Col 3
12Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

I tend to agree with a statement R.C. Sproul made in Faith Alone, when he talked of sanctification being primarily synergistic (from a human responsibility standpoint) after conversion. The commands to 'put on' certain things as a result of our union with Christ and the new life we've been given and to put certain things to death seems to imply this.

I could be wrong. We are held responsible for our time spent in the Word of God, our actions and in essence, that aspect of our growth. This is what I'm getting out of the text.

All that in mind.... what does it mean to 'bear with oneanother' ?

It seems like a silly question, but really.... and practically.... what does it mean to bear with oneanother ?

Pastor Way ? Scott ? All the other folks with a pulpit ?

What are the practical implications of 'bear with oneanother' ?

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K. Joel Gilliard
Theologically Correct dot Com
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Kerry, inspite of the fact no one has addressed your question IT is a wonderful and perceptive question.

These days, of cultural and lifestyle tolerance, the distinction must be made between the words "bear' or "forbear" and the word 'tolerance'. There was a day when these meanings would have been very similar.

As I drove past a United Methodist church this weekend I noticed their sign said, "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors!" This is their codified way of saying, a homosexual lifestyle is welcome here. The great post-modern 'christian' virtue is tolerance. But tolerance now means 'embrace without any discrimination for what is right and what is wrong'. There is no discernment of biblical principles in the way these churches apply tolerance. They would profess that they are 'bearing with one another', while we can see that they are rebelling against the scriptures being the charter and centerpiece of the church.

So we need to define 'bear' without using the corrupted meaning of tolerate. For the believer, to 'bear with one another' is to patiently endure our brothers and sisters who may have different convictions than ours. For the sake of the Gospel and the testimony of our fellowship (We are known by our love for one another), we practice a certain level of control over our desire to blast those who are at a different place in the sanctification spiral. We do not overlook the clear teachings of scripture but we look for gentle and loving ways to appy the principles of scripture to our weaker brothers and sisters.

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Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
"We are God's children and He's the Father of all fathers and we need to obey him." Jean-Baptiste Vigneault (5)

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Thanks Bob.
I betcha if I'd posted a question about supralapsarianism vs infralapsarianism, it'd be on page 7 by now......

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Adam Leavelle
Westminster OPC
Roaring Spring Pa.

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"Speak wisdom to a fool and he'll think you have no sense at all"

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I believe this simply means to "put up with each other in patience and understanding". How many churches are there that have little cliqs, and other such groups of people?

I could tell you horror stories!

I relate the phrase "bearing with one another" to Christian love/charity which covers a multitude of sins, and bears all things (1 Cor. 13.7) and patience/forberance.

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Andrew Myers
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Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

Probably so. I was interested in your syngergism comment. It seems that rather being an issue of either/or it seems to be a matter of perspective...or perhaps both and. Our western minds don't like tension so I think we tend to want to try to "uncrew the inscrutable," as one of my professors used to say.

That perfect tension is found in Php. 2:12-13. Verse 12 tells us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling but verse 13 reminds us that it is God who is at work in us. Where the intersection of those seemingly disparate statements lies is beyond my feeble brain.

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Rev. R. Kevin Carroll
Macon Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Macon, MS

How does this flesh out with folks who hold differing theological views than us ?

It's good to talk about it in theory and give a concise, good sounding answer... but in a real situation, how does this play out ?

I'm having trouble bringing out exactly what I'm pointing to.... but how does this really 'work out' once we step outside of the doors of our own local churches to those who don't hold every theological view in common with us, though they may agree on Christ (i.e.- our dispensational brothers, our brothers who are baptist (or presby if you're baptist), our brothers who hold to EP [with or without instruments] etc....) ?

I'm looking for practical and real situations and how you'd respond to them.... or how you should respond to them. Does 'bearing with oneanother' apply here ? How does it 'flesh out' ?

(I have other areas I want to discuss in this, but this one came to mind first)

I should have thought of this before. I am always brought to tears when I read Whitefield's letter to Wesley

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/wesley.htm

and also when I read Wesley's Sermon at Whitefield's funeral.

http://www.piney.com/WhitefSer54Funeral.html

These two men differed greatly but oh what respect and forbearance did they display in their interaction. This is how I want to be. This is the fashion in which, when necessary, I wish to disagree with my brothers and sisters. These men were God honoring in their disagreement.

"Once when one of his followers asked Whitefield if they would see Wesley in heaven, he said, I fear not, he will be so near the throne, and we shall be at such a distance, that we shall hardly get sight of him.�"

[Edited on 3-24-2005 by maxdetail]