WEDNESDAY 13th
2 Thessalonians 2:13-15
NIV (v15) – ‘So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.’
ESV (v15) – ‘So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.’
Standing firm is an instruction that comes in Scripture many times, and it is an instruction we need to heed more than ever in the age in which we are living, we need to stand firm with Christ as our sure foundation, we need to stand firm with the armour of God on, but in the context of the verses before us today we need to stand firm on what we now call the Word of God. To the Thessalonians it was to stand firm on what Paul and those with him had taught, passed on as traditions either by word of mouth or by letter. Today we thank God for the letters that had been received by the various Churches in that first century, which have been preserved in the canon of Scripture for us to use today and we need to stand firm in that which men moved by the Holy Spirit have been inspired to write for our encouragement and comfort.
In verse 14 Paul says that they were saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in truth. Truth matters and the truthfulness of the gospel matters, therefore it is essential that we not only stand on the truth but that we preserve the truth as well. We must speak out against anything else that is presented as truth which in actuality is not the truth but a perversion of the truth, we must speak out against anything that stands against the truth, yet presents itself as the truth, that is other religions and ideologies that would seek to present themselves as equal to the pure gospel, for there is no other gospel and there is no other way to God but through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we are expected to be tolerant to others,* and tolerance does matter but only to a point, for we must not be tolerant towards anything that stands in direct opposition to the truth of the Word of God, for to be tolerant in this way is a means of embracing and saying that anything goes, we must stand up against error and stand firmly on the truthfulness and the faithfulness of the Word of God. It means that those who demand tolerance in society will almost certainly without any doubt not be willing to be tolerant towards us, but truth matters, faithfulness to truth matters, and we must at all costs maintain the honour of his name and of his Word. May God help us to be faithful to his Word and honourable both toward God and to our fellow mankind in our testimony of his saving grace.
* After writing this devotion I searched for articles on tolerance and came across this statement ‘The original definition of tolerance and the way in which the word is used now are quite different. Originally, tolerance meant to acknowledge that others have differing beliefs and accept that it is their right to do so. In this way, Christians are to absolutely be tolerant. Recently, tolerance has come to mean accepting that those other beliefs are true—something Christians absolutely cannot do . . . Unfortunately, the world no longer defines “tolerance” as acknowledgement that others have a differing belief. It has come to mean full acceptance of those beliefs. Of course this definition makes no logical sense because to embrace this type of tolerance precludes any personal opinion or belief. Christians are not to endorse religious beliefs that run counter to what the Bible teaches.’
You can read more from this article at
www. compellingtruth.org/tolerance-Christian.html