Daily Devotion(s) – Plus Interesting Reads- 10/18/2023 – Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

Tolerance or better stated intolerance has become the norm in society today. Others demand acceptance of their opinion/position on topics and you had better comply.

If there are any Star Trek fans out there, you may remember the BORG. This was a group of cyborgs in “The Collective”, where they were linked and every borg thought and acted upon the same premise. Their main catchphrase was “Resistance is futile”. It sounds a lot like those hating on Christianity today. We are not to judge others, we are to accept everything everyone else does and believes not matter what. Oh, and as a reminder, Jesus LOVED everyone, right?

…in the realm of Christian experience there is a need for intolerance. In some things Christ was the most tolerant, broad-minded Man who ever lived, but in other things He was one of the most intolerant.
Billy Graham – The Sin of Tolerance

MATTHEW 7:12

¹Originally, tolerance meant to acknowledge that others have differing beliefs and accept that it is their right to do so. In this way, Christians are to absolutely be tolerant. Recently, tolerance has come to mean accepting that those other beliefs are true—something Christians absolutely cannot do. Unfortunately, the world no longer defines “tolerance” as the acknowledgment that others have differing beliefs. It has come to mean full acceptance of those beliefs. Of course, this definition makes no logical sense because embracing this type of tolerance precludes any personal opinion or belief. Christians are not to endorse religious {or any} beliefs that run counter to what the Bible teaches.

Three Kinds of Tolerance

Themes: Freedom; Neighbors

There are three kinds [of tolerance]:

1. Legal tolerance, which defends minority rights, and protects people’s freedom to ‘profess, practice and propagate’ religion. Christians should be at the forefront of those demanding this.

2. Social tolerance, which encourages mutual respect and good neighborliness. Christians should promote this too; it arises from recognizing every human being is a creature.

3. Intellectual tolerance, however, is to cultivate a mind so broad that there’s no keeping anything in or out. This is not a virtue; it’s [a] vice of the feebleminded. It can degenerate into an unprincipled confusion of truth with error, and goodness with evil.

John Stott, The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott, ed. Mark Meynell (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

golden-rule Download

Why the Church Must Reject the Doctrine of Tolerance

What Is Godly Tolerance?

The loudest voices against something Biblical, are usually those complaining that we (Christians) have in some manner “judged” them and therefore are not true Christians. Hooey, it is just another form of their true nature of INTOLERANCE.

judging-others Download

²“Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s,” wrote the Supreme Court in its opinion. “Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.” – SCOTUS

A final reminder, that even in those things that we as True Christians must be intolerant about, we at the same time must never boast of our intolerance.

Your boasting [over the supposed spirituality of your church] is not good [indeed, it is vulgar and inappropriate]. ^[a]Do you not know that [just] a little leaven ferments the whole batch [of dough, just as a little sin corrupts a person or an entire church]? ^7 [b]Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new batch, just as you are, still unleavened. For Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 5:6-7 (AMP)