| To be “forbearing” means to be “putting up with,” and here we who know the Lord are told to be “putting up with one another,” and that “with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering.” One who is orderly and systematized in his work and with his time must be “putting up with” one who is careless and unorganized. The neat one must be “forbearing” to the untidy one, the quiet one to the talkative one. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God,” and we are not to try to fit everyone else into our own mold. “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves,” and to “bear … one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” We are to suffer one another, endure one another, bear with one another, “forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” |
