Here is a quick update on my job situation – I am now working at Machtig and Associates, which is a financial planning firm in Bloomington. The people there are great, and I have a nice office. The transition is going smoothly, and my old office is now closed with all of my old stuff removed. Thanks for your help and prayers.
Today, I wanted to start a two-part series on a spiritual gift given to some Christians – the gift of discernment of the spirits. Discernment is the ability to test and understand evil spiritual action versus action by God's spirit. Why am I writing about this? I am writing because Jesus thought enough about this subject that His one of His final warnings for those who fear God, was for us to be aware of Satan's most common tactic – the use of false teachers. Here is Jesus' warning: "See that you are not led astray." (Luke 218; Matthew 24:4). And those who would try and lead us astray are false-christs, false prophets and teachers. This means that as the last day approaches there is a growing danger of Satan inspired false teachers who try and destroy a Christian's faith. And here is what is at stake - an ominous warning is contained in Luke 18:8, which asks that when Jesus returns will He find faith? The implication is that a strong, passionate faith will be hard to find at Jesus' return, and so my hope is to help us be better informed of discerning truth from falsehood, protecting our faith, and to also help us know how to handle false teaching when it is near us.
In part 1 of my post, I will write generally about the gift of discernment, how we can help it to grow, and to write briefly about the enemies' tactics. Then in Part 2, I will write about God's voice, and how to have confidence in knowing when we hear God's voice versus Satan's lies and deception, or even knowing the difference between God's voice and our own inner voice. So let's get started!
The Gift of Discernment. 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 provides a partial list of spiritual gifts for those who are sealed by God's Holy Spirit. I count 14 different spiritual gifts provided in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 by the Apostle Paul. But the one I wanted to focus our attention upon is the gift of discernment described in verse 10:
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other… He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. (NLT – 1 Cor. 12:7-10).
So every Christian has at least one spiritual gift, and one of the wonderful God-given gifts is the ability to discern between the Spirit of God and other spirits. Hebrews 5:14 provides some helpful information about this gift: "But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." From this we can see that the gift of discernment is only for mature Christians, and that it takes training with "constant practice" And so, discernment means being able to rightly distinguish between good and evil. In the New Testament perfect discernment is shown by Jesus and His battles against Satan and demons; And two verses show discernment in action ("Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…- 1 John 4:1), and ("Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said." - 1 Cor. 14:29.)
The gift of discernment might seem easy to understand and use. But let me suggest a couple of pitfalls that Christians may have in using their discernment. First, Satan is the great deceiver (John 8:44), and he uses others to attack Christians and the Church. This includes his use of false teachers, who may even be inside the Church (2 Cor. 11:15). And so, do not be fooled – everyone can be deceived.
Second, Christians may fall for the great temptation of judging others, instead of exercising "right judgment" (John 7:24). This is a big topic, and Pastor Greg Boyd has written an entire book on it ('Repenting of Religion'). For now, let me suggest that Christians may feel passionate anger against the ungodly and their actions. This is hard to challenge, but as the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 6 that our battle is not against other people. Instead, the real enemy is Satan and the unseen powers of darkness. And so, we may be either sinning or being used by Satan when we attack other people. So be careful!
