The Art of Discernment

Well, today is Friday, July the 14th. I'm Jon Galantis, and I'm here with Dr. Abaddon Shah. You're listening to The Clearview Today Show with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodaysShow.com, or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest that we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028.

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We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And Dr. Shah, today's verse of the day is coming to us from Philippians. That's in chapter one and starting in verse nine, it says this, Paul says, and this, I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment. So you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. What a great prayer. That discernment is what we all need.

Yes. And I hope we'll pray that prayer over our children, over our spouses, over our church family. We need to pray that prayer that people in our lives will have a sense of discernment. Discernment means, it's a very tricky word because on one hand, we think discernment is like discerning between right and wrong or between good and bad, but it's not quite like that. It's about being, it's that little tiny sliver of difference between this is the way versus this is almost the way. Like when you take exams like GRE or SATs, a lot of those synonyms that they ask for in the test, it's not like the second choice is wrong or the third choice is off.

It's just that it doesn't match perfectly what is being talked about in that statement. So discerning is knowing that little bit of difference and saying, no, I see there's a problem here, which may not manifest itself now, but down the road, it's going to be a big difference. This is a good illustration that you've given us over the years to operate as though we're jet pilots. I imagine it's just someone who lives in a village somewhere and they're riding a donkey and they kind of come to a fork in the road and there's a left and a right. I got a 50-50 shot and I've been there, been somewhere before. I know I need to take the right road.

It's a very simple, easy, divergent choice. We think the Christian life is like that. I know what's right and I know what's wrong, so I just do it right. But then you've got someone like a jet pilot where you have all these degrees and these dials and these switches and I can turn this, but if I turn it even a couple of degrees too much, it's going to throw me all off course.

And Christian life, and I'm not trying to add undue pressure on people, but what I'm saying is just being able to know through the Holy Spirit, through the truth of the Word of God, that this sounds just like the truth, but it's not. And then you walk away from that and you choose the other option. You go, oh, this is why. That's to me is discernment. You know, with the new building kind of coming along nicely next door, I wonder if there's a story in your life where maybe you might not have been as discerning as you could have been.

Like if there were maybe some tar and you brought the, because see, here's the thing, when you're in construction, you have this new building, you want to make it as nice and as clean as possible. So we've been kind of talking about stuff like that. It reminded me of a story that you told me once when you were a kid. I thought maybe, I don't know if you've ever told this story on the podcast.

I don't think I did. So the way it went is our church building was sitting on this crossroads and they were repairing the road. In fact, they were putting a whole new road in India, right at my dad's church. We're putting a whole new road. And so, you know how, how it happens when these road constructions begin, it's like a year long process. And so they dropped off these big drums of tar right by the fence.

All right. And they, and they worked on the roads and the big bulldozers and everything would come and do their job. And then when they left, they left this one drum of tar in our church parking lot. They just left it there.

And it sat there. And so it was a great opportunity for us kids to go in there and make lollipops. So you would take these sticks, stick them in there.

Of course, the weather is already hot. So there was already melted tar. We stick it in there, get a little bit going on, like, you know, on the end of the stick. Then we take it out and we would rub it together with our hands and make it get your hands all tarry and stuff. It didn't get that tarry because, you know, tarry, if you ever really work with it and you got a little bit of oil, it's not going to, it'll leave a little bit of a black residue, but it won't stick all to your hands.

It won't necessarily stick there. Yeah. That's what makes tar so unique. It's got oil in it. That's why kids feel like they can play around in it and stuff. Yeah.

They play around with this. And if it gets on your clothes, now you're done. Now you're done. It's over. Your parents see it. Oh yes.

It's over. So a bunch of us kids were messing with this tar drum and, you know, just making lollipops. And then one of those kids decided to take it in the church and leave it on the church pew.

Now who was the kid? That was me. So you took it in. So you took the lollipop in.

I mean, you clearly, y'all weren't going to eat it. It was just kind of fun to do. Hey, you want to try it? I'll do it if you dare me. No, don't, don't do it.

