WRPC Pastor's Press

Peacemaking – How To Deal with Conflicts

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Dan Dodds

One of the better resources in counseling outside of the Scripture and Westminster (see other posts) is the book Peacemaker by Ken Sande. Over time I will be sharing with you many of the jewels of this book but let me just share a few reasons why this is such an important tool in your counseling belt.

1) The book addresses the issue of conflict first from 40,000 feet. That is, it doesn’t just jump in and say “here’s how you fix it.” Rather, it begins with the big categories of glorifying God and sovereignty among others.

2) It is thorough. I never thought peacemaking involved so much preparation, thought, wisdom, and humility. But if you really want to reconcile with someone this book is your go-to book. It will help you address all the issues and address them thoroughly.

3) It is extremely practical. The steps in each chapter are concrete and helpful. It is not nebulous ‘go work it out with them’ advice, but rather specific instructions and wisdom so that you have a clear idea of what you need to do and how to do it.

4) It is Biblical. There are Scriptures throughout the book. Sande is a member of the PCA and so brings a reformed perspective to the topic.

I hope this whets your appetite if you haven’t read the book. There are others versions for kids and families but I’d recommend for now just sticking with the original.

Piety

Praying the Scriptures

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Scotty Anderson

As today is a day of prayer and fasting called by our Presbytery and Session, we want to encourage you to use the time well. If you haven’t been following Pastor Robbin’s Sunday evening sermon series on “The Basics of Christian Prayer,” we highly recommend you check it out here at Sermon Audio to get the full series. We also want to mention a very helpful resource made available from Crossway Publishers. It’s called “Praying the Bible” and is taught by Donald Whitney, the author of the excellent Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Navigate to the site and sign up. Over just a few minutes, in the course of a few days, Whitney can help you transform how you pray as he models praying the Scriptures. Check out the introduction here at Crossway.

…Join Don Whitney on a 5-day journey to learn a simple, practical, and biblical approach to prayer that will turn duty into delight! In just a few minutes a day, you’ll learn a time-tested method that could transform your prayer life: praying the words of the Bible.

As a testimony to the method, my college mentor and friend, Dr. Jim Covey (RUF Campus Minister, United States Air Force Academy), taught me and several friends this pattern of prayer over a spring break mission trip. 20 years later I can say without exaggeration that it radically transformed how we’ve prayed to this day.

Uncategorized

“A Call for a Day of Fasting and Prayer”

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Carl Robbins

At the summer meeting of Calvary Presbytery, a resolution (see below) was unanimously adopted by all the pastors and elders attending.

So, this Wednesday (August 26, 2015) we are encouraging all our members to “fast and pray”.

We will fast until our congregational meal at 5:45 PM, then we will gather for prayer, using the items of petition, confession, adoration and thanksgiving listed in the resolution.

Whereas, the June 26, 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America opposes God’s creation mandate of marriage established in Genesis 2:18-24 and thereby greatly dishonors our Creator and Redeemer; and,

Whereas, this decision establishes as constitutional right a perversion of God’s biblical pattern of marriage and human sexuality and places the church at odds with the laws of the civil magistrate of our land; and,

Whereas, the biblical position of marriage may cause the civil magistrate to spurn the church’s name as evil, on account of the Son of Man (Cf. Luke 6:22); and,

Whereas, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches that prayer and solemn fastings upon special occasions are an appropriate expression of corporate worship to our Lord and God (WCF 21.5); and,

Whereas, the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States will have a significant impact on the moral climate of our nation and, potentially, the freedom of the church and thereby should be considered a special occasion; and,

Whereas, the Directory for Worship of our Book of Church Order recommends that Presbyteries should determine the propriety of observing special days of prayer & fasting for larger districts (BCO 62-3); and,

Whereas, the BCO further recommends public notice should be given a sufficient time “before the appointed day of fasting…, that persons may so order their affairs as to allow them to attend properly to the duties of the day” (BCO 62-4),

Therefore, Calvary Presbytery declares Wednesday, August 26, 2015 as a special day of fasting and prayer for the congregations within her bounds to be used, among other things, to:

express our shame and contrition for our nation’s embracing perverse and rebellious marital relations in our land; and,
implore our God for the protection of his church in our nation; and,
confess our failure fully to embrace the covenant of marriage as expounded in Scripture and recommit ourselves to marital fidelity and love as an example to our culture; and,
express our thanks to our gracious God for his providential ordering of all history including the sinful decision of our Supreme Court on June 26, 2015; and,
ask the Lord to instill a fervent spirit of prayer in the hearts of his people; and,
plead with God to make effective our feeble efforts in personal and corporate evangelism, that he would be pleased to draw many sinners to himself through his Holy Spirit that thereby our churches and rulers would rightly honor and glorify him.

