Article by Jimmy Fields

Patience: The ability to endure challenges or delays without becoming upset, staying calm, and enduring uncomplainingly various forms of suffering, wrongs, and evils with which we meet.

Tolerance: The ability or willingness to tolerate something, particularly the existence of opinions or behavior with which one does not necessarily agree.

Let us take a few minutes and examine two words that can and do affect the Lord’s Church from time to time—patience and tolerance. These two words have become almost interchangeable in our society today. Unfortunately, influences in our society sometimes make their way into the Lord’s Church (Romans 12:2).

2 Peter 3:9: 9 – “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (NKJ)

Clearly, God’s attribute of longsuffering or patience toward His creation is displayed here. He desires all to come to repentance through the blood of Jesus before it is everlastingly too late.  This is an attribute all children of God should strive to have when we encounter those in the world, as well as with our brothers and sisters in Christ. There will be many times in a Christian’s life in which we will be wronged by others of like precious faith. Many times, it is unintentional, but at times it may be intentional. These acts require a lot of patience and the ability to endure the challenge of not becoming upset and angry and then lashing out at the one who has wronged us.

Paul tells us in Colossians 3:12-13, “¹² Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering (patience); ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” (NKJ)

There is a lot to unpack here in just two verses, but we see here that Paul exhorts the elect of God, that is, Christians, to be patient with brethren, and willing to forgive them even as Christ has forgiven us of our trespasses against Him. I pray that we are as willing to forgive, forget, and move on when we have been wronged, as our God is willing to do.

There are several verses in the Bible where some translations link the word tolerance to love and forgiveness. Through a study of the word tolerance, we can see that in such cases as Ephesians 4:2, where Paul says, “Show tolerance for one another” (NASB), the word tolerance is used in the same way as longsuffering and patience as seen above.

Yes, tolerance or patience is a virtue (Romans 15:5) and God’s word promotes it, but it is very clear that it also has obvious limits on what can and should be tolerated when it comes to Christians and the Lord’s Church. What we never see biblically with the word tolerance, is a willingness to overlook a child of God who is living in a sinful state or lawlessness (Matt. 7:21-23). Our God, as we have seen, is longsuffering and patient, but He was never and will never be tolerant of His people who do not follow His commandments as specified through His word.

Let us not forget that we serve the same God Israel served.  He was patient with Israel, but He never tolerated their disobedience.  There was always a punitive price for their disobedience.  Sinful behavior cannot and should not be tolerated today either.

Habakkuk 1:13 – “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil. And cannot look on the wickedness.” (NKJ)

As a congregation, we need to ask ourselves, from time to time, if we are being patient with those who are walking outside God’s law, i.e. those who have never named Him.  We also need to ask ourselves if we are being patient with God’s children who are walking disorderly (2 Thess. 3:6-15) or if we are simply tolerating sinful behavior and calling it patience.

We need to be very careful that we are not being tolerant of those in sin while disguising it as patience. Time is something we are not promised.  One who is in sin must be corrected with love and patience as soon as possible before it is everlastingly too late! Disguising tolerance with patience and allowing the sin to continue will be detrimental to one’s soul! Will we choose the pattern set before us by our God, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the apostles?

Above all, let us remember that biblical words have biblical meanings, and we cannot allow man to redefine those meanings because they are God-breathed.

1 Pet. 4:11 – “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”