In 1
Thessalonians 5:20-21 the apostle Paul instructs the church in Thessalonica:
‘. . . do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test everything, and hold on to what is good, . . .’
Paul is
clearly telling his readers to weigh up what is said when one of their number
claims to have spoken a prophetic revelation.
He wants them to be people who don’t accept prophecies as genuine without
examining them properly.
It is
possible that when Paul says ‘test everything’ here, he simply means that the
Thessalonians should test all prophecies.
That would fit the context. On
the other hand, however, he may be referring to testing more than just
prophecies. That would also make sense
of his words.
Nevertheless,
regardless of exactly what Paul was telling the Thessalonians to test when he
wrote this, it is surely true that he would have wanted Christians in his day
to make a habit of testing all kinds of important things. And it is just as certain that this would
have been God’s will too.
Testing things today
As far as
today is concerned, we should have no doubt that God wants Christians to be in
the habit of testing a wide variety of things, trying to find out if He
approves of them. We should constantly be
playing the role of spiritual sentries, only letting things pass when we have
received all the right answers to the questions we ask.
Testing
things in this way is something that every Christian, from the time of
conversion, should be doing. And it is
important for church leaders to encourage their flocks in this practice.
How do we test?
There are
various ways we can put something to the test:
First, we
can do our best to see if the thing in question fits with the teaching of the
Bible.
Second,
we should pray, asking God to give us insight.
Third,
just taking the time to think about things is often very useful.
Fourth, we
can get the advice of people we respect.
Our
ability to test things should improve as we mature spiritually. Nevertheless, it is a fact that before death
we will never be able to hear God clearly about everything. Part of what it means to live in this fallen
world is that we often have partial understanding of things and see them unclearly
(1 Corinthians 13:9-12). So we shouldn’t
be discouraged by those times when we try to test something but are unable to
discern God’s will.
Nevertheless, although we will meet with some failures, we should
also expect to have some successes. And
every Christian should therefore be doing his or her best to put anything of
importance to the test.
Failing to test is a big problem
In the
church today, the failure to test things properly is a big problem. Sometimes things God approves of are rejected
by Christians who are simply uncritically following the views of other people. And much more often, things God disapproves
of are accepted by Christians who are, again, just automatically following the
opinions of others.
There are
a number of areas in which Christians often fail to put things to the test properly. I will mention several important ones.
Failure to test the values of
society
First, there
is the failure to test the values of the societies in which we live.
As
someone who lives in a Western country, I see this constantly. Time and time again Western Christians
approve of things held in high esteem by Western society, without really stopping
to ask if society has got things right. Nor
is it just new Christians who do this. Often
believers of real spiritual maturity just unthinkingly follow the values of
society in various ways.
In
centuries past Western countries endorsed Christian values to a moderate extent. And today many believers seem to think that
the core values of modern Western society are similar to core Christian values. This, however, is a big mistake. Rather, the values of our societies need to
be put to the test.
Here are
some examples of the sorts of things that many Western Christians today approve
of without testing:
·
The
Western attitude to the will of the majority of people in a country
·
The
concept of human rights
·
The
United Nations
·
The
European Union
·
The
reign of the present British queen
·
The
American Declaration of Independence
·
The
French national motto
·
The
Olympic Games and similar events
·
The
space programmes of various nations
·
Nobel
Prizes
I would
suggest that everything on this list is in large part (although admittedly only
partly) opposed to the will of God. I
don’t want to give reasons why I believe this here, since it would take me too
far off topic. My aim in this article is
just to stress the importance of testing things, not to discuss individual
issues. Nevertheless, I think there can
be no doubt that large numbers of Christians go through their entire lives
without stopping to put the things I have listed to the test. And the same is true for many other things as
well.
An important
biblical verse on this issue is Luke 16:15, where the Lord Jesus tells us:
‘. . . that which is highly valued by people is hateful in God’s sight.’
Of
course, this shouldn’t be taken literally as meaning that God hates everything which
most people approve of. But it does mean
that He hates many such things. Whenever
we see the world clapping its hands approvingly at something, that is a sign to
be especially watchful. In probability it
will be something that is, at least partly, hateful to God.
