Is it just me, or does Tim Challies seem to think discernment is important? My first clue was his book review website, and my second--that he wrote a book about it. Today, Mr. Challies offered some insights on what he hopes people will get from his book. He compared cheating on the discipline of discernment to cheating on long division with a calculator. He says, “Just knowing that discernment is an expectation for all of us is valuable knowledge and something many Christians really do not understand.”
Here are some of his thoughts:
And second to that, I want people to realize that discernment is something we are responsible for as individuals. We cannot simply leave discernment to the experts. Rather, we each need to learn to discern and we each need to grow in the skill of discernment. Like using a calculator for division, we can rely on others to give us the bottom line. But like doing long division, it is far better to do the work ourselves and to ensure we understand how to discern. The theological equivalent of using a calculator may be just Googling what John Piper or John MacArthur says about a certain topic and taking that word as law. It may be asking a parent or pastor and accepting what they say without further thought. We are all prone to want to get to the final tally without going through the intervening steps.
But like the kid who cheats by using a calculator, we cheat ourselves if we do not do the difficult work of discernment. As we discern what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, we train ourselves to think as Christians and we train ourselves to really understand what discernment is. We make sure that we understand the difficult business of discernment—not only the end result but the process of getting there.
3 comments:
Jmac,
Great post. I'm challenged by Mr. Challies and his emphasis on discernment.
It can be helpful to utilize the opinions and thoughts of others, like Piper or MacArthur. However, there are things that others have not spoken to and we encounter situations everday that require unique discernment in terms of our response. We do need to establish the good habits of biblical discernment. I look forward to reading Challies' new book sometime soon.
"But like doing long division, it is far better to do the work ourselves and to ensure we understand how to discern."
I think spiritual discernment is important, but I don't like the analogy about long division. Because, personally, in high school, I never wanted to do the long division - and I still don't; I like calculators.
None the less, his point is made clear. Don't be a spiritual calculator!
He explains the analogy further in the full post.
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