Intolerance: A Christian Virtue

In twenty-first century society culture might be defined as “tolerant” or “politically correct.” When pushed this mindset affirms that someone short should be called “vertically challenged” and a garbage man should be referred to as a “sanitation engineer.” And even a thief isn’t actually a thief (that might offend someone!), he is merely “ethically disoriented.” Tolerant ideology shows its cracks when traffic signs are produced in Braille so as not to offend the blind!

Tolerant rhetoric can even seem as though it belongs in the evangelical Christian church under the scriptural colors of “judge not lest ye be judged.” That is, many feel as though the church should make no judgments and that “love” prohibits intolerance. Surely no true Christian desires to unnecessarily judge anyone, but if professing believers tolerate what God does not the culture has infected the church rather than the church affecting the culture.

Many Christians are appropriately intolerant toward moral “diversity” (at least rhetorically). When it comes to doctrinal issues though, we tend to tolerate unscriptural doctrinal “diversity” believing it to be “gracious.” Jude, however, taught the church of antiquity to “contend earnestly for the faith.” With thousands of evangelical Christian denominations perhaps we’d prefer to comfort rather than to contend. Contrary to tolerant Christianity, but in line with Jude, Paul also insisted that we not tolerate doctrinal corruption:

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and fair speech they beguile the hearts of the innocent. (Rom 16:17-18).

Regarding the term mark them in the preceding passage esteemed expositor James Strong notes that the phrase means “to take aim at.” Is it possible that Paul, the gentle apostle of grace, wanted believers to “take aim at” leaders within the Christian faith? When considered through the lens of modern “tolerance” notions such an idea does indeed seem offensive. Paul, however, demonstrated the lost Christian virtue of intolerance when he cautioned Timothy regarding Hymenaeus and Philetus whose doctrines “will spread like gangrene.”

Can you imagine the reaction a preacher today might receive if he said that another Christian leader’s doctrine “will spread like gangrene?” It’s easy to believe that Paul’s intolerance was probably always directed at some fringe teacher. Kindly consider, however, another example of Paul openly rebuking the most prominent church leader of early Christianity:

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? (Gal 2:14).

In Galatians 2:14 Paul critiqued Peter because when trusted preachers proclaim errors others are mislead. Being intolerant toward doctrinal deviations isn’t sympathetic with modern live and let live ideology, but it is biblical. Even the Christians at the church of Pergamum in Rev. 2:15 did not need to guess about whose teaching to avoid. “You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam,” warned the Lord, “who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality.”

In stark opposition to the practices of modern Christianity where tolerance at the expense of doctrinal purity is considered a virtue. In scripture though, Jesus expects His church to exercise the virtue of intolerance toward errant teachers and their dangerous dogmas. By merely being tolerant of an errant teacher within the church at Thyatira the Christians there earned an open rebuke in the eternal record:

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols (Rev 2:20).

As Jezebel (and even Peter) were tolerated though they misled many early Christians, teachers who occupy mainstream, popular pulpits today are tolerated though they too lead the children of God astray. And in contrast to the just coexist secular slogans which can seem so “Christian” the only item on the menu is biblical intolerance as our modern pulpits are polluted and our spiritual cisterns are dry.

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