Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher.

This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith,

ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.

You don't have to settle for water down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper,

God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.

Welcome back friends. I am so excited for our first episode in the Ask Anything Monday series.

And today we're going to be tackling a question about discernment and a critical spirit.

These two things go hand in hand today, it seems, which is a bit unfortunate because in scripture,

we see a clear distinction between biblical discernment, spirit led discernment because all

biblical discernment will be led by the Holy Spirit and a critical and judgmental spirit.

So how do we discern rightly while also walking in the spirit of love and kindness and truth?

And that's what we're going to talk about today. So the question is, what is the difference

between discernment and criticism or judgment? And I want to look at a couple definitions of discernment

first. And then we're going to look at first John four, because I think that gives us a good glimpse

of what this kind of biblical discernment is. So first, according to the dictionary, discernment

is simply to judge well. If you look at it from a Christian perspective, which some dictionary

will actually have a Christian or spiritual definition, it is the ability to perceive

or obtain guidance on spiritual matters. And basically what it is is the ability to determine

what is good and true and right to embrace that, to seek that out, not just to determine what is

bad and wrong and evil. That's an important distinction that the biblical discerner

is looking for what is good, not just hunting down what is evil. And you guys have heard me use

the term spiritual headhunter before to describe this kind of unhealthy discernment. My friend Lisa

...