Craig

As we began thinking about this blog series my immediate reaction to the word ‘discernment’ was that I have heard it used in sermons and Christian writing far more often than it arises in the wider world. The context is invariably personal and God-focused: how do I live?, how do I read scripture? and how am I going to receive guidance?

The reason the word featured prominently in my early Christian life is because discernment is a discipleship question. It presupposes that there is a being, and possibly a plan, that is larger than I am able to understand fully. So taking time to listen before acting might mean that I am able to co-operate, avoid doing things that are going to have negative consequences, or perhaps be led into places I would otherwise not want to go. The bottom line is that I am choosing to believe that I might not know best.

Dave

In a Christian context, discernment has many faces. It is about making choices that are wise, but also Godly.

It has been used of making choices that are right or wrong, using a number of plumblines…scripture, the advice of wise and trusted friends, personal character and abilities and common sense… as measures of rightness or wrongness. 

Discernment is also listed as a specific spiritual gift…the discerning of spirits…which is about being able to recognise God’s voice above all the other voices that clamour for our attention. All this assumes a God who has a plan in which I have a part to play, who cares that I get it right, a God who has spoken in the past and still speaks and guides in a variety of ways.

Julie

One definition I found for discernment is ‘the ability to judge well’. This resonates with what you’ve said, Dave about making wise choices. From our perspective as people of faith, this idea of discernment acknowledges what you’re both saying about our belief in a God who knows what is best for us, so when we are making decisions, our task is to discover what that is and have the courage to follow.

But I think it’s also about the ability to identify what the important questions are! We could spend hours overthinking the small decisions, trapped in anxiety and confusion as we are faced with an increasing array of choices, instead of discerning what to spend time and energy making decisions about.

Roy

After coming to faith, I was baptised and as I emerged from the water I was given a verse from the book of Proverbs which has been foundational to how I have sought to live my life. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding, acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5,6)

This primarily acknowledges the existence of God and is a recognition that God’s ways are good because God is good. So the ways of God are governed by love. If I am to enter into the life that God calls me to, this requires me to both seek God and discover the will of God. That to me is discernment. Exploring and discovering what God desires of my own and other’s lives in any given situation. 

So discernment is about seeing if something is good or bad, and recognising that life is not black and white but more complex and nuanced. Discernment is crafted in the arena that transcends the limiting notions of duality. It’s linked to both humility and wisdom. Humility that acknowledges our dependency upon God and that others might have insights and wisdom beyond my own. This goes deeper than my knowledge about things.

Jesus calls us his friends if we do what he commands, (John 15:14). And as his friends, following what God desires is important to us. Friends are people who understand one another and so as we grow in our relationship with Christ, we discover more of what it is that he desires. It is out of relationship that we discern.

Craig

As the world swirls crazily around us, it seems we should also address the discernment question to the matter of truth and lies. In my early Christian life the question was presented pretty simply – truth is found in the bible and lies were whispered by a personal devil. But the realisation that the bible could (judging by Christian history and denominational preference) be made to say whatever people wanted it to threw the cat amongst the pigeons for me. I came to realise that people tended to read their bible through the lens of their pre-existing political, ethical or moral opinions, and that they then used the fact they could find their opinions in the bible to bolster their confidence in what they’d always believed. Bye bye to simplistic truth-lies equations!

Simon

You’ve got me thinking Craig. In my Christian tradition (charismatic) I heard people talk about ‘discernment of spirits’, which at the time meant that people might be motivated by good or evil spiritual forces without knowing it. I don’t necessarily look for a demonic or angelic explanation for everything, but I am now much more aware that we don’t always know what is motivating us. Most of us think we are the ‘good guys’, which means what we want and what we do is assumed to be good until someone or something proves otherwise. We’re only just beginning to understand the human mind, but we know enough now to be sure that a lot of what we do happens very instinctively, and our justifications come afterwards. A bit like the Jesus parable about logs and specks, we probably need to learn discernment by practising on ourselves first. Why did this person make me angry or anxious? Why do I feel that I need to buy this unnecessary item? What is it that I’m really longing for? If we’re not able to find good answers to these questions we certainly shouldn’t be trying to make similar judgements about others. Yet we can begin to know ourselves and others.

What I think about this kind of discernment is that we are not trying to discern true or false, but rather a true or false self: is this person healthy and growing, or closed off and in denial? We are trying to discern good and bad, which feels more like a spectrum, rather than the black and white of true and false. When we make everything black and white we then impose good and evil on top: this person disagrees with me, therefore they are wrong, therefore they are evil. As well as causing a great deal of conflict, this approach reveals a person who is probably not yet ready to deal with the dark parts of their own character and motivations. Dave used the word godly, which I think is in this same realm of value and character rather than fact.

Dave

I agree that discernment must take into account our personal biases and interpretations, our passions and desires and our historical, theological, denominational and culturally manufactured world views.

Knowing my fellow associates in the Collective, these issues will be investigated from our many and varied perspectives; we are far from an homogeneous group where opinions and lived experience of following Jesus are concerned. I think this adds to our integrity as we live out our three foundational principles in our relationships with one another. 

Simon

I agree that notions of bias are very much related to this. We’re going to come back to biases in a separate conversation, but it’s worth saying that bias is not sin. If you are made aware of a bias that you have and then try to deny it or carry on regardless, that will probably be a bad move. However, having biases is completely normal and natural.

Craig

There are very few things that are true, in the sense that they are unchanging. Even laws of physics that are observably true within our atmosphere, or at a given temperature, will change if we are making our observations in space or on Mars. I have lost count of the number of Christians who tell me something is true based on their reading of a short text from the bible, but a straightforward examination of the context or culture in which it was written tells me their interpretation can’t be right. Yet they insist their view is true and, in one sense, they are right. The reason? Because the dictionary definition of truth also applies the word to ‘a fact or belief that is accepted as true’.

The very fact that truth isn’t fixed underlines the vital importance of discernment. There can be no textbook that tells me doing x, y or z will always be the right thing to do in every circumstance. I agree with everything that has been said by you all: discernment is focused on discovering what is loving and kind, what is godly and wise, and what is for now or may be for later.

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To be continued… in the next post we will be examining the problem of biases