The Need for Discernment (1)

Ephesians 4:14—That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.—reveals one more of three characteristics of spiritual maturity. We’ve examined unity and knowledge (v. 13).

Third, the final characteristic is discernment. As a church pastor and Christian leader, in the next several installments I would like to share something with true Believers that is one of the deepest burdens of my heart.

To introduce discernment, think carefully on this little story. The great Napoleon often told the tale of when he was visiting a certain province and came upon an old soldier with one severed arm. On his uniform he displayed the coveted Legion of Honor. “Where did you lose your arm?” Napoleon asked. “At Austerlitz, Sire,” came the soldier’s brisk reply. “And for that you received the Legion of Honor?” “Yes, Sire. It is but a small token to pay for the decoration.” Then the emperor said, “You must be the kind of man who regrets he did not lose both arms for his country.” “What then would have been my reward?” asked the one-armed man. “Then,” Napoleon replied, “I would have awarded you a double Legion of Honor.” With that the proud, old fighter drew his sword and immediately cut off his other arm. The story was circulated for years, until one day someone asked, “How?”

Ponder further; sometimes we accept sayings simply because they are pithy, such as the Earl of Kent’s remark in Shakespeare’s King Lear, “The stars above us govern our conditions.” This is just one of many references to that day’s common belief in Astrology. Other times we accept a proverb because it matches our own philosophy, such as Vince Lombardi’s famous declaration, “Winning’s not everything; it’s the only thing.”

People accept such ideas and uncounted others simply because they lack discernment, a word from the Latin discernere, which is comprised of dis, “apart,” and cernere, “to sift.” The Bible constantly, over and over again, emphasizes this principle: to separate and distinguish between in order to see and understand the difference. But far worse is how the lack of discernment has marched into the church like a plague of Driver Ants consuming everything in its path. Lost in the Church today is the ability to discern, to see the difference between truth and error. And the few who do dare to discern are labeled “unloving,” “divisive,” and “intolerant.” So what does Scripture say about discernment?

Here is undoubtedly the most graphic description in Scripture of the immature, unguided, undiscerning Christian. As the words henceforth be no more indicate, they obviously had previously been children, so the first thing Paul says is that this must cease. There are several characteristics of children that apply to the spiritually immature Christian.

First, children are ignorant. The Greek for children is nēpios, which is a combination of ne (“not”) and epos (“word”), so the literal idea is “one who cannot speak, that is, an infant.” Metaphorically, it pictures one who is “unlearned, unenlightened, simple, innocent,” and even “foolish;” when the ancient Greek philosophers wished to dismiss someone who was foolish in his views, they would use nepios with biting sarcasm. Writing to Christians in Greek society, Paul challenged the Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (I Cor. 13:11).

This point is, indeed, profound. After becoming a father, I often found myself thinking, “This child ought to know something, but he doesn’t; we’ve got to teach him everything.” And children will believe anything. They’ll believe there is a Santa Clause because we tell them there is (which really doesn’t say much for us, does it?). They’ll also try anything. They’ll try to see what small objects will fit into an electrical outlet, they’ll run into the street, they’ll eat the family dog’s food, and other things we wouldn’t believe unless we saw them. And that is precisely Paul’s point. The immature Christian knows either nothing at all or so little that he constantly gets himself into trouble.

Second, children are impulsive, they are tossed to and fro. This phrase is a singe word in the Greek, kludonizomai, an old nautical term “meaning to be tossed by the waves.” Children have a short attention span. They bounce from one thing to another. Babies will be drawn to a moving object one moment and a shiny one the next. Toddlers will play with a toy one moment and the box it came in the next. Immature Christians are the same, bouncing from one opinion to another, one teaching to another, with no discernment of which is better or even right. They’ll just grab onto anything and run with it. This leads to another characteristic, which we’ll examine next time.