When I was a kid, I hated Orange Juice pulp!
Can I get an, “Amen?”
For some reason, my parents always bought pulp-filled orange juice when I was young. It may have been one of the worst experiences of childhood to start drinking a delicious and refreshing glass of orange juice only to have it completely tainted by random bits of disgustingness. What a disappointment!
Until the day I discovered a magical tool called a “sieve.”
Placing the sieve over my glass, this wonderful device would catch all of that nasty pulp as the orange juice poured into my glass. (I know, it’s not rocket science, just your basic filtering system). But my juice-drinking days had been redeemed!
A sieve reminds me a lot of a gift and skill called “Discernment.” Discernment is the ability to separate good (i.e. orange juice) from evil (i.e. pulp) or truth from counterfeits. While the Lord blesses some of his children especially with this gift in a pronounced way (1 Corinthians 12:10) it is a vital skill for any follower of Jesus to develop.
Jesus’s apprentices (followers, disciples) looked to him as their ultimate source of truth, goodness and beauty. Therefore, Jesus and his teaching (the Scriptures) are like the sieve that his followers use to test whether something is true or false, good or evil.
Yet, the church in our day is not known for this ability to exercise discernment. So how can this change? I’d like to answer this by highlighting one main cause of our poor discernment skills, two mistakes we make that complicate this and then a solution to help us grow better at practicing the skills of Discernment.
+ ONE MAIN CAUSE - LACK OF BIBLE ENGAGEMENT
Since Jesus and his teaching are the standard for separating truth from lies, it follows that Jesus disciples ought to be richly skilled in their knowledge of the Bible and deeply shaped and transformed by his word. Yet it is difficult to be richly skilled in our knowledge of God’s word and deeply shaped by the Gospel when we barely engage in Bible reading, Bible study and Bible learning in any meaningful way. One does not need to search hard to find information on the disheartening Bible illiteracy rates among confessing Christians.
But it is not just the amount of Bible reading that is the problem, but it is also the way Christians read the Bible. For many of us, we read the Bible out of context and with a lack of appreciation for its genres of literature. Many of us approach the Bible a junk-drawer of nice quotes rather than as an epic unified story of God’s redemption plan. And when we misread the Bible this way, we also misunderstand its message. Therefore, when it comes to discerning through practical everyday scenarios in our lives, we often misapply the Bible as well. God’s enemy, the Devil, knew the Bible better than most of us and he used the Bible out of context in order to tempt Jesus in the desert (Matthew 4:4). Satan manipulated the Bible to spread his lies and he does this still in believer’s lives today because it is so effective.
This is why Biblical discernment is so necessary to cultivate. The stakes are much higher than simply getting some bad juice pulp. Our ability to understand reality itself and live in accordance with that reality is at stake. The war in Ukraine shows us what happens when a powerful man lives out of step with reality and spreads his lies to others. It unleashes hell, death and destruction into the world.
+ TWO ERRORS - HOLDING FAST OR ABSTAINING
One of the best summaries of discernment in Scripture comes in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonian church. Paul writes at the end of his letter,
"Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-22)
This is a very helpful verse on discernment. As we look at a little deeper however, I’d like to point out two ways that we can misapply these words.
One of the first mistakes I see Christians make is to obey the first half of the verse – the “hold fast what is good” part - while neglecting the second part - Paul’s instructions to “abstain from every form of evil”. As we interact with ideas in our culture, some of us have no filtering system at all. We just accept everything that gets poured into us. If we have a cause we are passionate about, we only see the positive and ignore anything that is ugly, false or evil. This fails the discernment test because like it or not, there is ugliness, evil and lies in the world and we must be aware of this in order to become wise and discerning.
A second mistake we can make is to only obey the second part of the verse - the “abstain from every form of evil” part - while not obeying the - “holding fast what is good” part. Often believers who have been awakened to their need for discernment can end up creating an over-active filtering system. This would be like a sieve that not only blocks pulp from getting through, but orange juice as well. We can become hyper-aware of every small indiscretion and impurity in the world (and church) and obsess over these problems in kind of morbid way. In fact, there are whole Christian ministries that become heresy-hunters and specialize in sniffing out false teaching like hunting dogs. But ministries that dedicate themselves only to correcting error (what is known as “polemics”) are not modeling true discernment and the wise balance of Paul’s words. They may even be in danger of morphing into a new kind of divisive Pharisee (1 Timothy 1:3-7; 4:1-5). Jesus had strong words for a whole church community in Ephesus that was guilty of this very thing (Rev 2:1-7). The true skill of discernment uses the light of God’s word not only to expose lies, but to celebrate the things that are truly good and beautiful and that align with the Gospel. There are many things in our culture that are worth celebrating because they align well with a Christian worldview. We need to guard against becoming spiritual snobs and truth curmudgeons. This wasn’t Paul’s way of discernment and it wasn’t Jesus way either.
+ A SOLUTION - SLOW AND STEADY BIBLE MEDITATION
This leaves us with a question of how we can become truly discerning? One thing we must keep in mind is that Discernment is an aspect of wisdom. And every famous wise person you have ever known, whether in real life or fiction, is wise because they were slow and steady thinkers of truth (cue the Gandalf and Yoda references). This slow and thoughtful disposition is not only an exercise of the mind, but of the whole spirit of a person. It is the posture of trust in the Holy Spirit’s ability to illuminate our minds and hearts to God’s truth as we meditate on his word. (Psalm 1:1-3; 119:18)
If the Christian church is going to display Christ to the world, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:1) it is going to mean becoming the kinds of people who slow down and meditate deeply on God’s word, trusting in God’s spirit to change us. It’s going to mean clearing away more distractions from our lives and getting excited again about the simple act of being with Jesus through his word.
As we practice this kind of deep spiritual formation, the Lord promises to “make wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7) and help us develop an effective filtering system. Our obedience to God’s word will not only protect us from lies and deception but help us to more effectively live out God’s mission in the world by showing the world the light, truth and beauty of Jesus. It will “be our wisdom and understanding in the sight of all the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (Deut 4:6)