Paul’s prayer for the Philippians (and us) sounds like this:
That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1.9-11)
Last week I read something about discernment that set me off on a major (for me) Bible study on the word in the NT. There are several words that can be translated “discern” in the NT (usually in the King James version; other versions will more often translate the words as “prove,” “approve,” “test,” “examine,” and so on), and they are used about 60x in all.
Anyway, what I discovered was that, whatever word is used, discernment is always a strictly human activity. The way Paul has put it here in this prayer is a great illustration of the dynamic of God’s work with ours.
The first part of the prayer, “That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,” may be seen as the deep work of the Holy Spirit in a person. He is opening their eyes, enabling them to understand the things of God and so on.
This is all done, “so that” we will be able to discern what is best for our lives, ultimately to the glory of God.
This discernment is now not a matter of prayer for us, except as we might ask for wisdom (James 1.5). Discernment, here and pretty much everywhere in the NT, is a strictly human activity; this is our job, for which we have been empowered by the prior work of the Spirit of God.
Sometimes the word is used as a kind of signal that we ought now to turn to God and ask him to do the work of discerning for us; some teach that discernment is a process of praying and hearing from God. But this is nowhere found to be the case in the NT; discernment is always something that we do ourselves. It is our responsibility, for which God has already equipped us.
If we think of the story of the Good Samaritan we will get a feel for what is going on. The Samaritan man comes along the road, and discovers a man lying close to death in the ditch. There is no time for him to “discern” the situation through prayer and hearing from God; he already has the fruit of the Spirit in him, of love and kindness. He does not need to wonder; he can make an instant decision about what he ought to do.
To put it another way: God does not do the hard work of discerning for us, and then simply pass the result along. No, we ourselves are called upon to judge, to examine, to differentiate, to distinguish, to prove, to approve, to test, to question, to interpret, and to try (these are most of the ways the various Greek words are translated in the NIV). Ultimately, we will make the decision about whatever question is before us.
Paul’s prayer here gets us ready to do just that, so when the occasion for discernment comes, it will be faithfully done, in a timely manner.
J & S on Mission 