Don't do it. Watch this. So you took it into the church, laid it on the pew, forgot about it. And thank goodness it was not a cloth, like a fabric pew. It was just wooden pews. Our church had only, well, since I left back in the early nineties, I left in 91, they've added a cushion to the pews. Nice. But in the day, back in the day when you were there, it was just a wooden pew. Oh, wooden pew.

Yeah. So what happened? Did your parents find out you did it or did you notice? When the church was over, who was going to pick up the lollipop stick? No, I just ran out to play with my friends and then it hit me. Oh no.

So yeah. Long story short, dad and a couple of the guys at church cleaned up that bench and he had a way of like not saying much, but I, he already, I didn't make a whole lot of mistakes growing up. I was like a good kid. So all they had to do was say once. And I was just like, yeah, you kind of learn after that.

So this, this experience in a way helps you to become more discerning as a, I think so don't take tar lollipops in the church with you advice to live by guys. We are going to start the show in just a moment, but first we're going to break for an ad read. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, anything we can be talking about on the show, let us know.

Text us at two five two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com and we'll be right back after this. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clear View Today listeners. My name is Jon and I'm David and we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shah's work and that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shah PhD. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know, if you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe hop off the podcast.

David, I'm just pop off the podcast play and keep listening. Dr. Shah is actually the lead pastor of Clear View Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God honoring lives. One of the four core values of Clear View Church is that we're a Bible believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the word of God spoken into your life. And God's word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the Sermons by Abaddon Shah PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clear View app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes, but you can also find the podcast on the Apple podcast app or on our website at ClearViewBC.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading, you can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shah's website AbaddonShah.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in.

All right. Well, welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest we talk about here on the show, let us know. You can send us a text message at 252-582-5028. And you can also email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. And if today's your first time ever listening with us, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who it is that's talking to you today. Dr. Abaddon Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. You can find all of his work on his website.

That's AbaddonShah.com. Talking about discernment today. Talking about discernment. So it's a word that Christians either don't use a lot of or kind of like you said in the beginning, we, we misunderstand what discernment means. We have discernment everywhere in life. You know, we can see somebody walking past our car and we're like, oh wait, this person, I'm not sure if he is, he's got an ulterior motive or we sit in restaurants or we sit in a public building, we sit up against the wall because we want to make sure we watch the door.

You know, some of the guys who are in law enforcement know what I'm talking about. So we are discerning about so many things about food and you know, so much, but when it comes to our mind, what we believe, especially with regards to doctrine, we allow anyone and everyone to speak into our lives. That's exactly right. We feel like we have to, in order to be fair and to be good, open-minded Christians, we have to give everybody a platform to speak into our lives.

Yeah. Everybody has a, has a right and they have a microphone or they have a social media platform and they have a right to tell me and I have to just sit there and listen to them. And my challenge to people is no, you don't. The Bible commands us to be discerning, especially regarding false teachers. Well, that's, that's exactly what I was about to say too, is, is that you, everybody has an opinion.

That's true. But we, but there is, there has to be a clear line where opinions don't come into doctrine because doctrine is what we're building our lives and our faith upon. One thing that has helped me through the years is even though many times I didn't understand an issue completely, looking towards people in my life or people that I admired and overall trusted them, I felt like they had credibility.

I would watch to see where they stood and then I would go stand there. Even though I didn't understand all the ramifications and all the intricate details and arguments of that position, I just knew that if they're going there and I know this is also what they believe and I agree with that because it lines up with the text, I just don't know enough about that issue. I'm not going to go out there and say, you know what? So I'm going to check it out myself. No, I'm going to go stand there until the one day that I will understand.

Or one day I have time to dig into it. Read the necessary articles, the critical studies on that subject. How much do you think social media has played a role in the lessening of Christian's discernment over the years? Wow, that's a great question.

That's a great question. I would say ever since the coming of social media, so we're going back to like 2005, right? I didn't get on the bandwagon until 2008. Wow. So ever since then, it seems like anybody who can convincingly make their statement is an expert.

Yeah. Now I think it's changing a little bit because people are going, now you're not an expert. You just read Wikipedia or you're just parroting what you just Googled five seconds ago.