Family/Parenting/Piety/Theology

Rejoicing in the Birth of a Grandchild: A Modest Start on a Thousand Generations

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Carl Robbins

The Living God has richly blessed Sandy and I with a 3^rd grand-child (following Bray and Jack)…the much anticipated “Emmanuel (Emmie) Ruth Robbins”, born on July 27 to our oldest son John and his wife DeAnna in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Of course she is easily the most beautiful child born in this hemisphere in the last decade, and should just be given the crown of “Miss Mississippi” for 2033.

But her incredible cuteness is NOT the primary reason why we are rejoicing. We are overjoyed because:

It is always a great mercy when God opens the womb: “Children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward” – Psalm 127:3.
It is God who has knit this child together in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16) and we are commanded to rejoice and praise Him for ALL His works.
Seeing one’s children, then grandchildren (Psalm 128:6) is to be understood as an unparalleled honor.

We are not overjoyed because we NOW have a (growing) bunch of grandchildren. What we want is a bunch of gospel–believing, Christ-loving, church-centered, Holy Spirit- sanctified grand-children.

We have known far too many evangelicals who have lots of children, but are horrible at covenant nurture.

So, we clearly recognize it is incumbent upon Sandy and I to pray for our grandchildren – for their conversion and growth in grace. It is also vital for us to use all the means that God has appointed (the Lord’s Day, teaching, the Word, prayer, fellowship, consistent Christian nurture and discipline), and to assist and cheer our children on as THEY raise the next generation for Christ.

We do not see this as a fool’s errand, since God has promised (Deut. 7:9) that “He is the faithful God who keeps covenant & mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him & keep His commandments.”

Generation One – In the 1920’s The Lord sovereignly plucked my grandfather Roy Haskell Moore, out of a family deeply enmeshed in sin and degradation and saved him.

Generation Two – God had mercy upon my parents (Gordon & Janice Moore Robbins), causing them to love His Word, filling them with His Spirit , giving them holy affections , shaping them into highly principled people.

Generation Three – Once again, God was faithful, in saving Sandy and I as newlyweds, unveiling Christ as our only hope, giving us the gifts of faith and repentance.

Generation Four – The Lord showed His covenant mercies to our children, removing their heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh.

Generation Five – Now, all of our grandchildren are growing up in homes where Christ is reverenced and loved. Our regular prayer for them is that they would embrace Christ as Savior at a very early age and then far surpass all their parents and grandparents in wisdom, zeal, holiness and Kingdom usefulness.

Only 995 generations to go!

Uncategorized

Failure to Launch and the Church’s Response

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Scotty Anderson

If you missed this past Sunday’s Manly Presbyterian Hour, the topic you missed was “Failure to Launch”. We were considering the cultural phenomenon in which young people, both men and women, either seriously delay or fail altogether in leaving, cleaving, and exercising dominion (Gen 1:26-27). Like a boat loaded with cargo or a rocket fueled for a trip into orbit, young people have much invested in them. When the times comes for them to set out in life and instead they sit home nearly everyone is disappointed. Boats, rockets, and young people are made for launching (Psalm 127:3-5).

There are a multitude of cultural, social, economic, psychological and other reasons for the phenomenon. The more important question for us is “How can the church respond?” Below are suggestions from several sources as to how we can encourage our young people to fulfill their callings in this life:

Encourage them toward godliness. Young adulthood is a rough patch of temptation. They need to be encouraged to continue in godliness. The call to holiness is not optional. It’s the nature of regenerate believers to be holy (1 Peter 1:13–16), to be distinct from the world. Anyone attempting to make his way in the world is going to need the encouragement of others who’ve been there. Our unique calling from God requires that we don’t follow the culture but that we follow Christ in the context of the culture. Providence may dictate what job you have, but godliness dictates how you do your job.

