Tim Challies is here today to discuss his book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. Welcome, Tim!
AMY: Which aspect of contemporary Western culture do you think most hinders us (Christians shaped by this culture) from developing the skill of discerning the truth about God and His will? Which aspect of Western Christian culture? What practical steps can we take in our own lives to help us resist these particular cultural influences?
TIM: In the book's second chapter I deal with some of the negative influences that tend to keep Christians from emphasizing spiritual discernment. I mention internal, spiritual and cultural influences. There are four cultural influences that I write about there: a secular worldview, a low view of Scripture, a low view of theology and a low view of God.
Whenever I pause to think about these four influences I reach a different conclusion about which of them is most detrimental or most destructive. But maybe we could take one step further back and look to a different aspect of our culture and that is an unrealistic assessment of mankind. After all, if we get our own human nature wrong, we also get God wrong and Scripture wrong and everything else wrong. Our culture tells us that we are innately good at heart. It tells us that we are not the work of a loving Creator, but the result of an evolutionary process that "chanced" us into existence. We have no planned beginning and have no place to look forward to in the end. Even morality becomes something that has developed intrinsically rather than something that is extrinsic to us--something handed to us from God. Culture exults humanity and human reason to the place of divinity, determining that in our own minds we can prove that God does not exist. We elevate reason above the one who created it. In this cultural atmosphere it is increasingly difficult for Christians to have a realistic, biblical assessment of their own nature and hence their own depravity.
Discernment is a skill that is necessary because of our sinfulness. In heaven we will have no need for discernment as good and evil will no longer be in conflict. We will have a prefect appreciation of the vast difference between God and man and will truly understand who we are. But today we continue to elevate ourselves and to lower God. The more highly we think of ourselves and the more we blur the lines between humanity and deity, the more difficult discernment will be.
When we consider which aspect of Western Christian culture most hinders us, sadly, we do not need to consider anything too vastly different. Western Christian culture today bears such a resemblance to the secular culture that in many cases they are nearly indistinguishable. Where mainstream civilization struggles, so too will Western Christian culture. So I suppose the Christian culture's persistent refusal to truly separate itself from the world is what most hinders us from developing discernment.
To resist these influences I think we need primarily to think biblically; we need to think Christianly. We need to develop the mind of Christ so that we understand ourselves the way we truly are and the world the way it truly is. We need to be mature, discerning, growing Christians who are dedicated to knowing God and to living in the way that He commands us in His Word. As we mature in the faith, we will grow in our discernment and we will rejoice ever more in good and be grieved ever more by what is evil. The only way to maturity is to dedicate ourselves to those ordinary means of grace God gives us--prayer, the reading of Scripture, fellowship with other Christians, and the like. These are the means God gives to teach us both to think and to be more like Him.
