The Dangers of Discernment, When Your View Gets Out of Balance

Discernment is an important part of the Christian life and an indispensable virtue of a useful church. Simply put, discernment is the wisdom to distinguish between truth and error. It recognizes the difference between something that is almost true from that which is absolutely true. A discerning believer can identify what comes from God and what misrepresents God’s truth. Discernment is a vital spiritual skill that enables us to hold fast to that which is true, good, and holy in the midst of blatant error, subtle lies, and misguided priorities.

Discernment is required in all areas of your life. You must be discerning of your own heart and motives in order to distinguish between true submission and selfish desires. You must be discerning of Satan’s influence on the world system in order to recognize the counterfeit lies of the enemy. And, you must be discerning of false teaching in the name of Christ because there are many who claim the name of Christ but teach the lies of Satan. If you do not cultivate discernment in these areas it will lead to hidden sins, worldly thinking, heretical theology, and even apostasy.

The age in which we live compounds the need for discernment. There have never been more opportunities to gratify the flesh in secret than we have in our world today. There have never been more outlets for Satan and the world to influence us—media, TV, internet. There have never been more false teachers trying to influence the church for greedy gain—heresy is big business. You cannot assume that every influence that seems normal, feels right, or claims to be Christian is true. A gullible believer is a Christian who is in imminent danger.

We are not the first church that needed discernment, the church in Thessalonica was also in desperate need of discernment. They had no experience living out the Christian life since the church was full of new believers with largely unproven character and theology. They also had no shepherd to keep watch over them since persecution had taken the apostle Paul, who was its founding pastor, away from the congregation. On top of all this, they did not yet have a completed New Testament since the New Covenant was still very new. Thus, the congregation had very little protections from the false teachers and worldly influence that almost immediately assaulted this infant church.

When he wrote 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul knew that if this young church was going to survive they would need discernment. This is why Paul, before ending his letter, took the time to instruct the Thessalonians on how to be discerning, especially in the prophecy that they received. We find this instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, where Paul provides his readers with an approach to discernment that will protect them from damaging influences. In particular, Paul wanted this young church to be aware of the pitfalls of discernment.

The Pitfalls of Discernment

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies,” (1 Thessalonians 5:19–20, ESV)

Paul knew that when immature hearts are focused on evaluating others, there will always be potential problems. Paul knew the danger of allowing an unbalanced view of discernment to produce pride. However, Paul knew that despite the dangers of pride, being undiscerning isn’t an option. Thus, he warned his readers about the pitfalls in advance.

The pitfall of resisting the Spirit (v. 19)

Paul is warning his readers not to quench the Spirit by pridefully suppressing the truth in their hearts. This is one of the ways that you can tell that discernment has gone off track in your life. You know discernment has gone astray when you suppress what the Spirit says in the Scripture about your own life:

• We pridefully suppress truth and quench the Spirit when we refuse to allow truth to convict us of error because “we already know truth”.

• We pridefully suppress truth and quench the Spirit when we refuse to allow truth to confront our thinking because we “figured it out”.

• We pridefully suppress truth and quench the Spirit we we refuse to allow the truth to challenge how we live because we “know we are right”.

It is not discernment when you “see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye” (Matt 7:3), it is resisting the Spirit.

The pitfall of rejecting revelation (v. 20)

Another pitfall to be aware of in the work of discernment is the danger of rejecting revelation, which is what Paul is talking about in verse 20 when he refers to “prophecy.” As a reminder, New Testament prophecy included occasional new revelation (foretelling) and the regular proclamation of old revelation (forth telling). In other words, there was some predictive revelation before the close of the New Testament, but it was mostly preaching what had already been revealed. Paul’s warning not to disdain this kind of prophecy meant that he did not want them to reject it all without consideration, to have an attitude of superiority toward it, or to view it with contempt (Mk 9:12, Gal 4:14). There was so much false teaching that the easiest thing for the Thessalonians to do would have just been to reject it all in the name of discernment. The problem was that if the Thessalonians had despised all prophecy instead of discerning true prophecy, they would have quenched the Spirit and rejected the truth that God had revealed.

The nature of prophecy has changed for us today, but the pitfalls of discernment have not. We do not receive new prophecies now that the New Testament has been completed, but we can treat the proclamation of what has already been revealed with a “discerning” disdain:

• You can be so “discerning” that you cannot even listen to preaching without finding some fault in the message.

• You can be so “discerning” that you can find fault with any kind of teaching you might hear in the church.

• You can be so “discerning” that in reality you’ve become a critic of the word rather than a hearer of the word.

This is a warning to all believers not to let the discipline of discernment become twisted into the suppression of the truth when it is supposed to be a genuine pursuit of the truth. The main principle is that true discernment leads to the reception of the truth, not the rejection of the truth. Discernment does not lead to prideful skepticism of all teaching, it cultivates a humble submission to truth. It does not produce contempt for all other teachers, it forges convictions about the truth. It does not neutralize the ministry of the Spirit through the truth, it produces fruit of the Spirit. Paul’s negative commands in these verses reveal some of the potential pitfalls of discernment, and these pitfalls are a danger because it is easy to discern the errors of others without submitting to truth. We must be discerning without becoming cynical, soured, and sarcastic about everything. The real pitfall of discernment is our own pride.