Does God respect religious tolerance toward other religions ?

[AnOrangeCat]

11 hours ago, Starise said:

Interesting points on Jesus's ministry while here on earth. I believe the Samaritan woman points us to the segue into the Gentiles. Jesus ministered to them and she is one of the examples we are told of making is very clear that all men and women are the objects of God's love.

I agree there. The centurion and his servant were similar in that respect.

[Omegaman 3.0]

8 hours ago, Jedi4Yahweh said:

Samaritans are actually Israelites (not gentiles) they belonged to the northern Kingdom of Israel.  Jews did not consider them Jews because they had their own worship sites had their own version of the Torah.

That and the Samaritans were considered “half-breeds” by most Jews. This was because of the influx of the Assyrians when they conquered Israel, the Northern kingdom, in 722 B.C.

[Omegaman 3.0]

2 hours ago, ayin jade said:

Might as well ask why He didnt stop adam and eve. 

Sin abounds but He gave us a way to be saved.

Yeah, and if God decided to end all evil, who would survive! Only 8 survived the flood!

[Your closest friendnt]

3 hours ago, JohannPretorius said:

I agree.
This close the door of all "cults and religionists"
Shalom
Johann

Jesus is a very good example that he had to be patient and wait for the right time to bring something up...he tolerated many things of ignorance in his disciples and was waiting for when the time is ripe...to do something about that without them knowing what is going to happen...after something happen then they understood and not all of them...

The disciples were not baptizing Eunuchs and making them equal in the ministry of Jesus Christ...

This is the same situation as if a Eunuch doing the duties of the Priest in the Temple...but this time under the New Covenant the Eunuch was the Royal Priest of Jesus Christ...

Philip baptized a Eunuch in the name of Jesus Christ...but still not everyone of the disciples and they were hundred by that time would step out and do the same thing...

Next thing the Holy Spirit shaw his approval by taking Philip on his own (without the interference of anyone else) through the villages of Judea to Samaria..

The Samaritans were unclean and un-sanctified people for generations and Philip preached the Gospel to them and Jesus gave him miracles sings among them to shaw his approval of what Philip was doing...

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Your closest friendnt

[Selah7]

2 hours ago, JohannPretorius said:

We’re back with John Piper, and a question we get a lot is: What should Christians do with the false religious beliefs of non-Christians? We cannot commend false religious systems, so should Christians be tolerant of others’ religious beliefs? And what does this tolerance look like? So explain for us, Pastor John, what is Christian tolerance in the face of false gospels?

First, let’s distinguish between the old tolerance and the new tolerance, which is a form of intolerance. And I am going to point people to Don Carson’s book on tolerance, on the new form of intolerance. But the old tolerance is the kind I want to defend. The answer is going to be: yes, yes, yes, let’s be tolerant of each other’s differing religious and other views.

Out with the Old
The old tolerance is the view that there is such a thing as objective truth and objective right and wrong and objective beauty and ugliness — and whether any of us can claim to know it does exist out there. And we should all want to find it and believe it and live it. That was the assumption of the old tolerance.

Therefore, one idea or belief would be better than another idea or belief if it was more true, more right, more beautiful. And, therefore, the reason people held their ideas or their beliefs was because they were convinced that their belief was more true, more right, and more beautiful. And when a person with a belief met a person with a contrary belief, they assumed that one of them or both of them were wrong.

Generally, each of them, each of us, assumed that he was right. That is why you hold your belief. You believe you are right. That is why you believe your beliefs. They are true or they are good or they are beautiful. And then they would argue with each other, and each would try to show that the other person is wrong and persuade them that they are right. They would each give reasons why the other person was wrong. And if the matter was serious enough, they might even give warnings that the other person needs to change his beliefs or something bad is going to happen to them.

In practical matters, the consequences might be: “You are going to get a disease if you believe that way about germs or about hygiene. You need to change your ideas. They are not true.” Or another one might be: “You are going to lose your job if you have that belief about what the employees’ manual says. It doesn’t say that. You are wrong. You need to change your idea. You are going to lose your job.” Or: “You are going to be caught in a snowstorm if you have that belief about the weather system, because you have got a wrong idea. It is coming tomorrow, not the day after. You are going to get caught if you try to drive there.” You might talk like that to people and give them warnings.

