This seems to imply that the better balanced among the Lord's people should look with sympathy upon and exercise patient forbearance not only toward the weak and those who lack courage, but toward all, including those who have too much courage and self-push. … Growth in knowledge helps us to grow in this grace of patience, for as we appreciate more and more the Heavenly Father's patience with us, it helps us to apply the same principle toward others. … The thought that our Heavenly Father has favored and called anyone should make us extremely careful how we would co-operate with the Lord in respect to the call, and be as helpful as possible to all those who are seeking to walk with us in the footsteps of our Lord in our narrow way.
The original word here rendered, "be patient," is makrothymeo, which means "to be long-suffering." Appropriate, indeed, is this exhortation and necessary is this quality. The physical, mental, moral and religious lacks, faults and weaknesses of ourselves, the brethren, the world and our enemies, call upon us to exercise long-suffering. Few, indeed, of the secondary graces are required for use more frequently than this grace; and hardly any of them is so rarely in evidence and is so difficult to practice. Therefore there is all the more need for the exhortation: "Now we exhort you, brethren … be long-suffering toward all".
1 Cor. 13:4; 2 Cor. 6:4-6; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 4:1, 2; Col. 1:11; 3:12, 13; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Tim. 3:10; 4:2; Heb. 6:12, 15; Jas. 5:7, 8, 10.