You're not an expert. I think it seems to be exactly what you're saying. Like you're parroting something that you've read. But at the same time, we tend to think that people who hold these strong opinions aren't doing it in order to deceive us. But the Bible says that people are going to come who are trying to deceive us. I know this is a weakness of mine is I'm way too, almost naive to put ill intent on someone. Like, okay, clearly they don't mean any ill intent. So let's just figure out what's actually going on.

Maybe they do. Maybe the Bible, maybe the Bible, this is crazy, but maybe the Bible is right. And it may not be in the sense like I'm going to deceive you. It's more of, I'm going to get some glory for self because all these false teachers in a sense are glorifying themselves. And we'll see that in a few moments in the second John passage, it's about themselves. It's not about Christ.

It's not about truth. If this gets me more followers, if this gets me the bestseller books, if this makes me an influencer, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do this. Now this is going to tear down this church. It's going to tear down this organization. I don't care. I'm just, I'm going to do this, but this needs to be done. And all those things are fine.

If you truly believe that what you have is the truth. Now, you know, I wish we had time to discuss some things, but maybe in the future shows we can, where I would say in the past 15 years there have been different movements, even in our own Southern Baptist convention, different movements have begun. Okay.

And they began with such a gung ho spirit that anybody who would even challenge that is considered to be either naive or outdated. Yeah. So most of us just kept shut, kept our mouth shut. You know, for me, I was like, you know what? Y'all do your thing. I'm going to keep working here because God's called me to this church for the rest of my life. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to, to work hard, work smart, trust the Lord and just minister, reach the lost, you know, encourage the saints. That's what I'm going to do. Reach the word.

And I just left it alone. But now after these 15 years, it's coming out that every one of those movements or those schemes or schemes is a hard word because at the time they were not considered to be schemes. They were considered to be, if we do this, we're going to save the convention. We got to do this. It's going to save our convention. And if you don't, we're going to die. So now who's going to say, Oh no, no, we're not going to do that.

We'd rather die. Yeah. So a lot of people just kind of backed off and the ones who did try to speak up were quickly silenced. And so a lot of changes were made. A lot of denominational structures were redesigned without any, without any assurance that this is going to work. They were redesigning the structures of the Southern Baptist, like the Southern Baptist Convention was redesigning its own structure. Well, I mean, there are things like the cooperative program, you know, I believe it's a wonderful thing.

I think it's been around for a long time and it works. It supports local church autonomy. It brings churches together with a rope of sand, rope of sand in the sense that, you know, we mind together, but we're not ordered by anybody. We do have a set of doctrines that we hold to. And if you don't, you can be kicked out.

But overall it's, it's such a mutual spirit of cooperation. Right. And but, but I would say maybe 15 years ago or so that that changed and it was almost like efforts were being made to sort of control churches.

Tell, tell, tell you, this is how this is going to be. And I don't think that's ever been a Southern Baptist spirit. Well, it's never been wise and it's just never worked in the long term. Right. I mean, I can't think of the, the, I mean, the obvious example I'm thinking of is like the Roman Catholic church with the reform, when the reform people came in and put a stop to all that.

But I mean, I can't see it working in the long term. I can't think of an example where the church controls its people and it lasts. Right. I mean, I'm not saying this, this is more denominational controlling the churches.

And again, please don't misunderstand me. I believe there are doctrines that we should hold to whether it's about church leadership or inerrancy of scriptures and those, I'm not talking about that. Yeah. We gotta, we gotta make sure if a church does not follow that, that they need to go on, do something else. And recently some of those things have happened. So I'm not talking about that.

Right. I'm talking about this effort to create something where the churches are not coming together because we're cooperating for a bigger purpose to reach the world, starting in America, but reaching the world instead it's become how can now the denomination tell us what to do. And I think people have done things and, and made decisions that now it's, it's, it's a disaster. Well I think that kind of goes back to what we're talking about with this sermon. It's like, who are you listening to?

