*A Reivew of: Tim Challies, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment

Tim Challies is well known to the blogosphere and to the world of Amazon.com Reviews. John MacArthur has it right when he says of Challies, “His weblog is a favorite stop for thousands of Christian readers every day.”

On his weblog and in his Amazon reviews, Challies seeks to assess how well or how poorly a book thinks biblically about life. In “The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment” he offers a practical theology of how to develop the spiritual discipline of discerning truth from error, right from wrong. Or, as he puts it, this book “is written for all those who believe that it is the duty of every Christian to think biblically about all areas of life so that they might act biblically in all areas of life.”

The current historical context for Challies’ work is vital. We live in a day and age where, because of information technology, everyone can write, and, everyone can write against everyone else. Thus, we find a plethora of counterfeit truth claims in Christianity today while at the same time finding an excess of self-proclaimed prophets of discernment whose main task in life seems to be exposing the supposed duplicity of false prophets, sheep-in-wolves clothing, and Trojan Horsemen sneaking heresy into the church.

Obviously, both of these extremes harm the cause of Christ. Counterfeit theology fails to speak the truth. Counterfeit “discernment ministry prophets” fail to speak in love, and, nine times out of ten, also fail to speak the truth about those they critique.

Into this vast wasteland Tim Challies speaks. His ten chapters should be required reading for both groups. Those who claim to teach newly emerging ideas of Christianity need to learn from Challies how to erect biblical theologies for their ministry models. Those who claim to have cornered the market on spotting counterfeits need to learn from him how to develop true, biblical, loving, humble discernment.

Chapter by chapter, Challies calls readers to guard the deposit of the pure Gospel of Christ’s grace. Quoting author J. C. Ryle, Challies notes that we spoil the Gospel through substitution, addition, interposition, disproportion, and by confused and contradictory directions.

The heart of the book addresses the question of how we really know truth. Challies challenges readers to the highest possible view of the sufficiency of Scriptures, which he defines as forsaking all subjective means of supposedly knowing God and instead founding spiritual discernment upon God’s objective revelation of himself in Scripture. While agreeing totally with this foundational concept, it would be interesting to hear Challies and the authors of “Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit” (Wallace and Sawyer) engage one another. While Wallace and Sawyer believe 100% in the sufficiency of Scripture, they eschew the idea among many Evangelicals who seem to make the Trinity: “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Scriptures.” This overly rational, Princetonian, modern, Enlightenment mindset often seems to eliminate the work of the Spirit in illuminating believers, replacing it with a mindset that seems to equate one’s interpretation of Scripture with the Scripture’s own inerrancy and inspiration. It confuses biblical, humble, openness and dependence upon the Spirit with “mysticism.” It confuses the use of God-given reason with the worship of rationalism. Saying that we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture is not enough. We must all acknowledge that we inevitably bring our self, our personality, our culture, and our experience to the text. How the Spirit works in the full human personality (relational, rational, volitional, and emotional) to help us to discern truth is perhaps a deeper issue that Challies might explore further in future works.

It is in chapter three that Challies defines discernment. “Discernment is the skill of understanding and applying God’s Word with the purpose of separating truth from error, and right from wrong.” Personally, I would add, “for the purpose of exalting and enjoying God by loving God with our whole heart and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.” This last part of the definition oft seems missing by some in the so-called modern “discernment” movement who seem to speak more to attack, than to attract, who seem to speak more to expose error without the commensurate motivation of restoring others to truth and reconciling relationships.

Challies further highlights our need to discern in the areas of doctrine and life: what is true about God and what is true about how we live for God. Spiritual discernment enlightens us to know who God is and to know the will of God for life—in terms of right and wrong behavior.

Since Challies states that discernment is a spiritual gift, in chapter seven he exegetes 1 Corinthians 12:10 and “the ability to distinguish between spirits.” He concludes that one cannot conclude whether this gift today is exactly the same as the gift of discerning of spirits in the early church. He concludes, based on a more expansive study of discernment throughout the Bible (rather than just based on 1 Corinthians 12:10), that there is a gift of discernment today. He notes, “People with this gift will have special ability to separate truth from error and to discern whether something originates with God or with Satan.” He further notes that even though not all have the gift, we all are to pursue this discipline.

One wonders if Challies were discerning this view from another author, if Challies might not chide that author somewhat. If we can’t demonstrate exegetically that it is a modern-day gift, then perhaps it is better not to call it a special spiritual gift given to certain saints, and rather do what Challies does in his last sentence of chapter seven and simply say it is a discipline that all should develop. It seems that some have jumped on this concept of a special, enduring spiritual gift for today (which may not be exegetically supportable), and concluded that they have been given the almost exclusive mantle of the prophet to expose error in a superior way to others in the Body of Christ.

Because of much current misuse of so-called “discernment,” I find chapters eight through ten the most crucial. In chapter eight, Challies exposes the dangers of discernment. Among these he lists items such as guilt by association and honor by association. These are two false, illogical, and ill-theological methodologies (mis)used extensively in the “discernment” movement. He also lists the error of failing to distinguish between the critical and the disputable. This is where “prophets of discernment” call others heretics because they disagree with them on an issue that the church has never labeled as one of the fundamentals of the faith. Witch hunting is another danger of discernment that Challies eschews. Challies rightly observes how “insufferable” such a process becomes and notes that “a person who continually stirs up anger and disagreement is committing an offense that the Lord hates.”

Challies also lists relying unduly on others, simplicity, pride, withdrawal, and truth without love as additional errors/dangers. This chapter is the proverbial “must read” for anyone who feels the subjective call to the ministry of “discernment.” Coming as it does from one of the young leaders in the area of true biblical discernment, it has a wonderful possibility of being heard and heeded.

Chapter nine is valuable for all readers—especially since God calls everyone to be discerning. Here Challies provides wisdom principles for developing wisdom. You can’t beat that.

While chapter nine highlights movement toward developing discernment, chapter ten emphasizes how to practice the ministry of discernment. Taken together, chapters eight through ten should become the manual for the discernment movement. Consecutively, they teach what not to do, how to mature in discernment, and how to practice the art of discernment: how to study the Bible, how to use the mind (reason), how to depend upon the Spirit, and how to read fairly other authors to discern truth from error. These three chapters are worth the proverbial price of the book.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of “Beyond the Suffering,” “Soul Physicians,” and “Spiritual Friends.”