Too Much Spicy Food or Wisdom from a Dream?
After
reading Job 4.13 I
found myself contemplating 'discernment
The Apostle Paul lists 'discernment' as a gift of the spirit. There are charismatic leaders with television programs who exercise what they call 'discernment,' 'word of knowledge,' 'prophecy,' and 'word of revelation.' There are individuals in churches who will practice similarly. While there are definitely occasions where a bit of 'revelation' will come to someone for a particular situation, it is also probable that many of the occasions referred to as the exercise of a gift of ministry or gift of the spirit, is really something less than phenomenal and actually attributable.
'Attributable' is the important difference between an actual manifestation of the supernatural and something that is exercised in cloaked dishonesty. If someone has a bit of information from any source, but pretends to have received it divinely - that is dishonest!
So, too, is the presumption that a dream is a divine guidance or warning when, really, we should have had a seltzer or bismuth before we went to bed after having eaten pizza or rigatoni for supper.
It is spiritually dishonest to presume to make statements as being from God when they are based upon a personal bias or irritation. It is ethically and morally inexcusable to couch manipulative and/or chastising comments with spiritual jargon which would intimate that what we are about to say is a divine revelation. I once overheard two men in the church fellowship hall one Sunday morning talking about a television evangelist. One man said, "Did you hear (so and so) this morning? He was really anointed!" The other man replied, "Anointed? I heard him. I thought he was just mad."
How often is a message based in anger or a sense of personal urgency and presented in such a way as to be understood as the Voice of God?! Eliphaz used mystical language, a neat little thing that Christians are so good at doing today. Verses 12 - 16 are totally manipulative. They are designed to create a sense of the supernatural, the ethereal, the great "mystery" - as the Early Church fathers were fond of saying.
Was it God or was it Eliphaz? It was Eliphaz using great little tools like cynicism and guilt. There is an old Greek philosophical principle that evaluates outcomes with the intention that the end result outweighs methods and means.
It has resurfaced in our world. It justifies using fear tactics to 'drive' people to God. It justifies 'teaching to the test' so that students score sufficiently high enough on the standardized tests to keep the school in the good graces of the government. It justifies using less than honest methods of manipulating public opinion to mobilize for war. It justifies horror stories to keep kids from doing things.
In the gospel of John, chapter three, we find this little verse - "that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit."
In the long haul we will recognize those whose methods were rooted in manipulation. The Bible says, " by their fruit you will know them..." In the short haul - the kingdom of God suffers violence by these violent people. Those who aren't honest violate spiritual principles and in doing so do violence to the cause of Christ. Most of them are too self absorbed and ignorant to even know it.
Don't be fooled. Discern the spirits (motivations) and rebuke those that aren't "from God."