Or in religious matters if you believe that there is a hell and that some people might go there because they have certain views of God that are offensive, then you need to warn them. So that was all part of the old tolerance. We disagreed with each other. We argued with each other. We warned each other. Tolerance in that situation meant: I think you are wrong. But I will not use force or coercion to change your mind. I will not support the use of anybody else using force or coercion. I won’t support the government or any agency or mob to compel or coerce you to change your mind.

On this Forum it is not permitted to  "argue" "warn" "disagree" or "coerce"

That is what tolerance meant: both people claiming to believe something that is more true, more right, and more beautiful than the other person, and both of them defending the freedom of the other person to believe what they considered to be false.

In with the New
Now the new tolerance does not start with the assumption that there is such a thing as objective truth or objective right and wrong or objective beauty and ugliness. And, therefore, it does not start with the assumption that any given viewpoint or belief is objectively better than one — that is, believing something different, because there is no objective truth or morality out there for an idea to conform to.

And so the old tolerance becomes impossible. Tolerance no longer means defending a person’s freedom to tell me I am wrong but now means renouncing the right to tell anyone they are wrong. The very concept of labeling a person’s idea as wrong or defective or harmful or evil is considered intolerant.

So the new tolerance is the requirement that nobody pass judgment on another person’s beliefs or ideas as less true, less right, less beautiful. And the reason I say this is a new form of intolerance is that in the new tolerance I am forbidden from expressing my belief that certain things are so — namely, that your beliefs are wrong or harmful or dangerous.

In fact, the new tolerance sometimes goes so far as not just to forbid the expression of my belief that your belief is wrong, but goes further and forbids me even from believing that you are wrong, because, they would say, believing that shows I am hateful and a danger to society and eventually may be locked away or punished in some other way for simply holding a viewpoint.

(If you want to read more about the development of this new tolerance, then Don Carson’s book The Intolerance of Tolerance is the place to go.)

Give and Take
So my answer to the question that was asked is: absolutely, Christians should be tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs — namely, with the old tolerance, not the new tolerance; that is, we should be free to name each other’s beliefs as false, defective, inferior, or harmful without being accused of hate or injustice or lack of love. In fact, we must defend the fact that calling error error may be the very loving thing to do if it is done in the right spirit — that is, a spirit that desires the good of the other person, not a hateful spirit. We don’t want bad things to happen to another person. We want good things to happen and that is why we speak truth.

So saying that we definitely should be tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs means that we should humbly and honestly tell them where we stand and how we understand where they stand and be as clear and open with the disagreement as possible, and that disagreement should not feel threatening politically. And if we have thick enough skins, it wouldn’t even have to destroy an ongoing relationship of open, honest, rough-and-tumble, give-and-take.

The Tolerance We All Need
And part of this tolerance that Christians should support is the insistence that we do not support the coercion of anyone’s belief to be similar to our own. We persuade. We argue. We woo. We hold out warnings of what we think God or circumstances may bring about and we plead. But we do not persecute. And we do not force. And we do not manipulate or do anything underhanded or try to bribe or do political maneuvering or do violence to change a person’s mind. That is what tolerance means — the tolerance that we believe in.

The reason we believe in it — this is so important. I will just say this finally. The reason we believe in it is not simply (though this is important) that it makes for a more civil order in a pluralistic society and protects us from violence, but even more essentially it belongs to the very nature of Christianity that genuine faith in God, genuine allegiance to Jesus, genuine Christ-exalting obedience to God’s word is only possible if it is uncoerced and free.

Therefore, the old kind of tolerance is built into the very nature of Christianity. That is the thing to grasp. And where so-called “Christians” have contradicted this tolerance in history by using force and compelling belief at the penalty of death or imprisonment, that has been acting against the nature of Christianity — even if they call themselves Christians.

So I will say it again: The answer to the question that was asked is: yes, Christians should be tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs in the good, old, rough-and-tumble way of tolerance, when it meant the right to express strong disagreement and the time when truth was objective — a reality outside ourselves — and everyone was pursuing it and arguing whether they had it or not.

All depends, are you talking about the old tolerance, or new?

