In our culture, tolerance has been exalted as the highest virtue to be embraced and pursued. In a recent article about tolerance in "Christianity Today," Christian author Daniel Taylor suggests that intolerance is the only serious sin left in our culture. Taylor says, "America is sick of intolerant people, and it’s not going to tolerate them anymore" (1). But Taylor asks whether it’s really authentic tolerance that our culture is embracing. According to Taylor genuine tolerance assumes that you first object to something, and then make the choice to tolerate it. Taylor says, "You do not have to tolerate that which you [already] accept or affirm" (2).
According to Christian author Chuck Colson, what our culture really insists on isn’t tolerance but what he calls "forced neutrality," that is, not every voicing disagreement or objection to anything (Colson 2). For example, when followers of Jesus look at the increasing popularity of Buddhism in American culture, what does genuine tolerance really look like? Daniel Taylor would say it’s Christians saying, "Well, we think the main ideas of Buddhism aren’t true because they are in conflict with the Christian faith, but we certainly affirm the right of Buddhists to practice their faith freely and without hindrance." But the "forced neutrality" Colson observes simply won’t accept that, but instead it insists that Christians say, "Well, you know, Buddhism is just as true and valid way to know God as any other religion is, including the Christian faith."
It’s because tolerance is defined as this "forced neutrality" that our culture views followers of Jesus as intolerant. This is why Daniel Taylor says, "Intolerance is our society’s greatest sin. The intolerant person is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, the one person who must be shamed or silenced" (4).
What should we make of our culture’s obsession with tolerance? G. K. Chesterton called tolerance the virtue of people who don’t believe anything anymore (Taylor 3). Some Christians suggest that tolerance isn’t a virtue at all, that Christians should proudly wear the badge of intolerance because it shows that we’re strong in our convictions. Yet I hesitate to go that far, because I think, although tolerance has its limits, tolerance is a virtue in its proper context.
Today I want to talk about "Ending Christian Intolerance." I’m not talking about intolerance toward Christians, but I’m talking about intolerance within the Christian community. Specifically I want to talk about how tolerance should function within the Christian community. We’re going to see that tolerance has an important role to play in our quest to live as an authentic Christian community, and that perhaps our failure to embrace the principle of tolerance within the Church is one reason why our culture views Christians as so hateful and mean-spirited. We’re going to look at what the principle of Christian tolerance is, what qualifies for tolerance, and finally several reasons why tolerance is important.
We’ve been in a series through the New Testament book of Romans called Good News for Our Times. The last month we’ve been in chapters 12 through 16, looking at "The Good News About God’s Community." In this section we’ve been seeing how the implications of the Christian message are to be lived out and embodied in the Christian community. It all starts with each of us realizing that the proper response to God’s good news about Jesus Christ is to surrender ourselves fully to God, as living sacrifices, and only then will we be able to understand how to live as God’s community in our culture.
1. THE PRINCIPLE OF TOLERANCE (Romans 14:1)
Let’s look at v. 1 together. We learn here that there were two basic groups in the Roman churches, those Paul characterizes as "weak in faith," and those who he views as "strong in faith." Now just by phrasing it that way, obviously Paul viewed being strong in the faith as preferable, and he counts himself as part of those who are strong in faith. We’ll look at how these two groups differed from each other in a few minutes.
But for now, notice that Paul wants all the followers of Jesus to "accept" those who are weak in their faith. The Greek word "accept" here means "to welcome," "to receive someone into a relationship and to treat that person as a genuine Christian brother or sister." This means more than just smiling and shaking their hand, but truly embracing them and welcoming them into your life.
Paul wants this acceptance to be genuine, with no hidden agenda or strings attached. He warns us not to accept someone for the purpose of changing their mind in these "disputable matters." What Paul is calling for here is genuine tolerance, not just putting up with someone. If tolerance assumes we disagree or object to something, Paul is telling us to accept people we have these differences of opinion with without trying to change their mind.
Now this tolerance is restricted to what Paul calls "disputable matters" and we’ll talk in a few minutes about what does and doesn’t qualify as a disputable matter. But first here’s the principle of Christian tolerance: AS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS GOD CALLS US TO PROMOTE TOLERANCE AMONG CHRISTIANS ON DISPUTABLE MATTERS.
So authentic Christian tolerance is an issue for followers of Jesus Christ in their relationships with each other. This is a principle for ordering our community and our relationships with other Christians, a principle for how we interact with members of our own church, members of other Christian churches, and how we interact with other churches.
