Discernment vital to Christian maturity

“The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.” (1 Corinthians 2:15)

This is the closest thing I’ve found in the Scripture to a definition of a spiritual person.

There are two more that are similar. In Philippians we’re urged to develop the ability to distinguish between things that are excellent, versus those that aren’t. Hebrews says that maturity in the faith means having your senses trained to discern good and evil.

“Discernment” is the watch-word in all of this.

True, mature spirituality is about being able to apply the word of the Lord to all the situations you encounter.

I ran across a flier advertising a church. It listed several things you would find if you attended. These included: Smiling wives. Obedient children. Loud singing. Strong handshakes. Young marriages. Good manners. Biblical preaching. Reverent worship.

Digging into it a little further, you’ll find the church is a member of a denomination that fits right in with the brand of fundamentalism featured in the recent documentary, Shiny Happy People.

The founder of the denomination is a pastor in Idaho whose own congregation has produced and protected multiple child sex offenders. It has generated an alarming bunch of police reports, books, and podcasts coming from now-adult victims of abusive families — families that were run in accordance with the teaching of the church and its founder.

There’s a reason why the flier above mentioned what it mentioned. That is, none of those things are marks of genuine spirituality, which I take to be the actual presence of the Holy Spirit.

They are all merely outward. They are all about appearances.

Wives and children who are being dominated or abused learn very quickly to straighten up, act right, and put on happy faces in public. The one abusing them can give you a nice, firm handshake. I can point you to a very successful preacher of “biblical sermons” in Albuquerque who built a megachurch and would tell you today that he didn’t know the Lord the entire time. All those things can be faked, forced, or counterfeited in an effort to look shiny and happy.

Here’s the flier I’d like to see: Broken people finding hope in Christ. Lives transformed. Forgiven sinners. People like you. Seeking God, not status. Sharing grace. Learning as we go. Happy to serve. Bible centered. Sincere welcomes. (But not always … sometimes we have bad days, too.)

That is a pretty accurate description of our own congregation.

We’re not trying to win any contests. We are what we are, and, to be very honest, that often frustrates me. But, we’re also not trying to be something we’re not. We’re keeping it a hundred, as the kids say.

We are aiming at maturity as the Scripture defines it. We want to be able to put the Bible into practice, which means using it as a guide to evaluate, critique, and (yes) judge every circumstance. Of course, the first step in that direction is the willingness to judge our own thoughts, actions, and motivations by that same standard.

You are welcome to join us. Hopefully you’ll catch us on a good day.

Gordan Runyan is pastor of Tucumcari’s Immanuel Baptist Church and author of “Radical Moses: The Amazing Civil Freedom Built into Ancient Israel.” Contact him at:

[email protected]