Encourage them to sober-mindedness. Paul gives a series of exhortations to Titus for offering specific encouragement to different types of people in Titus 2:1-14. In one place he says, “Exhort the young men to be sober-minded.” You could translate that as sober or serious or even sensible. This is what mature adults do, they don’t chase passions, emotions, or feelings. They pursue responsibilities and commitments.

Encourage them toward marriage. The leave and cleave concept needs to be a regular part of our ministry, especially toward young men. But similarly, the young women need to be encouraged not to hold out for prince charming, but simply an eligible believer with whom they think they can grow in sanctification. Marriage is ordinary, lawful, and good. It’s extraordinary not to marry (Mt 19:1-12).

Encourage them toward maturity in family relationships. There should be a general pressure to establishing their own identity. We want them to be as David Powlison says “self-irrigating Christians”. We hope that their faith is the same faith as their parents, but not that they are relying on the parents’ faith. We want to help them have adult relationships with their own parents and with other adults in the church that is mutual and not purely dependent.

Encourage them to find a church home. If they stay at our church, they need to embrace an adult Sunday School class and Shepherding group. They need to talk to an elder about having his specific accountability as an adult. If they move somewhere else then they need to become a member of a church in the ordinary way adults do in whatever process that church uses. But wherever they are we want them to see themselves as a communing member of the congregation. As part of this encouragement we should go out of our way to welcome them into the fold of the mature.

Encourage them in what they are becoming and might become. They need specific encouragement in the big categories – marriage, college (if appropriate), and work (of one kind or another). At the same time we can be open about specifics but try to help them discover how their natural aptitudes, education and training, and providential opportunities suit them to particular work and kinds of independence.

Encourage them against the natural tendency toward excuse making. Proverbs 26:13 comes to mind: “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!’” or Proverbs 26:16, “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.” There are undoubtedly a multitude of plausible excuses and fears put forward to escape life as a responsible adults. This is all the more reason they need to be helped, encourage, AND ALSO warned that it’s disobedient and dangerous not to put their talents to work (Mt 25:14-30).

Encourage them against the consequences of laziness (Proverbs 10:4-5, 12:11, 19:15). You might even need to help them, if you’re in a position to do something about it, to suffer the consequences of their inactivity. Hunger apparently motivates. Don’t make it easy to stay comfortable at home if home is not where they should be.

Encourage them to accept that the Fall WILL negatively affect their work life and independence. We do, after all, live in a Genesis 3:17-19 World. That means everyone needs the mature and realistic understanding that work is made complex and difficult by laziness, passivity, accidents, bad decisions, and interactions with fallen, sinful bosses, coworkers, and customers.

Encourage them against pornography. Peter was not being hyperbolic when he said that the “passions of the flesh…war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Derek Brown explains it well: “Lust robs men of ambition, discourages initiative, perverts inclinations, sabotages desire for godly productivity, promotes passivity, dampens passion for adventure, hinders taste for spiritual truth, and weakens the ability to concentrate,” (JBMW, Spring 2015).

Finally, they need to be encouraged that God’s call on them to exercise the stewardship of their gifts is truly a matter of their eternal well being. We know salvation is not by obedience but we also know our works give assurance of salvation. Jesus denies comfort to those who are idle with His resources: “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Those are the words of Jesus from the end of the Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:29–30).

In all this, the goal is their maturity evidenced by their assumption of responsibility. Frustration, disappointment, and criticism might be our reactions to their inaction, but we too are called to be patient, wise, and diligent in our efforts to bring them to maturity. As you encourage, consider your Savior’s patience with you.

Counseling

Should We Counsel Unbelievers?

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Dan Dodds

Continuing in our look at the Westminster Standards for counseling we come to paragraph 5 of chapter 1 as follows:

WCF 1:5 We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, (which is to give all glory to God) , the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.

This paragraph teaches us an important point – unless someone has the Holy Spirit then they will not understand God’s Word to be the final authority in life. As such, we might ask, “Should we counsel unbelievers?” When someone calls me for counseling (from outside the church) I (almost) always say, “Sure! Come on in.” But I usually add that I will meet with them once to do an assessment and then we will talk from there on how I would proceed if they choose to come back. If the counselee is not a Christian I cannot counsel him from God’s Word since he does not accept that as an authority. Therefore I do what we call ‘precounseling’ – which is giving them the gospel.