2. WHAT QUALIFIES FOR TOLERANCE?(Romans 14:2-3)
Now the question that cries out to be answered is, "What qualifies for Christian tolerance?" Aren’t there limitations to this kind of tolerance? Is a "disputable area," an issue of doctrine or an issue of morals?
Well fortunately Paul gives us an example of what he’s talking about in vv. 2-3. Here we find that the "weak in faith" are genuine Christians whose faith is fragile in the sense that it doesn’t provide them assurance or confidence to do certain things. Their faith in Christ is real, but there’s a "weakness in assurance" that doesn’t permit them to do certain things that other Christians seem to have the freedom to do.
Now the "weak in faith" at the church in Rome were Christians who didn’t eat meat but instead ate only vegetables. We’ll learn in v. 5 that they were also Christians who thought certain days were sacred in God’s eyes. Based on the context of the book of Romans, we can conclude that the "weak in faith" were mostly Jewish Christians who still felt obligated to practice the Jewish food laws and observe the Sabbaths and festivals found in the Law of Moses. The "strong" were mostly non-Jewish Christians (although Paul sees himself as part of the strong even though he’s Jewish), and the strong in faith felt under no obligation to live by the food laws and Sabbath laws of the law of Moses, because for them Christ was the end of the law of Moses (Rom 10:4).
Now let’s remember the background to the church in Rome. The Christian church was almost exclusively Jewish for the first few decades after Easter. These early Christians continued observing the Jewish dietary laws, meeting for worship on the Jewish Sabbath and frequenting the Jewish temple, and so forth because they were all Jewish. The dietary laws and Sabbath laws especially had unique significance in the first century to Jewish people. Just about 180 years before Paul wrote these words, the Jews had experienced horrible suffering at the hands of the Syrian king Antiochus IV for not eating pork and refusing to abandon the Sabbath. At that time, the Jewish dietary laws and Sabbath laws became a kind of badge of loyalty for Jewish people (Dunn 2:800). One historian says, "To abandon food laws and Sabbaths was to betray everything which had been most compelling and moving in the Jewish history of the past two centuries" (Dunn 2:811-12).
Now in 49 AD, about fifteen years after Jesus rose from the grave, the Roman Emperor Claudius kicked all the Jewish people out of the city of Rome, both Jewish Christians and Jewish non-Christians alike. We know this from the Roman historian Seutonius. With all the Jewish Christians kicked out, the church in Rome took a distinctively non-Jewish turn, with the people coming to Christ all being non-Jewish and therefore having no problem with eating non-kosher food and worshiping on different days of the week. After several years, Claudius died and the Jews were permitted to return to Rome. However, the church the Jewish Christians found in Rome was very different than the church they’d left, because now it was filled with mostly non-Jewish Christians. Much of what Paul has written in Romans has been to bring these two groups together, to help them love and appreciate each other despite their differences.
The Old Testament law nowhere forbids Jewish people from eating all meat. It forbids eating certain kind of meat--like pork--but it allows for other meat, like chicken and beef. But even the meat Jews were permitted to eat could only be eaten if it was prepared in a certain manner, so even permitted meat wasn’t kosher unless it was slaughtered according to Old Testament rituals. historians suggest that it’s likely that when the Jews were kicked out of Rome all the Jewish slaughterhouses were closed, so when the Jews eventually returned to Rome they had no way of obtaining meat that met the requirements of the law of Moses (Dunn). So the logical thing for many of them would be to abstain from meat altogether, much like the prophet Daniel did in the Old Testament when he chose a diet of only vegetables because even the permitted meat wasn’t prepared according to Old Testament rituals, and thus wasn’t truly kosher. We also learn later in the chapter that these Jewish Christians also wanted to keep celebrating the Jewish Sabbath and festivals.
Paul views these Christians as "weak in faith." Now there’s no evidence that these Jewish Christians were doing these things in order to somehow earn God’s favor. There’s also no evidence that they were insisting that other Christians had to do these things in order to be acceptable to God. If they’d been doing that (what Bible teachers call Judaizing), then Paul would’ve told them they were believing a false gospel, like he told the Judaizers in the book of Galatians. So it appears that they weren’t pushing their convictions on others--at least not directly--but their faith in Christ simply didn’t give them the freedom to stop following the Jewish dietary laws and observing the Jewish Sabbath laws.
