Besieged by Tolerance

Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”

Certain words elicit specific responses. We react one way upon hearing words like kitten, puppy or rainbow, and a wholly different way upon hearing words like bypass surgery, colonoscopy, or scurvy.

Tolerance is one of those inoffensive words that elicits an agreeable response, and in our day and age tolerance has become big business. From governments running campaigns attempting to enlighten us, the ignorant masses, as to the beauty and harmony of tolerance, to it being used as a justification for indifference within the church, tolerance is the word of the day, and can be found on the lips of young and old alike.

Notwithstanding the fact that the very notion of tolerance, and what it is has been redefined to the point that silence is the only option we are given in regards to sin and perversion, one can rarely if ever open their mouth nowadays, even in a spirit of gentleness, without being labeled intolerant.

It has become almost impossible to fight the good fight of confessing Christ. Anyone who dares to call for a return to Christian values, anyone who dares to warn of the precipice toward which we are headed, is readily accused of being a religious fundamentalist, a fanatic, rigid, extremist, and bigoted.

The humble work of speaking truth, of speaking healing and reconciliation by the grace of God, finds itself pinned against the rigid wall of tolerance time and again. It is strange and absurdly ironic that those who foam at the mouth screaming tolerance at the top of their lungs are among the most intolerant people on the face of the earth when it comes to opposing points of view, or a denial of their pet perversion.

Wherever you turn, every hour of every day, you are being bombarded with everyone from preachers to politicians telling you, you must be tolerant. The message of tolerance has taken on such astronomical proportions that even those within the house of God have come to relativize sin, vice, immorality, and perversion, calling good evil, and evil good.

We have come to the point in our crippled culture, a culture given over to the desires of its own heart that ethicists are now saying merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life, and so, in their view, post birth abortions are perfectly fine, legitimate, and something they are in favor of. In order to feel the outrage I am currently feeling at this latest insanity, you must know two things. First, a post birth abortion is a nice way of saying murdering a newborn baby, and second and ethicist is supposed to be a philosopher who specializes in ethics. Oddly enough, ethics, the selfsame things that ethicists are supposed to specialize in are defined as the rules of conduct, or moral principles recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions, a particular group, or culture.

In the world of tolerance, the borders between good and evil, truth and deception, sacred and profane, have been erased. The spirit of tolerance demands that you accept men’s proclivities and abnormalities as their personal normalcy, doing nothing and saying nothing as you watch them marching deeper into the darkness.

The word of God teaches us to make the clear distinction between sin itself, and the sinful man. It likewise teaches us the difference between judging others, and restoring a brother in the spirit of gentleness. It is due to our indifference and the coldness of our hearts that we are quick to call warning someone, judging them.

If I see someone about to fall off a cliff and I call out to them, I am not judging them, I am not calling them foolish for not looking where they were going, or ignorant for not taking precautions against falling over the edge, I am warning them as to the danger that they are in, and hopefully keeping them from hurting themselves.

Being more tolerant than God is a sin. There was no other way I could have worded the previous statement, and I stand by it with every fiber of my being. It is a sin to attempt being more merciful or tolerant than God, as it is likewise a sin to attempt widening the narrow path of faith.

Although many have wrongly interpreted God’s love for tolerance, the Bible is very clear as to what must occur in our lives when we come to the knowledge of Christ.

No, we cannot remain as we were, we cannot think as we thought, we cannot act as we acted, nor can we pursue those things we once pursued which were not in accordance with, and adherence to God’s word.

Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

If we continue to be conformed to the world, then we are of the world, and if we turn a blind eye when our contemporaries live like those of the world, we are in essence being more tolerant than God is.

It is one thing to speak of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, it is quite another to live in such a way that we prove out these things. Words are wind. They are empty and meaningless if we are not transformed by the renewing of our minds that we might prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

John the Baptist was never tolerant of sin, Jesus was never tolerant of sin, Paul was never tolerant of sin, Peter was never tolerant of sin, yet somehow we think it fitting that we are.

We were not born into this world to be, but rather to become. Man is born into sin; man is born separate from God, and if man does not become saved, if he does not become transformed by the renewing of his mind, then he remains as he was.

Today, more than ever before in its history, the church is being called upon to preach a real gospel, the only force in the universe that can save the sinner. It is also being called upon to preach a a complete gospel, the only standard God ever established for the right living as well as the righteous judgment of every individual.

The gospel which Jesus preached and lived exhorts us to love, to accept and to restore, but for the sake of our souls and those who are still lost, we must not pervert it, transforming its essence into indifference, resignation and tolerance.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.