What a great job I have! When folks come in they know they’re coming to a pastor and so it doesn’t surprise them when I bring out my Bible. And what a joy to share Christ to believers AND non-believers. You should try it!!

Family/Parenting/Piety

It’s the Little Things: Parenting Wisdom from Elisabeth Elliot

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Carl Robbins

When Elisabeth Elliot died in June of this year the church lost a dear, wise treasure. EE was the author of over 20 books (if you’ve never read any of Elliot’s books, start with Through Gates of Splendor) and a marvelous theologian. Her first husband, legendary missionary Jim Elliot, was martyred in 1956 in the jungles of Ecuador by Auca Indians. For the next several decades Elisabeth spoke and wrote to the benefit of the evangelical church.

Much of Elisabeth’s writing was very personal: self-discipline, gender roles in the home, and relationships between husbands and wives. But it was her wisdom on parents and children that was most helpful for me. Following is an excerpt from her marvelous book, Keep a Quiet Heart:

When we were growing up our parents taught us, by both word and example, to pay attention to little things. If you do a thing at all, do it thoroughly: make the sheets really smooth on the bed, sweep all the corners and move all the chairs when you sweep the kitchen, roll the toothpaste tube neatly and put the cap back on, clean the hair out of your brush each time you use it, hang your towels straight on the rod, fold your napkin and put it into the silver ring before you leave the table, never wet your finger when you turn pages. They kept promises made to us as faithfully as they kept those made to adults. They taught us to do the same. You didn’t accept an invitation to a party and then not turn up, or agree to help with a Vacation Bible School and back out because a more interesting activity presented itself…

When I went to boarding school the same principles I had been taught at home were emphasized. There was a hallway with small oriental rugs which we called “Character Hall” because the headmistress, Mrs. DuBose, could look down that hall from the armchair where she sat in the lobby and spot any student who kicked up a corner of the rug and did not replace it. She would call out to correct him, “It’s those tiny little things in your life which will crack you up when you get out of this school!” In the little things our character was revealed. Our response would make our break us. “Don’t go around with a Bible under your arm if you didn’t sweep under the bed,” she said, for she would have no pious talk coming out of a messy room.

It is not easy to find children or adults who are dependable, careful, thorough, and faithful. So many lives seem honeycombed with small failures, neglectful of the little things that make the difference between order and chaos. Perhaps it is because they are so seldom taught that visible things are signs of an invisible reality; that common duties may be “an immeasurable ministry of love.” The spiritual training of souls must be inseparable from practical disciplines, as Jesus so plainly taught; “the man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches! And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?” (Luke 16:10-12, Jerusalem Bible).

Counseling/Marriage

Marriage Letter

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Scotty Anderson

The following is a post at Relocating to Elfland. It’s from former WRPC intern, Ben Miller who is now a pastor with the OPC in New York and occasionally blogs. The letter is jarring. And whether it comes from a hypothetical or real situation I don’t know, but it makes a powerful point on repentance. Read to the end and see if you find yourself somewhere in it…

Dear Married Friend,

I’m writing this, as you know, after years of counseling you and your spouse. I’m very tired as I write. You’re not the only couple I’m counseling, and sometimes after yet another hour-long talk with someone drowning in a horrific marriage, I sit dazed in my chair, wishing my pastoral days could be full of prayer, silence, and study rather than the noise and churning emotions of conflict resolution. I wish I could come to the end of the day and see my wife and children without lines of care scarring my face. I wish being a peacemaker didn’t require me to see so much of the evil of the world.

But that’s not why I’m writing. My hope isn’t that the conflict in your marriage will stop so I can enjoy more quiet. I want the conflict in your marriage to stop for you. I want peace for you and your spouse. I lie awake for long hours in the night, yearning for this for you before the Lord.

What breaks my heart is that it’s not difficult. You think your marriage is such a mess, and all I can see is how easy it would be for the conflict to stop and for you to live together in peace. All it would require is for you to stop playing God. I know you’re not willing to stop. But I haven’t given up on you, so let me tell you (again) what it would look like for you to stop playing God.