So how do I reconcile teachings that tell us to love our enemies, and to 'turn the other cheek', with verses that tell us to contend (or argue) for the faith (Jude 3)? I think the difference is to recognize the nature of our opponent. If there is a false teacher, someone who is leading others away from the faith, or someone who is harming others, then Christians should use our sharpest attack against these people. But if the opponent is not a teacher, but is merely an ungodly person, then more restraint is called for. With the ungodly person, Christians should show gentleness and respect – these are the people we are trying to draw to Christ, after all. But to those who are false teachers, or harming others, we can look to King David as a model, who wrote against one of his enemies:
Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. (ESV, Psalm 52:1-4)
To end, let me provide a quick summary of my points in this post. Discernment is a God-given gift, given to elders and those who are frequently studying the Bible. Discernment can grow through constant practice, and helps us to recognize the difference between good and evil. And it should be used to help the Church by exposing false teachers and doctrine. While we must be careful that we are not charging about against everyone who has a different opinion than us, we still must follow Jude's instruction to contend for the faith. Like King David we should feel comfortable in calling someone's actions evil, when they are hurting others. But more restraint is needed when a Christian is dealing with an ungodly person, and also our leaders. One final point – 1 Cor. 12:31 tells us we should earnestly desire more spiritual gifts. And with the battles our Church is facing today, we need more Christians crying out to God for discernment (Proverbs 2:3, NKJV). So my take away application is this – will you ask God for more discernment, so that you can help others in recognizing the difference between good and evil? If so, we need more people like you. May the Triune God bless you this week, in Jesus' name, Amen.
3 comments:
Hi Tom, glad to hear the new job is going well. Your family deserves a few good breaks to come your way...
Regarding discernment...
It's amazing how many religions make the exact same points you do here. You don't want to admit how alike you all are! You readily admit that almost every religion on Earth is little more than myths and wishful thinking, but when the similarities are shown between Christianity and those "mythical" religions, you insist yours is no myth...
You have even gotten a little testy with me in the past on the subject, when I have pointed out the stubby wings, rounded bill, webbed feet and loud "quacking" noises your religion makes...
According to your latest post, or at least according to the expanded principles upon which it rests, I should probably be stoned, or at perhaps blinded and exiled. At the very least, i should be confronted and condemned in the style of King David. I would lead men away from the teachings of your bible. I am the serpent and false teacher you warn about.
But you and I are both false teachers in most of the worlds eyes. We are, after all, both skeptics of the vast majority of the world's faiths. Your list of religions that are pure myth and mine are almost exactly the same length. Mine is just one religion longer than yours. About 85% of the world thinks I will burn in Hell. About 75% of the world thinks you will be there right along side me. Your number jumps even closer than mine if you figure in the several hundred million Christians who think your brand of Protestantism isn't True Christianity.
How does it make you feel knowing that BILLIONS of people see you exactly as Jude sees me?
A couple years back you stated that it wasn't your place to question church leaders. More recently, you stated that we shouldn't question our political leaders. In this post you reiterated that with, "...But more restraint is needed when a Christian is dealing with an ungodly person, and also our leaders."
Now take a step back and realize that the vast, vast, VAST majority of both spiritual and political leaders would pity you because, in their eyes, You're Doing It Wrong.
Right now there are literally a million clergy out there, most of whom are learned, wise and good-hearted people, who are convinced that both you and I will miss out on the goodies of the Afterlife.
Now reflect again on my inability to see Christianity as essentially any different than any other religion, even my own largely-insubstantial beliefs.
I live in a thimble full of water. You live in a water glass full of water. But when we're tossed into the rain barrel of the world, you can't pick out your water from anyone elses...
Thanks for this post... It let me present some of my ideas in a fresher fashion. Hope you found it somewhat stimulating...
Pax,
~E~
I used part of Mel's Birthday to answer this one, and you never responded. Well, she WAS sound asleep for the first 5 or 6 hours of her Birthday, which was when i wrote it, but it gives me something to goose you with...
:-)
~E~
Ed,
There's not much to respond to because I agree with ALMOST everything you said. Yes, most of the world's religions are basically the same: do good things to help others, and earn
the deities approval for what you have done.
Here's our disagreement - I lump you in with the other world religions. You try and do nice things to appease your 'god', which in this case is you. You feel better when you do nice things, you feel better because you have 'atoned' for some of the crummy things you have done to others. In my view, you are identical to every other religion that sees doing nice things as an end.
But Christianity is the only different view. It doesn't matter whether or not you do something nice or not. God doesn't love you more for it. Or less. God's grace is what separates separates Christianity from every other life view. Thanks.
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