Discernment as a Way of Life
Dimensions of Discernment [3]
Series: Dimensions of Discernment
"Discernment is the church’s way of life; it is our whole way of being in the world. I would go so far as to say that discerning and joining the missional life of God comprises the life of the church. There is no being of the church that precedes its doing. The church discovers its identity as it finds itself in mission—the mission of God."1
Discipleship
I've said that we who follow Jesus are definitionally caught up in the sending of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Discipleship demands discernment. But I would put it more strongly: discipleship is a way of life constituted by discernment of God's ongoing purposes in the world.
“Following Jesus” is a travel metaphor. Jesus is going somewhere, leading us somewhere. Discipleship means discovering not only where we are going, but when, why, and how. The church’s word for the process of discovery is discernment.
Discipleship is definitionally about learning—an apprenticeship in discernment. It’s not as though we know how to discern by default or by nature. We learn discernment through our life together on the way of Jesus. The school of discipleship comprises the practices of discernment: prayer and fasting, silence and meditation, communion and hospitality, worship and waiting, reflection and dialogue, reading and studying, confession and repentance, commitment and action, giving and receiving. Altogether, these disciplines teach the church attentiveness and responsiveness to the presence and action of God.
Perception
Jesus is consistently concerned with his followers’ capacity for perception: “Whoever has ears, listen!” (Matt 11:15; 13:9, 43). “Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear?” (Mark 8:18). “Then pay attention to how you listen!” (Luke 8:18). “‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’” (John 9:39). Hearing and seeing are primary metaphors for disciples’ spiritual perceptual faculties.
Our way of life as followers of Jesus is about hearing and seeing that leads to understanding. This is the essence of discernment. The word of God comes to us through our ability to perceive the work of God. I realize this seems like an unconventional claim. The church commonly calls Scripture the Word of God (which Scripture does not call itself!), and many assume that the word of God comes through reading the Bible, without qualification. Not so. We should make considerable qualifications, not least that the capacities of interpreters determine what we make of Scripture’s revelation. If we do not have ears to hear and eyes to see, should we expect to avoid the consequences that Jesus clearly expresses? I think not. Are we better than the Apostles, who were proved deaf and blind during Jesus’s ministry? Are we so wise by default that acquiring perceptual faculties is unnecessary? I would say, obviously not.
So how do we come to see and hear well? The notion of worldview is useful for exploring perceptual faculties. Without diving too deep into worldview theory, let me point out the operative metaphor: vision. How do we see the world? How do we discern the truth about the world? Everyone asks this question on some level. Christians answer with reference to the biblical story, which reaches its climax in Jesus. Following Jesus gives us eyes to see and ears to hear. Discipleship transforms worldview. The practices of discipleship, in other words, reshape our perceptual apparatus. Discernment brings on board our cognitive, affective, and evaluative systems, which Jesus transforms by calling us to obedience. How we think, feel, and judge follows from our decision to follow Jesus into the kingdom of God.
Decision
Obedience to Jesus is a decision—or rather, a continuous series of decisions. Our yes to Jesus is communal and open. We discern the Spirit’s leading together without assuming we know the destination. Let me highlight three implications of this way of life.
Discernment aims at decision, but decisions without discernment are foolish. We are afflicted by impatience. If we can skip to the end, we will. If decision is the goal, why not just decide? The theological answer is that discernment assumes our decisions may not align with God’s will.
Because discernment is a communal practice, decisions are not private. Of course, the decisions we discern are often highly personal. But the Christian practice of discernment makes decisions both communal and personal. The issue for discernment is not a single person's worldview but the worldview of the community. We see more together. We obey better together.
Finally, the openness of discernment means it does not aim at ultimate decisions. In other words, the ambition to discern final answers is self-contradicting. Discernment is oriented toward the present action of God’s Spirit. The freedom and infinity of God combine with the fallibility and finitude of humans to ensure that our discernment is contingent and partial, therefore our decisions are humble and provisional. So Christian faithfulness is ongoing discernment.
Mark Love, It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us: Acts, Discernment, and the Mission of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2023), 14.