Who are you giving that control over your mind and in your heart? Like, like I love how you put that we do have these doctrines that we hold to and bless. That's kind of something we talked about like on Monday's episode. Like we have these foundational beliefs. Okay.

We get that. But then who are you allowing to dictate what your further doctrines are or who are you allowing to tell you that the foundational beliefs that you hold to may not be as foundation as you like, like, you know what I mean? Like if someone were to come in and say, and this is, this is a hot button issue, but like with the, with the whole baptism thing that we've been talking about, like what happens when the convention starts to say, well, there really is a little bit more to it that we need to go into and maybe it is kind of necessary that you get saved.

That's a, that's a, that's a fantasy. It's not going to happen, but yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like at what point do you start discerning, okay, who should I really be listening to here?

Like, like who am I allowing that control into my mind? Right. Right. And if people are doing studies and you know, doing a fact finding mission on what's going on, how we can fix it.

Many times these studies already have a conclusion and then they go about to prove that conclusion. That's not right. That that's not how things should be done. Now, coming back to second, John, for a moment, it's, this is not about denominational structure.

Okay. This is about doctrine. So we're going much deeper here. Situation in that church. There were people who were walking away from the truth and even denying that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh means he was fully man. So how did John describe them? Listen to the epithets, listen to the adjectives, I guess he uses for them. He says, this is a deceiver and an antichrist. Verse seven, second John verse seven, many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. He's not mens and words here.

You don't play with these people. Yep. Right.

Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Now, when we're talking about the denominational structure and all of that stuff, that's a different issue. Here's there's doctrine, but even there, I would say, look to yourselves, Southern Baptist, that we do not lose those things we work for. That's right. That's exactly right. But with regards to doctrines, make sure we have fought for the deity and humanity of Christ.

Let's not lose that, that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the father and the son.

I love that, that he's keeping Christ at the center. If you don't abide in the doctrine of Christ, then you don't have God. And there's, there are some people who try to get around Christ to God.

Right, exactly. And so John is warning them. And then he says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him. For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. But John, but John, we're called to love people and we're called to be nice to people and we're called to be kind.

That's the, that's the word of 2022 and 2023 is to be kind. What do you think, David? Do you have something to add to this conversation? I think that they should just get on out.

Get on out. Have you had an incident that you can sort of nicely tell us about? Yeah. So I was actually, we were setting up a tent downtown for an event that was going on in the city where we, you know, kind of serve and we kind of help and we kind of help anybody that needs a hand up. And something that happened was we were sitting out in the parking lot, waiting for the tent to come. And as I see the tent, like rolling up, I also see two guys and I was like, who are these guys?

And the closer I looked at their attire, I'm not going to say, I guess I'm not going to call anybody out specifically, but the closer I looked at their attire, the more I realized they were of a certain religion. They were from Utah, maybe? Maybe from Utah. They could have been from Salt Lake. Salt Lake City. Okay.

Okay. Maybe like a Brigham Young sort of thing. Yeah. Kind of like that.

Like BYU, I don't know, Joseph Smith, whatever. But I saw these two guys roll up to two of the guys that were helping us set up the tent. And I looked at Ryan and I said, are those, are those who I think they are? And he was like, yeah, I think they are. I was like, no.

So I got out of the car, shut the door. I walked over there. They walked over to our youth. Yeah. Two of our youth guys.

Yeah. That were helping set up the tent. It would have been one thing if they had walked over to you or to Ryan, one of our adults, and said, hey, we're from so-and-so we're just out here. But they're going after the kids.

They went after the kids. Yep. So I walk over and I was like, hey, are you guys with BYU? And they were like, they were like, uh, yes, sir, we are. And I was like, okay, well, we're good.

You guys can leave. And they were like, oh, are you? I was like, yeah, we're, we're fine.

Thank you guys. And then he said, oh, so your church is Clearview church, right? And I was like, yes, sir. We're setting up a tent, but y'all we're good.

We don't need y'all here. And they kind of looked me up and down and then walked off, but it was tough doing that. But I think they should have also realized that if there's the, they knew this was a church function, something was happening here for them to have the boldness and the confidence to walk up or courage to walk up to our youth. And at that point, I think you did the right thing to say, Hey, you can't do that. Well, you certainly, you did the biblical thing.

