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“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). Intolerance has become a bromidic buzz word over the past decade or two — a phonetic projectile lobbed at anyone holding an opposing viewpoint, with an aim to stop free thinkers from becoming free speakers.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, tolerance is a noun used to describe, “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.”
Ironically, when a person with strong moral convictions or religious beliefs voices their opinion to a “person of tolerance,” they are often met with the immediate blunt force impact of a “HATE SPEECH!” rubber stamp across their forehead.
Why is it that the social, educational, and political institutions in American that tout being the most open minded and tolerant of us all, are intolerably intolerant when it comes to tolerating the long-held ideas and convictions held by the majority of Americans for the past two centuries?
We have seen this Tolerance Movement move further and further out of the realms of reality into the outer, concentric circles of social, sexual, philosophical, religious, and intellectual deviancy; fostering not only an acceptance of, but a preference for, ideologies that corrupt humankind and destroy lives.
Deutsche Welle (DW) is an international broadcaster headquartered in Germany. They claim to be one of the most successful, relevant international media outlets in the world. DW’s mission is to, “…provide our journalistic content to people worldwide, giving them the freedom to make up their own minds and the information required to form their own opinions.”
According to the DW website, “Tolerance makes it possible for people to coexist peacefully. It is the basis for a fair society in which everyone can lead their lives as they wish. Tolerance is an important concept that helps people to live together peacefully. If we want to live in a peaceful society, there is no alternative to tolerance.”
Using this commonly held definition as our guide, more tolerance = less violence. In other words, tolerance is the key ingredient to achieving the “world peace” that hippies, folk singers, and beauty pageant hopefuls have been dreaming about for decades.
Never mind the fact that, though cowering beneath the ever-present paddle of the P. C. movement, people are more tolerant now than they have ever been in the history of the world…and yet here we sit, night after night, barraged with endless news programs reporting on protests, race riots, murder, famine, pestilence, rising crime rates, pandemics, food shortages, overcrowded prisons, gang violence, MS-13, pedophilia, sex trafficking rings, missing children, and corruption of all kinds.
This ideological concept of tolerance culminating in world peace is not playing out in the real world. So, where is the breakdown in the formula? Is it that tolerance really is not a key ingredient in the world peace secret sauce? Or is it that we, as a human race are, as the Oxford Dictionary so eloquently puts it, unable or unwilling to truly be tolerant of one another?
In Romans 2:4, Paul uses the word tolerance. Not in reference to how we ought to treat one another, but in reference to how God treats us. And the Romans 2 formula does not culminate in world peace, it culminates in repentance!
But Paul is not altogether silent on the topic of peace. In fact, ten chapters later in Romans 12, Paul writes, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” The introductory phrase, “if possible,” hints at a truth we all know deep down to be true, and that is, until Christ comes back, though we will taste times of temporary tranquility with our fellow man, the collective ‘as much as it depends on us’ will never result in a Millennial Kingdom minus a Messiah.
Tolerance is a good thing. I t is a biblical thing. It is something that we should all strive to do better. But the kind of tolerance we should strive to emulate is biblical tolerance — godly tolerance. And the brand of tolerance demonstrated by Jesus Christ is a type of tolerance that does not allow a sinner to continue wallowing in their sin in perpetuum; it is a brand of tolerance that will lead them to repentance.
In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus issues a warning concerning false prophets. He tells us that we will, “know them by their fruit.” Namely, their testimony will not lead sinners to repentance. Likewise, if the type of tolerance, the kind of kindness, and the presentation of patience that we show to sinners does not lead them to repentance — we, likewise, are false prophets.
VickiJoyAnderson.com
RealDarkNews.com/author/VickiJoy2001/
