When was the last time you saw “Discernment” posted as a colorful construction-paper acorn-shaped virtue on a fall-themed Sunday School bulletin board?  If you’re like me, the answer is “never.”  Sure, you can always find “prayer” and “faith” and “love” and “returning books on time to the church library” and all of those other wonderful Sunday School ideas, but “Discernment” rarely makes the list.

This disturbs me, because it seems to me that discernment is one of the most harped-on virtues in all of the New Testament.  Discernment needs to get its due.

I could quote all the various passages from the New Testament that encourage people to be discerning, or, in others, to use their brains like smart people, but I won’t because I try to keep my C-Files under 700 pages in length.  But if you don’t believe me, just open your Bible to some random passage in a Pauline letter, such as Ephesians, and start reading.  It won’t be long before Paul will say something to the effect of “Why do I have to keep writing to you people about petty irrelevant side issues?   Can’t you figure anything out for yourselves?”

Well, Paul, in answer to the question you “asked” in Chris’s slightly facetious paraphrase, the reason people can’t figure anything out for themselves is that people are stupid.  I should know, as evidenced by the following bit of predicate calculus reasoning:

Is-Person(x) -> Is-Stupid(x)

Is-Person(Chris)

---

Is-Stupid(Chris)

Having direct experience with stupidity, I can say that discernment does not come as naturally to us people as it should.  We like things to be very clear, very explicit, very cut-and-dry, very vanilla-or-chocolate-please-don’t-give-me-any-other-flavors-especially-rainbow-sherbet-because-it’s-disturbing.  When we come across a modern moral dilemma such as “Should we partake of food offered to pagan idols?” we really want God to give us a simple “Thou shalt not” and be done with it.  We just hate it when God says, “You’re a smart boy.  You know what I want.  Figure it out on your own.”

I know because I just hated it when my high school teachers weren’t explicit about instructions for a project.  The more open-ended the assignment was, the more the assignment curdled my blood.  I have definite perfectionist tendencies, and if I don’t know exactly what’s expected of me, I tend to go a little crazy as a result.  I always wanted to do everything just right, and I hated it when the standards weren’t clear.  I also hated it when the teacher graded you on things that he or she didn’t exactly tell you he or she was going to grade you on.  “You should have known I would take off 25 points for using blue ink,” just never went over well with me.

For others, it’s more a matter of knowing what the bare minimum is.  Most people have no interest whatsoever in going above-and-beyond the call of duty, so they like it when a minimum level of effort is defined.  Thus, it would be nice if God just laid out the rules and said, “Ok, people, here’s the deal.  Every time you do a good deed, that’s a point.  If you have 25 points for every year of your life by the time you hit the gates of heaven, that’s enough for entry.  Any additional are bonus and can be spent listening to the Hosts o’ Cherubim or exchanged for any number of Treasures in Heaven.  Just to make sure there’s no confusion, you can check your status online at www.make-your-calling-and-election-sure.gov.  Is that good with everybody?  All right, then, break!”

Sadly, God did not say that.  But many people would like for him to have said that so much that they are willing to believe he said that in spite of such things as, say, all the evidence.  So people turn the New Testament into a checklist of arbitrary rules, almost as if the New Testament were just Leviticus: The Sequel.  “See?  Paul says to greet one another with a holy kiss!  This is clearly a timeless command and not a temporal suggestion.  So let’s see some holy kissing!”  So they perform the “rules” to the best of their ability, and sometimes forget all that vague stuff about living lives of faith and love.

“God didn’t explicitly outlaw smoking crack, therefore it must be okay,” goes the line with some people.  And while smoking crack would certainly explain such sentiments, is it too much to ask that we emphasize discernment a little more here and there?  The Bible is not a school code of conduct (thank goodness) or the Alabama Code of Law (thank goodness even more), nor is it a robust algorithm for our lives.  We’re expected to use our brains.  God provided the principles as well as numerous examples of application of those principles.  Is it too much to ask that we use a little induction here?  A little common sense?

We don’t have to fear getting things wrong.  God is God, after all, and he understands and he’ll take care of us.  We do have to fear distorting the nature of God so much that we pervert everything that Christianity is supposed to be.

In case you don’t believe me about the evidence bit, here are a few key passages from 1 Corinthians I thought I might mention to help you out, as well as make the C-File conform to the arbitrary length I selected so long ago:

“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.... the spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment.” – 1 Corinthians 2:12-15

“If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?  Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?  And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels?  How much more the things of this life!  Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church!  I say this to shame you.  Is it possible that there is nobody wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?” – 1 Corinthians 6:1-5

“Brothers, stop thinking like children.  In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” – 1 Corinthians 14:20