We must
never, then, automatically approve of things that the societies we live in hold
in high regard. Instead, we must test
these things to the best of our ability.
Failure to test what parents say
Another
way in which Christians often fail to properly test things is in following the
values and beliefs of their parents.
This is
actually often the biggest problem for those who have had the best experience
of being raised by parents.
Christians
who had a happy upbringing that involved good Christian parenting often go
through their entire lives without questioning anything of significance that
their parents taught them. Either they
imagine that because their parents were such good parents, they could not have
been wrong in anything important. Or
they experience feelings of guilt about questioning their parents’ teaching, because
they think (often largely subconsciously) that this would be disrespectful. They therefore immediately suppress all
thoughts of questioning what they were taught.
However,
first, it makes no sense for a believer to suppose that great Christian parents
cannot have been wrong in any important issue.
Such an idea ignores the obvious truth that there are bound to be other
excellent Christian parents who believe contradictory things in some respects.
And
second, we must be careful not to confuse love and respect for parents on the
one hand, with accepting what they taught on the other. These are very different things. It is quite possible to love and respect
parents deeply, yet also disagree with some of what they taught us.
Failure to test denominational
beliefs
Something
else that leads to failure to test things is unquestioning loyalty to
denominations of the church. Sadly, many
Christians go through their lives uncritically accepting everything that is
taught by a certain denomination. This point
actually overlaps with the previous one, since often the reason believers do
this is because their parents are convinced that the denomination in question
is correct in its beliefs.
It should
be regarded as a fact, however, that there are devout and strong Christians in
various denominations of the church. And
I, for one, find it very unrealistic to think that one denomination is correct
in every important area of disagreement.
Instead, different denominations have different strengths and
weaknesses, and we should be unembarrassed about picking and choosing what is
best from each of them.
If all
Christians were prepared to put denominational beliefs to the test, I am sure
that they would be able to learn so much more from God. Many of their mistaken ideas would be
corrected.
Failure to test Christian leaders
Yet another
way in which believers often fail to test things is in following Christian
leaders. No Christian should ever
automatically accept what they are taught by a pastor or other church leader
just because they hold that person in high esteem.
In some
ways, the better the leader, the more this is a potential problem. If a leader is well known for getting things
wrong, those listening to him will probably be on their guard when he teaches. However, if someone is used to hearing really
good teaching from a Christian leader, they will often not be ready for the
bits and pieces that are incorrect.
All of us
who are involved in Christian teaching will teach some error, regardless of how
much we pray that God will guard us against this. So no one should automatically accept what a
leader teaches just because they respect that person.
Failure to test prophecies
Similarly,
we should never automatically accept prophecies as genuine without testing them
as best we can (see 1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).
I have
seen devout Christian prophets give prophetic messages that were certainly from
God. But at other times these same
prophets have given prophecies that I am sure were incorrect.
I don’t
understand this. I would have expected
that if a prophet ever prophesies correctly, it would have to mean that they
recognise God’s voice, and therefore that all their prophecies would be correct. In my experience, however, this is not always
the case.
Nevertheless,
regardless of why it is that the same prophet can prophesy correctly and
incorrectly, we should always put prophecies to the test to the best of our
ability. We should never automatically
accept them just because they come from someone we respect.
Beware of idolatry
Often
when Christians fail to test things it is because they have set something up as
an idol in their heart. This idol might
be a parent, a church leader, a Christian with a certain gift, a denomination,
a culture, a country or something else.
According
to the Bible, however, idolatry is a grave and grievous sin. It is something that we should always hate
and reject.
Instead,
God is the one who commands and deserves our full devotion. We must submit to Him in everything. And often that will necessarily mean
questioning things and testing them.
If we are
not doing so already, then, each of us must get into the habit of putting
things to the test. We should all be
constantly weighing things up, doing our best to find out the will of God in
matters that are important. The more that
Christians do this, the stronger the church is bound to become.
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