Christians who don’t have those scruples are described the "strong in faith." Now to the "strong in faith" Paul commands them in v. 3 not to look down on those who are weak. The verb he uses here means "to despise" a person, to treat someone as "worthless" or as having no value (Louw and Nida 88.195). There’s a strong note of contempt in this word, because the strong in faith would be tempted to treat the weak in faith with a mocking, contemptuous attitude.
Then, also in v. 3, Paul commands the "weak in faith" not to "condemn" the strong. To "condemn" here means to judge the behavior of the strong as unacceptable to God (Dunn 2:802), in this case the behavior of eating meat that’s not kosher and not observing the Sabbath laws. Christians weak in faith would be tempted to view the behavior of the strong as unacceptable to God. Paul reminds the "weak in faith" that God has accepted the strong. In fact, the word "accept" here in v. 3 is the same word that’s used in v. 1. If God has welcomed the strong into a relationship without insisting that they follow the Jewish dietary laws and observe the Sabbath, the weak should welcome them too.
From this specific example, we find what qualifies for Christian tolerance: A DISPUTABLE MATTER IS AN HONEST DIFFERENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN BIBLE BELIEVING CHRISTIANS ON HOW TO BEST APPLY A BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE.
What we find here is NOT the legalism that we find addressed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where some Jewish Christians were teaching that everyone had to embrace the law of Moses in order to be accepted by God. What we find here is an honest difference of opinion, and although Paul has his own convictions as someone strong in faith, he admits that there is room for honest difference of opinion on how to best apply biblical principles.
So Paul is NOT calling for tolerance in areas of essential Christian doctrine. He’s not saying, "There’s no such thing as truth" or "all religions are equally true." In fact, doctrine is really the key difference between what Paul says here and what Paul says about the Judaizers in the book of Galatians. In Galatians we also find Jewish Christians still practicing various parts of the law of Moses, but the difference is that they are also teaching that everyone had to do these things in order to be accepted by God. So in Galatians Paul doesn’t pull any punches; he calls the Judaizing message a false gospel that contradicts the true message of God’s grace. But in Rome, some Christians simply didn’t feel comfortable eating all food and worshiping on any other day. So in this case, Paul encourages tolerance. When there’s essential Christian doctrine at stake, as followers of Jesus we need to stand firm.
Christian tolerance also is NOT tolerance in areas of clear moral absolutes. The Bible clearly teaches that there are moral absolutes, that there’s such a thing as right and such a thing as wrong. Some Christians think tolerance means giving up moral absolutes. For example, there are churches in our community that advertise themselves with the phrase "open and affirming congregations." That means that these churches they welcome practicing homosexuals into their fellowship and don’t teach what the Bible clearly teaches, that homosexual behavior is unacceptable to God. That is not what Paul is encouraging us to do here. Remember that the difference here is over the application of biblical principles. The Christian church can’t afford to water down the clear moral teachings of the Bible.
Now the debate in the churches in Rome was specifically about diet and days. So it was in application of the Jewish law of Moses that there were honest differences of opinion. Christians today still differ about this today. Some congregations are Judaizing, actually teaching that if you don’t observe the Jewish dietary laws, Sabbath laws and festivals that you’re unacceptable to God, or at least not as acceptable to God as you would be if you did these things. I know of one church in the Inland Empire that teaches that Sunday worship is the mark of the beast from the book of Revelation. So, in their opinion, we’ve taken the mark of the beast by worshipping here today rather than yesterday. But other Christians simply feel personally convicted in the area of diet and days. For instance, many Jewish messianic congregations still feel the need to practice the dietary laws, worship on Saturday, and celebrate the Jewish festivals. So clearly the issues of diet and days are still relevant.
However, there are lots of other areas we could apply this principle of Christian tolerance to. I want to give you a few contemporary examples, and the examples of chosen are all examples where I’ve blown it in applying this tolerance principle.
The first area is debate over DRINKING ALCOHOL. This difference is between those who argue for drinking in moderation and those who argue for total abstinence. Both viewpoints agree that the Bible teaches that drunkenness is wrong, that the Bible is true when it says, "Don’t get drunk" in Ephesians 5:18. Now, because of my past history of drug and alcohol abuse, I’m weak in faith in this area. I totally abstain from all forms of alcohol because I believe Alochol Anonymous is true when it says, "One is too many and a thousand never enough." For the first few years of my Christian life, it really bothered me when I saw members of our congregation drink socially. If I was at a home Bible study and noticed a few beers in the refridgerator, I had a tendency to be judgmental. Now Christians who drink socially in moderation don’t bother me any more, but for a few years it did, and I violated this principle by judging these Christians as somehow being less acceptable to God than I was, because I chose total abstinence. Clearly both abstainers and those who choose moderation need to embrace this principle of tolerance.