First, it would require you to admit that the war between you and your spouse is still going on because you’re in it. If you weren’t in it, it would stop, because it takes two to fight. What this means is: you’re sinning a lot, God hates your sin, and you need to stop. I’m not talking to your spouse, I’m talking to you – this needs to be said, because all you’re thinking about right now is how much your spouse needs to hear what I’m saying. Which brings me to a second point.

You need to put down your weapons. You need to drop your sense of entitlement, your feeling of being victimized, your checklist of demands, and your filing cabinet full of resentments. You need to shut your mouth and stop sniping; you need to admit to yourself that you enjoy spitting out those zingers that make you feel so powerful and right. You need to look at the walls you’ve built around your heart, your dramatic withdrawals from your spouse, your various schemes of emotional blackmail, and your ever-present jabbing finger of blame – you need to know that this stuff is antichrist, and any attempt to put it in a better light is sheer pride. How dare you hold this garbage up as somehow defensible in the light of the cross of God’s Son?

Third, you need to listen. You don’t listen. You may think you do, but you don’t. You’ve already sized up your spouse and rendered judgment. You don’t really care what’s going on in his heart; you don’t really care about all the hurt and need that lies beneath her sin. You don’t want to touch those needs or heal those hurts. All you see – all you want to see – is the sin; and your way of fighting sin is to sin. That’s insane. You’ve tried a thousand times to fight your spouse’s evil with evil, you’ve seen the devastation it brings to everyone involved, and you still go right back to it like a dog to vomit. I wonder sometimes if you’ll ever shut your mouth and really, really listen with your whole heart. But no, you already know everything you need to know: you’re an expert on your spouse’s motives, intentions, thoughts, and feelings. The gavel has banged, sentence has been rendered, and you’re kind of looking forward to carrying it out.

Fourth, if you would ever really listen, you would see a way to serve. Of course, you’ll have to get over the notion that when you serve, your spouse will suddenly morph into an angel. You don’t want to hear it, but being a servant means you often get treated like one; and it may take a long time, great sacrifice, and great pain to overcome evil with good. You’re afraid of pain; in fact, you’re controlled by your fear of pain more than you’re controlled by the love of God; and so you walk right past opportunities to serve your spouse, opportunities that are cryingly obvious to anyone who’s not as self-protective as you are. Actually – which is far worse – you often do see the opportunities but choose to ignore them. You might stop to ponder what Jesus thinks of this.

The reason for all of this is that you don’t trust God – and that, fifth and fundamentally, is your single biggest need if you’re going to stop playing God. You keep waiting for your spouse to change so you can love without having to leave your comfort zones. Your comfort zones may be the single biggest rivals to God in your life. You need to repent of your comfort zones. They are the enemy of love in your heart. It’s not safe to love. It got Jesus killed. It will get you killed. Then you’ll experience the resurrection life of Christ. God promises it. The question is whether you believe it. Don’t be too quick to think you do. If you did, you would start loving your spouse (the perfect love of God would cast out fear), and the fighting in your marriage would stop.

You know I’ll never stop praying for you, and I’ll never stop making myself available to you when you’re really in need. But I’ll tell you this straight up: Counseling doesn’t heal marriages. Repentance heals marriages. When you repent, things will heal. Dig in, and the war will drag on interminably. How I pray your war will not last much longer, for your sake, and for the sake of Jesus’ name.

I remain your affectionate pastor, etc.

The original post is found here: Marriage Letter.

Apologetics/Theology

Yoga and the Christian

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Dan Dodds

More than one person has asked me my thoughts on whether a Christian should practice Yoga. As is often the case, others – more articulate than I – have addressed this and I would like to pass them onto you. First, John Piper talks about this in his Ask Pastor John podcast. He does a great job in summarizing and concluding in less than 12 minutes. You can find it here:

Another good resource is Peter Jones’ website truth exchange. See some of their material on yoga here. Truth Exchange and Yoga. Al Mohler has also weighed in on this and you can find information The Briefing. That should be enough material for you to answer the question. If you have more, feel free to talk with me.

