Discernment

[Invicta]

Do you think it is wrong for women to pierce their ears?

Yes, and men.

If not was it wrong for the man I saw in London with pierced ears with cigar stubs for earings and pierced nose with matchsticks?

[brosmith]

Hebrews 5:14 - "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

Key words in this verse:

1. strong - strong, firm, immovable, solid, hard, rigid: in a good sense, firm, steadfast

2. meat - food, nourishment (this verse is speaking of spiritual food that leads to an unshakeable faith and unmovable convictions)

3. full age - extremely skilled and accomplished in human integrity and virtue

4. reason of use - a habit whether of body or mind; a power acquired by custom, practice, use (in other words, we must make discernment a priority in our lives)

5. senses - faculty of the mind for perceiving, understanding, judging

6. exercised - to exercise vigorously, in any way, either the body or the mind (discernment takes work)

7. discern - a distinguishing, discerning, judging

8. both good and evil - hanging onto the good and rejecting the evil

1 Thessalonians 5:21,22 - "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil."

Discernment requires judging whether something is good or evil. Please consider this warning from the scriptures:

Isaiah 5:20 - "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

A Christian will not reach spiritual maturity if he or she has not acquired the ability to discern both good and evil. A very great multitude of born again believers are still babes in Christ (and have been babes for many years) because they focus on liberty rather than obedience.

Edited March 8, 2011 by brosmith

[Annie]

Hebrews 5:14 - "But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

Key words in this verse:

1. strong - strong, firm, immovable, solid, hard, rigid: in a good sense, firm, steadfast

2. meat - food, nourishment (this verse is speaking of spiritual food that leads to an unshakeable faith and unmovable convictions)

3. full age - extremely skilled and accomplished in human integrity and virtue

4. reason of use - a habit whether of body or mind; a power acquired by custom, practice, use (in other words, we must make discernment a priority in our lives)

5. senses - faculty of the mind for perceiving, understanding, judging

6. exercised - to exercise vigorously, in any way, either the body or the mind (discernment takes work)

7. discern - a distinguishing, discerning, judging

8. both good and evil - hanging onto the good and rejecting the evil

1 Thessalonians 5:21,22 - "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil."

Discernment requires judging whether something is good or evil. Please consider this warning from the scriptures:

Isaiah 5:20 - "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

A Christian will not reach spiritual maturity if he or she has not acquired the ability to discern both good and evil. A very great multitude of born again believers are still babes in Christ (and have been babes for many years) because they focus on liberty rather than obedience.

Great post, brosmith! Couldn't agree more; you covered it all. I especially like your last sentence: "A very great multitude of born again believers are still babes in Christ...because they focus on liberty rather than obedience." Obedience to what we know in Scripture is foundational to developing discernment. Edited March 8, 2011 by Annie

[speerjp1]

Not long ago I was preaching at a local church and the Sunday school class I sat in on (ages 18-30 or so) was discussing spiritual discernment and maturity. The definition I gave to them for spiritual maturity was as follows:

Spiritual maturity should be the ever increasing state of a believer's spiritual life when he ceases to constantly attempt to justify what he wants to do by pointing to the things that aren't clearly spelled out in God's word, and he begins to seek only to glorify God through simple obedience to the commands that are clearly spelled out in His word.

Once the maturing believer is being guided by the Spirit of God in obedience to the Creator and not being constantly controlled by any other motivation, he begins to realize just how useless this world's wisdom and pleasures are when it comes to fulfilling the will of God. Neither Godly wisdom nor Spiritual discernment are required in order to accommodate one's own fleshly desires and it would seem to at least be close to blasphemy to attribute the pursuit of one's own desires through devilish wisdom to the discernment of scriptures by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That is why true discernment begins to manifest itself in large part when one realizes that the pleasures of this world, be they overt sin or "merely" omissions or just whimsical participations in the popular, are mutually exclusive from doing the will of the Father. It is simply not possible to serve two masters.

(Or slightly more) :icon_mrgreen:

Edited April 8, 2011 by speerjp1

[JerryNumbers]

Not long ago I was preaching at a local church and the Sunday school class I sat in on (ages 18-30 or so) was discussing spiritual discernment and maturity. The definition I gave to them for spiritual maturity was as follows:

Spiritual maturity should be the ever increasing state of a believer's spiritual life when he ceases to constantly attempt to justify what he wants to do by pointing to the things that aren't clearly spelled out in God's word, and he begins to seek only to glorify God through simple obedience to the commands that are clearly spelled out in His word.

Once the maturing believer is being guided by the Spirit of God in obedience to the Creator and not being constantly controlled by any other motivation, he begins to realize just how useless this world's wisdom and pleasures are when it comes to fulfilling the will of God. Godly wisdom nor Spiritual discernment are required in order to accommodate one's own fleshly desires and it would seem to at least be close to blasphemy to attribute the pursuit of one's own desires through devilish wisdom to the discernment of scriptures by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That is why true discernment begins to manifest itself in large part when one realizes that the pleasures of this world, be they overt sin or "merely" omissions or just whimsical participations in the popular, are mutually exclusive from doing the will of the Father. It is simply not possible to serve two masters.

(Or slightly more)

Its amazing how content a person can really be if they put their trust in Christ, and fully surrender. I might add, they will feel like they have more, when actually they do not, they just have the contentment of the Lord in their hearts, for they stop having to have so much worldly stuff to feed their wants. Seems this is something many Christians never find, and struggle with all the days of their life.