Another area I’ve blown it in this area is in the debate about WORSHIP STYLE. This debate is between whether a church should embrace a traditional worship style or a contemporary worship style. Christians debate whether churches should be seeker-sensitive, seeker-driven, or believer focused. In fact, lots of pastors call this debate "the worship wars" because many churches have become battle grounds over musical style and use of modern media in the worship experience. Now again, both sides agree that worshiping God is important, but it’s the application of that biblical principle where churches differ. Our church has been contemporary since its inception in 1971, and for many years we had a kind of spiritual pride that looked down on traditional, more established churches. When I went to seminary in 1989 I constantly looked down my nose on the seminary chapel services because they were all traditional. I’d think, "They really need to get with the 20th century, or at least the 19th century," and I’d spend the entire chapel inwardly criticizing. It wasn’t until God convicted me that this was wrong that I began to realize that I was violating this principle of Christian tolerance. We’re still a church that’s contemporary--that’s part of our philosophy of ministry--but now I have a very different attitude toward my Christian friends in traditional churches. Proponents of both traditional and contemporary worship need to apply this principle of Christian tolerance.
Finally, I think I’ve blown it in this area in debate about EDUCATION. There’s an ongoing debate among Bible believing Christians about whether homeschooling, public schooling or private schooling is the best option for the Christian parent. Now again, all three sides of the debate agree that educating our kids to live as faithful followers of Jesus is the calling of every Christian parent, but it’s in the application of that principle where there’s difference. Frankly I’ve seen this debate sometimes turn ugly. There are extreme advocates of all three positions, with some public schoolers looking at homeschoolers and private schoolers as paranoid, separatist radicals, and some advocates of homeschooling looking at public and private schooling as compromisers and questioning whether they’re even genuine Christians. Now my wife and I have our own convictions about this, but at times I’ve been judgmental of Christians who have different convictions. Clearly this is an area where we need to exercise this principle of Christian tolerance.
3. THE REASONS FOR CHRISTIAN TOLERANCE (Romans 14:4-12)
This brings us to the question of why this is such a big deal. In vv. 4-12 Paul gives us several reasons why intolerance in these disputable areas is destructive to the Christian community. He rattles off these reasons like a shotgun, so we’re overwhelmed with them.
INTOLERANCE UNDERESTIMATES GOD’S POWER. Verse 4 reminds us of this, when Paul tells the weak in faith that the strong in faith "will stand because God is able to make him stand." Standing is the equivalent of persevering in the Christian faith, and falling is the idea of falling away, of abandoning our walk with Jesus (Moo). So the point here is that God is powerful enough to cause both the weak in faith and the strong in faith to persevere, to stay faithful to Jesus, to press forward in the Christian faith. Now this specific statement seems addressed to the weak in faith, those Christians who are tempted to judge Christians for their actions because they’re doing things the weak in faith doesn’t have the faith to do.
The tendency of the Christian who is weak in faith is to think that the debatable behavior of the stronger Christian will cause the stronger Christian to fall away. Paul wants the weaker Christian to know that God is the one who enables the stronger Christian to persevere.
Notice that it’s not the strength of faith that causes the Christian to stand, but it’s the power of God. The strength and weakness of the faith is the strength or weakness in conviction to do certain things, not strength or weakness in how much the love Jesus or are devoted to Jesus. God’s explosive power goes beyond our expectations, beyond what we think is possible. When we’re intolerant in these disputable areas, we underestimate God’s power.
INTOLERANCE ALSO UNDERMINES PEOPLE’S PERSONAL CONVICTIONS. Regardless of where you stand on these disputable matters, you come to your position based on personal conviction. It’s likely that you’ve prayed about it, you’ve studied the Bible on the topic, and you’ve sought counsel from other Christians. This is what Paul means in v. 5 when he says, "Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind." In other words, this is an area of personal conviction.
When we’re intolerant of diversity in these areas we undermine people’s personal convictions, we cause them to start second guessing themselves. So Paul simply allows for diversity of convictions in these disputable areas, without attempting to change each other’s minds.
ANOTHER REASON FOR THIS PRINCIPLE IS INTOLERANCE QUESTIONS PEOPLE’S MOTIVES. Paul speaks in v. 6 about eating meat to the Lord and abstaining from certain kinds of food to the Lord. In other words, Paul is assuming here that both those strong Christians who have the liberty to eat anything set before them and the weak Christians who simply can’t bring themselves to break the Jewish dietary rituals are all motivated by a desire to please God. Both thank God for the food they receive, and both live out their convictions as an expression of their devotion to Jesus.
