“There’s a difference between love and tolerance. There’s a difference between love and sex. We’ve conflated terms.
How do we respond to the claim that we have a right to love who we want to love? The response is very clear and very simple. Do you love some people who you don’t have sex with? I certainly hope you do. I hope you love a lot of people you don’t have sex with. Love and sex are not synonymous but our culture has conflated the two and the church has bought into the lie.
I was on the O’Reilly factor once and we got into the issue of tolerance and finally said, “Mr O’Reilly, on your anniversary, did you send your wife an, “I tolerate you card?” And there was a pause.
And I said, “I would suggest that you didn’t because if you did it didn’t end very well and the reason Mr O’Reilly is this – tolerance is always an inferior virtue. It says I don’t care about you, I don’t love you, do what you want. I’ll tolerate you.
Love, Christian charity if you will, is a superior virtue. It says I love you, I care deeply about you, now stop.Tolerance says I could care less, do what you want. Love says I care deeply, now stop.
We need to define our terms. Conflating love with tolerance and love with sex dumbs down the definition of love to nothing but the base and the inferior and it doesn’t elevate it to the self giving nature of the true reflection of what it means to love God and love your neighbour as yourself.”
Dr. Everett Piper
Related: Love is love?
