Realizing that most people don’t believe the clear truth of 1 Corinthians 8:6 is both sobering and most people believe that all the world’s god’s should be tolerated, respected, or even valued. Most people value faith more than the object of that faith. And most people feel like valuing all gods is giving kindness and respect rather than keeping people from knowing the truth. 

Tolerance would be an effective witness in our culture today except that Scripture teaches “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Scripture doesn’t give us permission to acknowledge, value, and tolerate false gods. In fact, the first commandment has always been, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

We can tolerate a person’s right to choose without tolerating or accepting a wrong choice. There is only one pathway to heaven because there is only one heaven. There is only one God because there is only one Creator of all that exists. Every other god is created. 

People don’t need other gods; they do have to choose the God they need. Is that the message we are teaching the world? We must first ask, is 1 Corinthians 8:6 the message we each believe? Secondly, is it the message of truth I teach?

I would like to believe that a faithful person will be saved and that God will honor their faith. But, that isn’t the truth of Scripture. The truth of Scripture is that the one true God has given the world his only Son, because his Son is the only Savior anyone needs.

Read 1 Corinthians 8:6 again, and again, until you understand the narrow truth it reveals. Jesus knew and preached the one true God and never gave other gods as an option. There is only one God and only “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” 

Jesus is the model for our own faith, and the pathway for our eternal relationship with God. We need to believe in biblical truth ourselves in order to be able to teach it to others. There is only one God because there is only one Creator. That is the only message about God we can tolerate because it is the only message that is true.