Now here both weak and strong in faith have a real tendency to question whether attitudes and behaviors they differ on are really expressions of devotion to Jesus. Here we have a tendency to come to our own conclusions about why a person lives out their particular convictions, and usually our conclusions aren’t very flattering. Maybe we figure our Christian friend is just a legalist, or paranoid or afraid, or judgmental, or whatever. When we’re questioning motives, we’re not living by this principle of Christian tolerance in disputable areas.
ANOTHER REASON PAUL GIVES US IS INTOLERANCE MINIMIZES CHRIST’S LORDSHIP. In vv. 8-9 Paul speaks of Christ being Lord over the living and the dead, that his Lordship extends beyond the boundaries of even life and death. Because of Christ’s Lordship, nothing in our lives lies beyond the scope of that Lordship. If life and death itself are under his Lordship, then surely things like what we eat or don’t eat, what we drink or don’t drink, issues like dancing, going to movies, decisions like how to best educate our kids are within the scope of Christ’s Lordship. All of these things are under Christ’s authority. When we act with intolerance in these disputable areas, we minimize Christ’s Lordship. Either we give the impression that Christ’s Lordship doesn’t concern these issues, or we place ourselves as Lord in our Christian friend’s life about what pleases God and what doesn’t. Either way, we minimize the reality that Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, the dead and the living, the entire galaxy.
FINALLY, WE LEARN HERE THAT INTOLERANCE USURPS GOD’S ROLE IN PEOPLE’S LIVES. When we judge another person on disputable matters we place ourselves in the position of judge over that person. This is why Paul reminds us that all followers of Jesus will stand before God’s judgment seat. Each one of us will give an account for our own lives to God. We won’t be asked to give an account of anyone else’s life but our own.
The temptation of Christians weaker in their faith to judge others and the temptation of Christians stronger in their faith to look down on others is really a temptation usurp God’s role. And when you think about it, usurping God’s role is really the root sin that caused the human race to plunge into rebellion against God. Isn’t that what Adam and Eve did when they rejected God’s command and tried to set themselves up as gods themselves? Isn’t this what Paul was talking about back in Romans 1, when he described all human beings as exchanging the truth of God for a lie and worshiping and serving creation rather than the creator (1:25)? So, in a sense, when we practice intolerance in these areas, we fall into the very root sin that caused the human race’s need for the gospel in the first place. But we practice this sin in the name of our faith, in the name of God, which is where some of the worst kinds of sins come from. In the name of God, we subtly usurp God’s role as judge and creator, exalting ourselves into the throne of God by our intolerant attitude toward followers of Jesus who differ from us on disputable matters.
Conclusion
This is why God calls us to practice Christian tolerance in these disputable matters. Now, just to make sure you hear, this principle does not apply to essential Christian doctrine or clear moral absolutes. This principle of Christian tolerance relates to honest differences of opinion among Bible believing Christians about how to best apply biblical principles. In this area, Christian intolerance must end.
When you really think about it, this principle of tolerance is a kind of bare minimum requirement for the Christian community. Remember, Jesus didn’t say, "A new command I give to you, to tolerate each other, by this all people will know you are my followers, by the fact that you put up with each other." The New Testament ethic is an ethic of love, to love one another with sacrificial love, the kind of love Jesus himself embodies in his life and resurrection. Unfortunately, we sometimes justify intolerance in disputable areas in the name of love. "The only reason I’m bringing this up is because I love you and I want the best for you." And then we’re off and running with a critical, judgmental, intolerant attitude.
This is what love looks like, but love goes even further than tolerating, to actually embrace, to serve, to give of ourselves to those we have different convictions from. Only in this way will the world see the Christian community, and not say, "Look how tolerant of diversity they are," but say, "Look how much they love each other. That can only be the love of God in action."
Sources
Colson, Charles. "The Ugly Side of Tolerance" Christianity Today 3/6/00
Cranfield, C. E. B. 1979. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. T. & T. Clark.
Dunn, James D. G. 1988. Romans, Word Biblical Commentary Vols. 38 A and B. Word Books.
Schreiner, Thomas. 1998. Romans: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Books.
Taylor, Daniel. "Are You Tolerant? (Should You Be?): Deconstructing the Gospel of Tolerance" Christianity Today 2/11/99.
