Hebrews 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil
Probably every parent and grandparent knows the feeling of giving your little child something pungent to eat, maybe a lemon or pickle, and then watching the response. I recently took a video of my granddaughter tasting her first lemon. Her face is totally neutral, then she encounters this lemon. She just puckers up her little lips, and you can tell she can discern this is not something she has had before. The reaction was just priceless.
Job’s friend Elihu says in Job 34:3, “For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.” So, when it comes to food, you should be able to discern one thing from another, sour from sweet and sweet from savory, using your tongue. Likewise, you should test the words you hear and the words you use. Try them before you buy them. Are they true, appropriate, and timely?
Mature Christians are discerning Christians. Hebrews 5:14 talks about discernment, “But strong meat [solid food] belongeth to them that are full age [full grown], even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern [divide, distinguish] both good and evil.” He is not talking about moral good and evil necessarily, although it would include that. He is talking about distinguishing that which is worthless from that which is not. In other words, mature Christians are discerning Christians. They are not merely gaining knowledge, but are using that knowledge to make decisions by distinguishing and judging things that are different.
We are living in a day, especially with AI and everything that encompasses, where it is more important than ever before to know what is false and what is true, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. How do we become discerning and mature Christians? If one doesn’t have a lick of sense, one is not mature and godly. Mature Christians are discerning Christians. How do you become discerning?
First, God’s Word is the source of discernment. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.” The sharp edge of a sword divides one thing from another and so does the Word of God. It goes on, “Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
So, God’s Word is a source of discernment. There is no good or evil without a standard. If someone says, “That’s not fair” or “That’s not right,” by what metric do they make that statement? If we decide what is good or bad by socially voting on it, then good changes every ten years. There are people who live that. But there is no good or evil without some standard of what good and evil is. If there is no God, there is no good. If there is no God, there is no evil. If there is no God, there is only what is of utility. Therefore, there is no discernment without submission to the ultimate authority.
First Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural man [without Christ] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” So, the Pharisees could discern the signs in the sky about whether it would be rainy or sunny and a child can discern sour from sweet, but you are not spiritually discerning unless you can tell good from bad, evil from virtuous, and better from best. There is no discernment without submission to an authority. It is a source of discernment.
Second, exercise is the key to discernment. I heard a gentleman on a podcast recently who was an accomplished weightlifter. He had trouble when he first started in weight training because he was a vegan. The Bible says here that solid food belongs to them that are of full age and by reason of their habit of use they “have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” So, the Word of God is the source, but exercise is the key. You are going to strengthen whatever you exercise. This skill is both spiritual and practical. How do you discern counterfeit money? It is by handling the real thing more than anything else.
Truth by definition can be divisive, but it can also be uniting. God’s truth divides what is right from what is wrong. There has to be some standard beyond oneself. When it comes to your life, music, movies, preaching, politics, how do you know what is right or wrong? Hebrews 6 says, “Let us go on unto perfection.” If I am going to be a growing Christian, it is not merely a matter of knowing a lot of facts, being saved, or knowing Christ for a long time. It is a matter of by habit thinking through the issues of my life. What is this movie trying to portray? What is the thinking behind it? What does this music communicate? What does this preaching communicate from the Word of God? Now I need to listen to preaching with an open heart, but I need to be critical to the point of thinking about what the Bible says. In Acts “they searched the scriptures daily [to see] whether those things were so.” That is what a discerning person does.
We need to not just know what is going into our minds, but how to digest what is going in. That is an everyday habit. Mature Christians are discerning Christians. What about you? Your tongue can tell the difference between sour and sweet and your eye can tell the difference between a cloudy and sunny sky. Do you have spiritual discernment to know what is right and wrong and are you exercising that ability in your life today? That is something that can and should be cultivated. May God help us to do that in the things we hear, think, and say today.