Resisting the temptation to act as an "archist" when confronted with minor faults, and giving God time to change the beliefs and habits of others.
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
2 Corinthians 3:17
I patiently and cordially accept others as unique expressions of specific character qualities in varying degrees of maturity.
I view each person as an individual created in the Image of God, not as a member of a nation, political party, race, culture or other collective.
I evaluate ideas and behavior based on "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
I am not God; I cannot make people perfect, and I make allowances for those who are not as wise and mature as they ought to be.
Rather than attempt to coerce maturity in others, I use faults as a motive to mortify similar traits in my life so I may be an example of Godly living to them.
I seek common ground with people of different viewpoints and persuade them to be consistent with these ideas.
I am to be a servant to all, regardless of viewpoint.
In a technical sense, "tolerance" is the amount of variation from a standard that engineers or mechanics will accept. In medical terms, tolerance is the ability of the body to withstand the effects of that which is detrimental to good health. "Tolerance" in the cultural arena therefore presupposes a precise standard of thinking and conduct by which other ideas and behavior can be evaluated as right or wrong.
Institute in Basic Life Principles: The Power for True Success
Important Cultural/Historical Note
Do you know why the men who signed the Constitution were opposed to "tolerance?"
Do you know the legal difference between "toleration" and "liberty?"
In the modern world, "tolerance" means a repudiation of God's Standard of righteousness, and a silent "acceptance" of manifestly immoral behavior and ideas.
In early American history, "toleration" meant that the State permitted some Christians to worship according to their consciences, but the State actually deemed those practices to be wrong, and at any time the State could withdraw its grace and punish that form of Christian worship deemed to be incorrect. Puritans such as William Perkins and Americans such as James Madison opposed "toleration" and fought for "liberty" of conscience.
In Virginia, where alone there was an arduous struggle in the legislature, the presbytery of Hanover demanded the disestablishment of the Anglican church and the civil equality of every denomination; it was supported by the voices of Baptists and Quakers and all the sects that had sprung from the people; and, after a contest of eight weeks, the measure was carried, by the activity of Jefferson, in an assembly of which the majority were Protestant Episcopalians. Nor was this demand by Presbyterians for equality confined to Virginia, where they were in a minority; it was from Witherspoon of New Jersey that Madison imbibed the lesson of perfect freedom in matters of cone science. When the constitution of that state was framed
by a convention composed chiefly of Presbyterians, they established perfect liberty of conscience, without the blemish of a test. Free-thinkers might have been content with toleration, but religious conviction would accept nothing less than equality. The more profound was faith, the more it scorned to admit a connection with the state; for, such a connection being inherently vicious, the state might more readily form an alliance with error than with truth, with despotism over mind than with freedom. The determination to leave truth to her own strength, and religious worship to the conscience and voluntary act of the worshipper, was the natural outflow of religious feeling.
George Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. 5, p. 123 |
Wise Christians will sometimes "tolerate" non-Christian words and deeds, as part of an overall strategy to destroy the root of these thoughts and practices and to bring the unbeliever to an unconditional surrender to Christ. We must never grant "liberty" to evil. Unrighteousness has no "unalienable rights."
- v.t. To suffer [allow] to be or to be done without prohibition or hinderance; to allow or permit negatively, by not preventing' not to restrain; as, to tolerate opinions or practices. The protestant religion is tolerated in France, and the Roman Catholic in Great Britain.
- Crying should not be tolerated in children. --Locke
The law of love tolerates no vice, and patronizes every virtue. -- G. Spring.
n. The act of tolerating; the allowance of that which is not wholly approved; appropriately, the allowance of religious opinions and modes of worship in a state, when contrary to or different from those of the established church or belief. Toleration implies a right in the sovereign to control men in their opinions and worship, or it implies the actual exercise of power in such control. Where no power exists or none is assumed to establish a creed and a mode of worship, there can be no toleration, for no toleration, in the strict sense of the word, for one religious denomination has as good a right as another to the free enjoyment of its creed and worship.
Webster's, 1st ed., 1828
Question 109: What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
Answer: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, . . . tolerating a false religion . . . .
Westminster Larger Catechism (1648)
We need to distinguish between the tolerant mind and the tolerant spirit. Tolerant in spirit a Christian should always be, loving, understanding, forgiving and forbearing others, making allowances for them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, for true love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” [1 Cor. 13:7]. But how can we be tolerant in mind of what God has plainly revealed to be either evil or erroneous?
John Stott’s book, Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970) p. 8.
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, -- Ephesians 1:4-5
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. -- Psalm 119:97
This isn't that New Age "Positive Thinking" stuff, is it??
Table of Character Traits
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