That's what it says. If anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this doctrine, it doesn't say like, Hey, be kind and vitamin, you know, have a, have a, have, have coffee and tea and scones and try to convince them of the truth. It says, don't even receive him and don't greet him.

Right. So now if you're an adult and if you are well versed in scripture and you understand apologetics, by all means, engage people, don't be afraid. You know, just like Peter talks about always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within you with meekness and fear. So I'm not talking about that.

You can do that. But here in this situation, I think you use your discernment, which is, Hey, can go and start talking to our young people and for us to be just standing there. And it also illustrates the point that you made earlier, which I think we should make more and more of on this show is that we not only as Clearview church, but as Christians, we got to take this doctrine seriously. This is not, this is not something to play around with. This is not like everybody has their own opinion and we can all live together and be friends. It's not. Already the world, whether educational systems, universities or bestsellers or movies are already trying to take away the deity or the humanity of Christ.

Most of the time the deity of Christ and making out to be just some, some guy who died. You know, this is an old problem. It hasn't been going on for, you know, 2000 years. And so we cannot sit back and say, that's okay.

No big deal. Right now we need to stand up and, and, and, and speak for that. That's right. And so in this, in this letter, John says in verse six, if I'm backing up for a second, if that's okay. He said, this is love.

You want to know what love is? This is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in the truth.

That's right. Truth. So what is love? That you walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment that you have heard from the beginning that you should walk in the truth. And what is truth? Karen Jobes tells us in her commentary that John gives us the definition of truth in three points. Now here are the three points when it comes to truth. The man Jesus is the Christ, God's anointed King, the son of God has been incarnated as a human being.

Here's number three, the death of the son of God is the atonement for sin. Wow. Wow. He's referring to Christ, his, his identity, his incarnation, and then what he actually did, like the mission that he came to fulfill who he was, how he came and what he did.

I love it. And these are things that we need to recognize when people speak, when they talk, we need to recognize that and go, wait, you have a problem. I can't go along with that. And in order to do that, we need to know it. We need to be able to dig deep into the word.

We need to know our own doctrines. So the other day I was sitting there and somebody brought me this video of this preacher. I mean, he is railing against somebody. And I was like, man, that's good. What is, that's pretty good. And so I was like, wow, I wonder, is he Baptist? Who is he?

What is he? What does he believe? Oneness Pentecostalism. Oneness Pentecostalism goes against the Trinity. Oneness Pentecostalism says Jesus was simply a mode of God. So he is not the second person that God had. There is no second and third person.

Like when you get like new DMX lights or whatever, you just switch modes over at one time. Sometimes he is a spirit. Sometimes he's a father. Sometimes he's a son. That's oneness Pentecostalism.

Once again, I will challenge our listeners, challenge our viewers, be discerning, be bold. I'm not saying for a single moment, be hateful. Don't have to be hateful. Don't have to be mean, but don't be so lovey-dovey that people who don't believe in Jesus Christ or who deny that he came in the flesh, he was fully man, are somebody that we need to cajole with and just kind of slide up right next to them.

Because if the Bible says very clearly over here, what does he say? He said, he says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. Now, if you engage them for the gospel, I get it. If you're an apologist, okay. But if not, and if you're just being like, well, I'm just trying to be loving. Well, you're sharing in their evil deeds.

That's right. And this is a deep topic. We may continue this on Monday's episode, but right now we are out of time.

Dr. Shah, thank you so much. Cause this is something that Christians need to hear. I've made that mistake before. I'm just going to be nice to people and generous to people and I can win them with honey.

It more often than not does not work. So make sure you guys are being discerning in your Christian walk. If you've enjoyed this topic and you want to write in and suggest future topics for us to talk about, let us know, send us a text message to five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online and clear view today show.com. And don't forget, you can support us financially on that same website. That's clear view today show.com. Every time you give, every time you donate, you are making an impact for God's kingdom. So we thank you for that. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.