depths of the sea, says the Bible, and I will remember them no more. I think that the experience of having God enter my life, and love me, and forgive me, and renew me with his matchless grace is the reason why I find the Bible so important to me. It points me to the Giver.

It is no good for you to point to the many who have misused the Bible; I am aware of the fact that it has been used by Hitler, not so long ago, to institute his pogrom against the Jews, and I know that before that it was misused by many in the South to justify slavery. The list of its misuses is quite long, as it has been a stumbling block that evidently trips people in quite different ways, as some fall into the greed of TV marketing, and others take the paths of significantly different beliefs that lie in the many Christian cults. But that is just the point. If we find something so real, so concrete that the temptation of bad people to use it, seems to be so compelling, does it not again prove that there is a stumbling block, one that demands to be considered? I do not think it a reach of historical viewpoint at all, to declare that the Bible has been the axis around which history has revolved. Take the Bible out of history, and what would we have left? No Jews, no Christians, no Moslems—for remember, they built off of the tenets of the Bible. Though I realize we cannot know what the world would be like without the Bible, I do think I can say that western civilization would not have led the world to its present state.

No, the Bible stands all alone, by itself, and there is not one other book which could share its glory. It is a shimmering star, guiding those who will follow it to life, and condemning those who reject it. It alone winnows our people, the human race, into two separate and permanently hostile camps, with profoundly irreconcilable differences. Perhaps that is why it remains the unspoken number one bestseller, of all time, on all lists, in America. The Bible changes lives, has changed our history, and will change our future, if its message is to be believed. Nations which have forgotten its message, and rejected its truths, have themselves passed into the greying dust of history, to be almost forgotten by the nations who remember its importance. The Bible? Ask why it is important to me? You may as well ask me why I drink water.