Saturday, January 19, 2008

challies on discernment

Tim Challies in an interview with Michael Spencer.
Discernment cannot be understood as a practice that stands on its own. Neither is it something we do for its own sake—we are not discerning for the sake of discernment but rather for the sake of purity in doctrine and in practice. A person who wishes to be discerning must also be willing to take into account the Bible’s other teachings about loving one another, about speaking the truth in love, and so on. Many of these “discernment ministries” and “discernment blogs” seem to understand the importance of separating truth from error, even while falling into error in their responses. The Bible does not account for a lone wolf Christian making it his business to critique every author or teacher or ministry who happens to stumble into his crosshairs. In the book I suggest that the local church is the best and most natural context for the practice of discernment and I’ll stand by that!

Technorati Tags:

No comments:

reftagger