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What Is Spiritual Discernment? A Bible Study

What Is Spiritual Discernment? A Bible Study

Last updated on: May 28, 2014 at 7:02 pm by Jack Wellman

What Is Spiritual Discernment? A Bible Study 2014-05-28T19:02:52-05:00 Jack Wellman

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What does it mean to have spiritual discernment? How can we gain in our understanding and spiritually discern truth from error?

King Solomon’s Gift of Discernment

First Kings 3:8-12: “And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.”

When Solomon became king he didn’t ask for wealth or power but for wisdom and with the wisdom God gave him he had great discernment. The principle here is that God is the one who gives biblical discernment and we can have discernment through the working of the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of God gives us wisdom that is from God and we can also have discernment from reading the Word of God as we will read about later. Solomon and Christians today must strive daily to discern between what is evil and what is good because today what is evil is now thought to be good and what used to be good is now thought of as evil. The worldly wisdom in contrary to godly wisdom so when a person is born again they have access to the Holy Spirit’s power of discernment and the Spirit frequently speaks to us in our hearts to say this is right and this is wrong but we must be sensitive to the Spirit’s prompting and conviction of sin but if we are living in a state of sin and particularly unconfessed sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit and the Spirit cannot speak to our conscience’s quite so easily.

The Bible Gives Discernment

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

To be able to discern between right and wrong, especially when there are grey areas about which we are not sure, daily intake of the Word of God helps us to identify what is the will of God and what is contrary to that will. Regular Bible study and reading, as well as continual Sunday school and Sunday morning feedings from pastors and teachers will go a long way in helping us to discern right and wrong and put us in a position to make the right choice when we are not certain. The Bible is able to help us in “discerning the thoughts and intentions of [our own] heart” so read the Bible often and pay careful attention to what God is speaking to you about a particular subject. If you fail to read the Bible then you are leaving out godly wisdom and the human, carnal mind cannot possible discern what the things of God are all about because “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor 2:14).

Spiritual Discernment is from God

Hosea 14:9 “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”

The way this is written we see the end result in the beginning but the cause for it at the end so we can say it this way, “the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them [but] whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them.” What Hosea, and ultimately God, is saying is that the person who is wise and discerning knows that that the ways of the Lord are right and since we know that the Lord’s ways are right, then we ought to “walk in them.” If your walk is a godly, upright way in life then you will have true wisdom and “understand these [or many] things” and the discerner should “know them” (the ways of the Lord). We can know them but if we don’t “walk in them” we will be like the “transgressors [and] stumble in them.” I could put it this way, information without application cannot lead to transformation.

Constant Practice Brings Discernment

Hebrews 5:13-14 “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

The principle of milk and the believer is that there has been no spiritual growth and like a baby Christian, they are still feeding on the milk or the basic, elementary things about God but for the mature they have partaken of the solid food or the meat of the word and this takes some chewing. When we chewing on the solid food of the Word we are taking our time and studying more diligently and learning the more deep, spiritual truths and this more mature Christian has been “trained by constant practice” or continual, daily Bible reading and practicing what they have learned and by taking the information and applying it to their life and this process is leading them to transformation and this is how they can “have their powers of discernment.”

Conclusion

The wisest thing you can do is to bend the knee, repent of your sins, and confess them to God, apologizing for your offenses before a holy God and then trusting in the only one Who can save you…Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). If you are not a Christian, then you cannot have true spiritual wisdom and will be susceptible to and fall for any spiritual deception because you don’t have the Spirit of God which gives a believer true discernment and with that, the ability to distinguish between the grey areas as to whether it is good or evil, sin or not.

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon

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