Rodgers Atwebembeire is my name from the Africa Center For Apologetics Research.
A ministry that equips believers especially to develop and promote biblical discernment.
We have learnt in the past that discernment is a very very important topic in the life of
a believer and that in fact a necessary one that should be developed by every believer especially
in the face of deception. And having discussed this, you may be saying, "But what can we do?
How do we develop? How do we practice this biblical discernment?" Now, I could give you a few
ways in which we can do this: 1) We must begin by recognizing that discernment is a necessary
fruit of discipleship. That if you do not know what is true you cannot know what is false.
You cannot be a discerning person if you are not studying your Bible. Sadly many Christians today
have put their Bibles under their pillows and every day they are crying, "God speak to me,
please God speak to me." But their bibles are closed. No wonder when a false prophet
or false apostle comes and speaks they cannot tell the difference because they don't know what the
Bible says about that particular topic. Believers must always remember that the spiritually immature
are pitifully tossed here and there by all kinds of winds of doctrine and clever deceivers
as we find in Ephesians 4:14. But you should also remember that Hebrews 5:14
talks about those who are spiritually mature - it says that only the spiritually mature
can distinguish between good and evil and are able to receive solid food that is nourishing,
that is strengthening and that is doctrinally sound. So for us to even talk about the necessity
and fruitfulness of discernment, we have to ask the question, "Are our church members
discipled? Are believers being intentionally and strategically grounded in the biblical truth?"
Because only by knowing the truth can they easily discern what looks like but actually is not.
2) We must remember that discernment is not just a necessary fruit of those who are discipled but
it is also a necessary spiritual survival skill in today's world. That as believers we are called
to put on the full armor of God because there is a true spiritual warfare that is going on all around
us. The battle between truth and error continues to rage, the conflict between right and wrong
is on and obvious. How can believers respond? By differentiating what is true from what is not
and for that to happen they must embrace biblical discernment. With discernment we
not only call for it but we especially appeal to the pastors and Christian leaders to be at the
forefront of training their members in biblical truth so that they can develop discernment.
Training women and children especially who are vulnerable to the cult missionaries that
knock on their doors when men have gone out to work. Training those who are involved in
Bible training and ministry so that they can be the kind of pastors who are discerning but also
who teach their loved ones how to discern cultic groups, how to discern and spot false teachings,
ways in which they can biblically test those who claim to be prophets but actually are not. 3)
We have a responsibility as the church to address what I call misguided resistance to biblical
teaching and biblical discernment. And this can come at the level of leadership but also at the
level of followership. Among leaders for instance, we have leaders who fear to teach their members
discernment because they are scared that when people become discerning they will be critical,
argumentative and love debates and might even challenge their own pastors. So to avoid them
being challenged they never talk about the need to discern. There are those pastors who fear that
when they encourage the lay believers to search the Scriptures on their own, lay believers might
begin to ask questions that the pastors are not able to answer or they might begin to challenge
the theology of their own pastors which would not be good for them and therefore they shy away
from teaching it. But what about the challenges at the followership level? Lay believers often
do not understand or appreciate the need and necessity of discernment. Sometimes they do
not see why discernment should be a priority and the responsibility of every believer.
Sometimes they are not even aware that there is such a thing as discernment. And so leaders
being able to teach their followers of the need and necessity of discernment
goes a long way in helping them to be on guard and to be able to not fall victim to the attacks
of false teachers and their teachings. You will also notice that there are many misunderstandings
about biblical discernment that need to be sorted out. Whenever someone is discerning
they usually experience resistance from other believers who for instance will be telling them
that they are not supposed to judge. And they usually go to Matthew 7 that we are not supposed
to judge therefore you should not be able to tell the difference between right and wrong.
Some will use Psalm 105 which says, "Do not touch the Lord's anointed." Some of the pastors will use
that 'Touch not God's anointed. If you say I am wrong in what I'm teaching I could curse you or
God will judge you.' We have those who again who will be saying that we are not supposed to be
wrangling about words that are not necessarily important and they will quote passages like 2
Timothy 2:14 which is usually a misinterpretation. Because this is not just a debate about words that
don't matter. Discernment is always at the level of fundamental teachings of the Christian faith.
That we care about those teachings which if believers get wrong they could actually lead
into their own eternal condemnation. It's not a question of wrangling about words. It
is a question of talking about teachings of the faith that matter and can actually
affect our eternal destiny. It is important that the Church understands the importance
and priority of biblical discernment today if we are to be able to identify false teachers,
expose them and guard the faithful believers from being taken into error and the deception.