How often have you lamented the obvious lack of discernment among evangelicals?  Very often, I should hope! From so-called Holy Yoga to claims that God speaks to us apart from Scripture, evangelicals practically wallow in unbiblical teachings and practices! Plainly, 21st Century Christians need to cultivate discernment skills.

I thought about this problem as John and I read the Bible together this morning.

¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, ¹³ for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. ~~Hebrews 5:11-14 (ESV)

The Hebrews who originally received this letter had begun reverting to the Law of Moses, supposing that doing so would secure their salvation. They had forgotten the basic Gospel message of salvation because of Christ’s substitutionary work on the cross. As a result, they couldn’t handle deeper teaching, which would have provided the necessary discernment to avoid serious error.

Ladies, Biblical discernment doesn’t come from reading even the most responsible discernment blogs. Those blogs are undeniably helpful for identifying problems and problematic teachers, but genuine discernment comes only through learning right doctrine.

Oh, I know — studying Scripture and listening to expositional preaching isn’t nearly as fun as reading the latest dirt on Beth Moore or the Charismatic Movement. But without the underpinning of sound doctrine derived from reading and studying the Bible, you can’t really discern the Scriptural reasons for rejecting these things.

I’m all for reading Michelle Lesley, Elizabeth Prata and Leslie A. And the men at Pyromaniacs should by no means elude your radar! But the time is coming (perhaps sooner than we think) when the purveyors of the Internet will pull the plug on blogs that practice discernment. We won’t be a mouse click away to warn you of distractions from the Gospel.

You lose discernment by prizing exposes over Bible Studies. You lose discernment by considering doctrine boring and irrelevant. You lose discernment by expecting bloggers to spoonfeed you when Scripture gives you tools for discerning good from evil.

For that reason, reputable discernment bloggers will always encourage you to develop good Bible study habits and find churches that faithfully preach verse-by-verse exposition. You need the solid food of doctrine, not the junk food of surface level heresy hunters.

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