[John81]

Not long ago I was preaching at a local church and the Sunday school class I sat in on (ages 18-30 or so) was discussing spiritual discernment and maturity. The definition I gave to them for spiritual maturity was as follows:

Spiritual maturity should be the ever increasing state of a believer's spiritual life when he ceases to constantly attempt to justify what he wants to do by pointing to the things that aren't clearly spelled out in God's word, and he begins to seek only to glorify God through simple obedience to the commands that are clearly spelled out in His word.

Once the maturing believer is being guided by the Spirit of God in obedience to the Creator and not being constantly controlled by any other motivation, he begins to realize just how useless this world's wisdom and pleasures are when it comes to fulfilling the will of God. Neither Godly wisdom nor Spiritual discernment are required in order to accommodate one's own fleshly desires and it would seem to at least be close to blasphemy to attribute the pursuit of one's own desires through devilish wisdom to the discernment of scriptures by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That is why true discernment begins to manifest itself in large part when one realizes that the pleasures of this world, be they overt sin or "merely" omissions or just whimsical participations in the popular, are mutually exclusive from doing the will of the Father. It is simply not possible to serve two masters.

(Or slightly more)

Well said! There is a vast difference between looking at our Christian walk from the perspective of "how far can we go, what can we get away with and still be okay with God", and the purposeful pursuit of holiness for the sake of being close to God and walking in His Spirit.

[farouk]

Someone who expects everything to be spelled out, or who demands for it to be spelled out, is basically screaming, "I am spiritually immature." The fact is that Scripture does not spell everything out. Issues like dress choices, music/media choices, etc., are discernment issues.

Hi Ms Annie:

You make some v. good points there.

God bless.

[Kleptes]

In your own words make your case as to what spiritual discernment is, the biblical foundation for it, how it is to be applied and gained, how far it "should" be taken, etc. If you wish, you can also mention areas you feel it applies to and why you feel that way. This thread was inspired by a post elsewhere on the board that seemed to totally lack any understanding of the nature, importance, or practical application of spiritual discernment. It occurred to me a discussion on the topic might be useful or possibly interesting at least... I will probably post my thoughts on the subject later but first will wait and see what others have to say about it.

Spiritual Discerment is when a born again christian by the The Holy Ghost can distinguish and or acknowledge if things be of God or not and being able to judge rightly on them. 1John 4:1 tells us to try the spirits to acknowledge if they are of God for the reason of false prophets in the world.

1Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
The first priority is on discerning a truth of the Gospel. John in the same thought also talks of the spirit of the antichrist, who doesn't acknowledge that Jesus came in the flesh.
Even in taking of the Lord's supper some christians take it unworthingly, that is why we are charged to examine outselves. If we eat it unworthily we do it not discerning the Lords body. The corinthians were sick and even dying because of this. In thier case it was because they ate thier own supper at church and replaced this with the Lords supper and in doing so left many without food or drink, they weren't discerning the Lords body. Which is a testamony of what Jesus Christ did for us in giving his body on the cross. Christians today can even take it unworthily if they do not take it serious. In 1 Corinthians 5 we also charged to not eat or accompany a man that is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous ect. not to eat or fellowship with him. The epistles from Paul to the Corinthian church are a good example of a chirstian church who lacked spiritual discernment. This is why he called them carnal and babes in Christ in chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians. He could not talk to them spiritually but carnally. In 1 Corinthians 1 Paul was correcting them because they were putting themselves at odds by giving credit to Paul Apollos, and Cephas, but not Jesus Christ. He reinerates this point in chapter 3. In chapter 2 he tells them that the natural man cannot discern the Spirit of God. Those corinthians were not yet mature enough to discern spiritually. Spiritual discernment is also used in false teachings.

[Genevanpreacher]

Real spiritual discernment comes from having the mind of Christ within us - through the memories of what the Bible actually says in physical words on the pages of the scriptures - and having enough of his word in our minds to 'know better' when a subject comes up. We hide his word in our hearts, through the leading of his Holy Spirit, and will be lead into all truth because God gave us the words of knowledge in the written word of God to see his doctrine clearly.

It's not as 'spiritual' as some may think - and not so 'lead by the Spirit' either - but the Lord expects us to use our mind of deduction to 'prove all things' from the words on the printed page.

Hope I expressed it correct enough.

[Jim_Alaska]

5 hours ago, Genevanpreacher said:

Real spiritual discernment comes from having the mind of Christ within us - through the memories of what the Bible actually says in physical words on the pages of the scriptures - and having enough of his word in our minds to 'know better' when a subject comes up. We hide his word in our hearts, through the leading of his Holy Spirit, and will be lead into all truth because God gave us the words of knowledge in the written word of God to see his doctrine clearly.

It's not as 'spiritual' as some may think - and not so 'lead by the Spirit' either - but the Lord expects us to use our mind of deduction to 'prove all things' from the words on the printed page.

Hope I expressed it correct enough.

I am not following this train of thought GP. Your first paragraph seems to flatly contradict your second paragraph. First you say this comes about "through the leading of His Holy Spirit."

But then you say, "and not so lead by the Spirit either."  

[Genevanpreacher]

11 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

I am not following this train of thought GP. Your first paragraph seems to flatly contradict your second paragraph. First you say this comes about "through the leading of His Holy Spirit."

But then you say, "and not so lead by the Spirit either."  

The "not so 'lead by the Spirit'..." part is in quotes, like lead by the Charasmatic type of Spirit - know what I mean?

Some people think you can 'just know' what is right without any source, without any source from sciptural support. 

[Jim_Alaska]

OK GP, there are times when I am a bit slow, or just without a clue.

[Genevanpreacher]

4 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

OK GP, there are times when I am a bit slow, or just without a clue.

No, I did need to write it a bit more clearly. Sometimes I'm not too fleet a foot in words.