What did Jesus do to the religious people in His time on earth?
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-christians-tolerate-false-religious-beliefs#:~:text=We’re back with,it or not.

Selah.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,[Jesus did not say, go and make "religions" of all nations..]

...Would you say "religionists" were excluded in baptism?
 

Here’s John’s answer, JP…

These Pharisees and Sadducees “religionists” didn’t fool John one bit.  He let that “Brood of vipers” have it.  Nope, John was not fooled by their claims that they were God’s chosen people.  They were imposters, and John knew it.  

The deeper truth here, in keeping with the topic we’re discussing, is that John did not refuse to teach these “religious” people.  On the contrary, he knew that even this “brood of vipers,” if they repented and turned to Christ, could be raised up and be servants of God (whosoever will).     —Selah 

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, "and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. "And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

- Matthew 3:7-12 

[Selah7]

2 minutes ago, JohannPretorius said:

...but they did not..and still the majority are not...

¶ But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come, 
2Ti 3:2  for people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 
2Ti 3:3  hardhearted, irreconcilable, slanderous, without self-control, savage, with no interest for what is good, 
2Ti 3:4  traitors, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God, 
2Ti 3:5  maintaining a form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid these people . 

1) "Having a form of godliness" (echontes morphosin eusebeias) “Having a form or pattern of piety;” They shall profess godliness, but live like demons, Tit_1:16; 1Ti_5:8.
2) "But denying the power thereof" (ten de dunamin autes ernemenoi) -"But the dynamics of it having denied," by their manner of moral, ethical, and doctrinal conduct, Mat_7:20-23; Mat_25:12; 1Jn_2:4.
3) "From such turn away." (kai toutos apotrepou) "From these (standards or forms of behavior) turn away," implying some of these characteristics were already in the church, 1Co_4:20-21.

A form of godliness (morphōsin eusebeias). For morphōsin, see note on Rom_2:20. The outward shape without the reality.
Having denied (ērnēmenoi). Perfect middle participle of arneomai (see note on Rom_2:11.).
Power (dunamin). See 1Co_4:20. See Rom_1:29-31 for similar description.
Turn away (apotrepou). Present middle (direct) imperative of apotrepō, “turn thyself away from.” Old verb, only here in N.T. See 4 Maccabees 1:33.

...from such turn turn away

I digress Selah, let's agree to disagree.

How did you figure out my nickname? Lol!
Shalom

JP

What are we disagreeing about?  Do you think that we are not called to try to teach those who are in error, JP?      —Selah 

[Selah7]

9 minutes ago, JohannPretorius said:

I appreciate you wanting me to dialogue @Selah7, I really do, but I am not popular here, not that I care one bit, also, I am going to be very selective in whom having a conversation with.
So I will left the question unanswered, knowing there are "many" who are called and equipped to answer.

2Ti 3:5  maintaining a form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid these people . 

I am not avoiding you, but if you have discernment, you'll know what I am trying to say, not saying it.

Shalom, it's Saturday.
Yours in Christ
JP

The thing is, JP, you were the one who asked me, “Would you say that ‘religionists’ were excluded in baptism?”  I took the time to answer you.  I don’t get it.   —Selah

[Selah7]

Look back at what I posted on page 1.  If God hates false doctrine, so do I.  Here’s what I posted 22 hours ago, JP.

….

I firmly believe that God detests false doctrine —with a burning zeal!  …. But, if Christians—that is, if we—don't share  the true Word of God with unbelievers, how will they ever hear it and learn?  Now we might be told to "go away," but that's still okay since our responsibility only requires us to share the Good News with them.  It’s not our job to save them; only God can do this.  If the seed is meant to grow, God will be the One who causes it to do so.     —Selah

For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

- Romans 10:13-17

[Selah7]

2 minutes ago, JohannPretorius said:

Are we doing YHVH's boule and thelema/will? Or are we playing lip service?

Selah!
Powerful in Hebrew....Hinei!

You don't have to answer.
JP.

I am, how about you, JP?     —Selah 

[Selah7]

21 minutes ago, JohannPretorius said:

All the time, my house is an open door to many, with prostitutes and gangsters in my own backyard.
Selah.
JP.

Ah, okay, M/D.  Gotcha.  
Selah