Piety

Discernment

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Carl Robbins

As I spoke to this woman who was a new Christian, she kept pressing me “Carl, I hear you talking about maturity often. How can I become mature ?” We talked about the faithful adherence to the ordinary means of grace (Word, Prayer, Sacraments, Fellowship). But as we pressed on it became apparent that this was a person who had almost no discernment. So, I carefully encouraged this new saint to work on sharpening her discernment. She is an Israelite in whom there is no guile, so she asked “what IS discernment?”

Here’s the substance of our hour-long conversation:

I would define discernment as the ability to distinguish God’s revealed thoughts and ways from all others.

The NT Greek term for discernment is the word diakrino – which means to SEPARATE & make a distinction between. The key idea is that by separating the false from the true a person makes judgments.

The church, as an institution, increasingly accommodates secular values and methods, and seems unable to tell the difference between what Scripture teaches and what the world promotes. It INTEGRATES the wisdom of the world with the truth of Holy Scripture. Such integration is the exact opposite of discernment – which spots the values of the world & rejects them.

In 1999 I finally (19 years too late) bought my wife, Sandy, a ring at Zales in the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas. When I went to pick it up the jeweler was still working on the setting. Being a total neophyte concerning jewelry I began to ask questions. He educated me on “the 4 C’s” (Cut, Clarity , Color and Carat). He explained what made a diamond worth anything. He KNEW value. That was HIS business and he was good at it. He had DISCERNMENT. He could distinguish one diamond from another, the spurious from the genuine, and could spot flaws and imperfections not noticeable to most people.

Spiritual discernment is the Christian’s TRADE! When it comes to God’s Truth you’d think every believer would want to be as discerning as possible. But, it is an odd reality that many people who are careful & explicit & exact in every department of their lives are content (when it comes to spiritual realities) with vague uncertainties. I’ve met engineers who must be precise about all manner of details on the job, who cannot make the simplest distinctions in the Church and their Christian Life !

Spiritual discernment is far greater than the discernment the jeweler possesses. His skill can be learned by going to classes and thru hours of apprenticeships. Spiritual discernment can only be given ……BY THE SPIRIT . Listen to 1 Cor 2:12-14:

¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. ¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ¹⁴ But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Paul is asserting here that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer as the One who imparts the ability to ascertain the mind of God. The Holy Spirit does this by enabling the believer to successfully investigate the things of God in order to distinguish between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. THIS is Spiritual Discernment. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in the process, enlightening the believer so that he is able to understand the Scriptures. That makes spiritual discernment radically different from ANY other kind of discernment.

So now let’s sharpen our initial definition of discernment: It is the DIVINELY GIVEN ability to distinguish God’s thoughts and ways from all others.

Discernment thrives in an atmosphere of absolutes, among people whose minds have been molded to think antithetically. Discernment means making necessary distinctions between false ideas and true ideas, righteous people & ungodly people. Discernment (i.e. making distinctions) is a Christlike and godly exercise. Jesus Himself discriminates and makes distinctions. On the last day Jesus WILL distinguish between the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). Utilizing God’s impartial standard of justice, He WILL send the goats off to perdition. On that day He will NOT collapse into indiscriminate sentimentality. He WILL discriminate: the sheep will go to the right, the goats to the left.

We, in the church MUST be skilled at this. Elders must know the differences between wolves and the sheep (Acts 20)….and between false professors and true professors. In 1 John 4:1 the APOSTLE OF LOVE gives us an inspired imperative: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world… As the passage continues, the test is applied to heretics in the early church who denied that Jesus Christ came in the flesh (verse 2-3). The test is doctrinal. There is no direction to consult your feelings about these persons or to expect any subjective promptings or “checks in your spirit”. It is their TEACHING which must be examined.

Following this, we must test the FRUIT of all teaching (Matthew 7:15-20). If the teaching SOUNDS vaguely right, but if it leads men away from Christ or it doesn’t take sin seriously…it must be rejected.

In 1 Thess 5:21, the same Apostle who penned 1 Cor 13 gives a command: “Test all things”. To test (or “prove”) means to test content as a metallurgist does, to determine genuiness from counterfeits. The idea is NOT so you’ll always be picking at little flaws, the passage clearly states the object of the test, it is so you may “Hold fast what is good” (i.e. RETAIN that which is true”). The formula for discernment is “Test all things (against the Word), retain the true, reject the unbiblical.”

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