Discernment that Comes Alongside

Discernment often takes the appearance of a battlefield—a time of throwing grenades at others of insults, snide remarks, sarcastic comments, and the like. We yell, “False teacher!” after cherry picking a random quote. We spread heresy nets waiting for someone to fall in. Yet we talk about being gracious, gospel-centered, grace-filled people in every other aspect of our lives. Why do we forget to apply this to our discernment?

When dealing with true false teachers—those who are not believers, continue to spread heresy despite warnings, and who are equipped to know better—we should separate ourselves. They are not siblings of Christ. This is the kind of discernment Paul used for the Judaizers and Jesus used for the religious leaders. But what about a fellow believer who perhaps misspoke or is still learning how to teach and share about their faith? This story from Acts may provide some instruction for our flaming hearts:

“Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus” (Acts 18:24–28).

What if like Priscilla and Aquila, we came alongside our brothers and sisters (rather than stamping them as heretics) and sought to explain the truth from God’s Word? What if our goal was not to win the argument, not get a laugh from the onlookers with our sarcasm, but to see the gospel furthered and our siblings in Christ by using their gifts to the full glory of God in accuracy? What if by our discernment, people could see the grace we were given? 

God calls us to display the kind of love that binds us in unity, not widdles another boundary marker. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:12–14).

As people who are changed by grace and received new life, our love must be radically different from the world. We are called to be compassionate, showing sympathy to one another even when we think the concern is ridiculous. Kindness is to go before us, even when others are cruel. Humility should cover us as we consider others better than ourselves. We are to be patient, even with the most trying people. Forgiveness and grace are to colour our conflicts.

In other words, we are called to be like Christ. We are to be like our perfect Saviour, who cried with compassion when he saw the people mourning for Lazarus (Luke 11:17–35). He kindly dealt with the wayward woman at the well (John 4:1–26). The Creator of the world humbly came to earth to die on the cross for us (Phil. 2:1–11). The King overall meekly accepted insults (Is. 53:7). Despite his perfection and power, he deals patiently with us (2 Pet. 3:8–9) and forgives all our sins (Eph. 1:7).

We can’t forget from the shadows Christ redeemed us from either. We are people who were shown abundant grace. We hated God. Our hands clung to idols. Our ears were tickled by false teaching. We believed in errors. Our mouths poured out poor doctrine. Yet God showed us grace; he removed the veil from our eyes and melted our hearts. He showed us the true gospel and led us to repentance and put faith in our hearts to believe it. We must act knowing the kind of grace we have been shown as we deal with fellow believers who make mistakes in their teaching. 

This may feel like an impossible task. How could I ever show this kind of love, even to those I do not like, even those whose words make me cringe when they teach? Thanks be to God who gave us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live out this kind of love. We will fail, but our Heavenly Father is even more gracious than us and forgives such trespasses.

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