Testing All Things (Discernment)

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. and I want to welcome you to the Student of Life Podcast. Listen, we're going to get into so many transferable truths throughout the content of these episodes that I believe God is going to use to help you apply, because he's going to reveal what's already been there the entire time. Enjoy.

Hey yo, what's up? Welcome to the Student Life Podcast and I'm your host, Tim Pratt Jr. And listen, I know it's been a minute. I don't think I've released it— released any new content since early January, and I apologize. I really need to update, uh, the whole weekly thing within the season format. I'm really thinking about moving more towards ad hoc, or at least one episode or two episodes a month, uh, because I want to kind of keep the continuation. And I don't know, like I say, I'm figuring it out in the background, but nevertheless I do have some new content for you today, and then of course I'll be dropping something the following Monday, which is the 26th, I believe. And so I'm really excited about these next two. Matter of fact, I have not— no, I have not. I haven't even— because most of the time I usually take something, I either write a blog or preach about, but actually this is just fresh. I'm actually thinking about teaching on both of these. Um, one is more of a— for a Sunday setting, and the other one is more in a leadership development setting, a consulting setting. So, uh, so yeah, so we're gonna get into this one called Testing All Things. That's the title, Testing All Things. Uh, and it does come from scripture. It's inspired by scripture, uh, within the Bible, more so, uh, Thessalonians, uh, chapter 5. But we'll get into that, uh, because in this episode, man, we're gonna like really dive in and explore the intersection of just the movement of technology and then spirituality. Or I like to say, man, just belief in God, true belief in God, because a lot of people throw that, um, spiritual, spirituality word out there and they're off into like all type of other stuff. So to keep it clean, so it's no, um, having to discern, or what's the word I'm looking for, trying to interpret what I mean by the intersection of technology and being a believer of the Bible, being a believer of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the triune God, man. Um, that's, that's where I stand. I believe wholeheartedly in the Bible. Um, and so we're going to explore that because the reason why this episode is called Testing All Things— and, and, and I've been seeing this for a while here, uh, but like I said, we live in a digital age or technology age, whatever you want to call it, and there's an abundance of voices out there. I mean Like, truth be told, um, technology has advanced things so much, and so we can learn at a rate, we can study, we can regurgitate, we can steal people's stuff and don't know how they came to those conclusions. I mean, technology has made it easier than ever to just reproduce content, and you don't even have to be proven. Um, and so what happens is, like I say, there's an abundance of voices out there that they're sharing the teachings the teachings of the Bible, um, and the challenge that we're faced with is discerning true spiritual guidance. Like, is this person, when it comes to the Bible, are they living it? Are— have they really embraced? Are they really convinced? And if we don't discern properly by digging in the word ourselves and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, uh, in the midst of all these distractions and all of these voices Um, man, we are in trouble. And it's very, very challenging. It's very challenging, to be straight up with you, because you're just kind of like, man, if they go viral, does— is popularity the new integrity now? I mean, is popularity means character now? Um, you know, what's going on? What's going on with this? And so, you know, popular starts to be the, the more, uh, what's the— the popular— popularity leads to the most influential voices. When, you know, sometimes it's true. I do believe God rises people up and, and they come with the platform and things like that, and they're going to stand on his word. But I also believe in a lot of that too, you know. Someone goes viral and they get into a lot of feeling, and I think— and you're hearing them describe God, but it's not the God of the Bible. But just because it's a strong feeling doesn't mean it's God if it can't come through, if it's not inspired and you can back it up with scripture rightly divided. Rightly divided scripture. You can't take historical narratives and apply them, uh, to modern-day things. Like, so for example, a lot of people get in trouble with the book of Acts. I used to. A lot of people get into trouble with the, uh, the Old Testament. I used to. Now, all scripture is profitable. I'm not saying throw away the scriptures because we can still learn principles and things like that, but if we're not careful, we'll start teaching a doctrine that's not consistent, uh, with the, the totality of the incomplete Bible. And this takes time. This is different from just reading, or, hey, I study, I do my devotional. You have to dig in. Like, whatever discipline you're in now, I'm sure you spend a lot of time in it. Like, I don't believe that you would go get a, a critical surgery, uh, right now uh, from a doctor that literally just was raised up around doctors and only get on, you know, YouTube and watch procedures. And the only, uh, real life experience he has is the little game with, you know, uh, Life Operation or whatever the game's called. I used to play when I was little when you take a little thing that buzzes or whatever, um, and you trying to pull things out the, out, out the person or whatever. I can't remember the game. I know it's Operation something. I might be wrong, but you know what I'm saying? Like, that, if that's their only experience Uh, I don't believe no one in their right mind will let that person perform surgery on them. Uh, no, you're going to test it. You're going to test them. You're going to look into their credentials. You're going— and I'm not— again, I'm not trying to say people have to have credentials from, um, seminary schools, the best seminary schools like that. But what I'm trying to convey here is that you're going to test them. Are they living it? Uh, do they plug in? Have they shown that they truly know the Bible through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, I know everything, but they have shown that the integrity— they go searching, they go find things out. And again, you see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives. You see the evidence of God working in their life consistently and habitually. I mean, you can list the whole thing, a lot of things, other things too, but you're going to test it. But time and time, we don't do that. We just say, oh man, you know, I know them, I grew up with them, I've been around them whatever, and, uh, or, hey man, they're very popular, they're, they're saying a lot of things that's right, but you have to have something to test them. And the only way you can test them is by digging in and knowing the word of God yourself through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so, um, that's what we're gonna just dive into to unpack that even more, uh, amidst this. So like I said earlier, and I'm going to get into a few quotes here Um, but in this world where technology often competes with so much— like I said, it competes with, uh, so many pastors, so many evangelists, so many teachers of the gospel. Um, and, and what I mean by competing is that it's just something is always at the forefront. You know, your pastor is preaching on something and just say things God gave him, um, this message or this series for this local context. Sometimes we can't even plug in and get everything that we need out of it because, uh, we're so focused on 15 other pastors that might be hearing from God or might not. And it could be your pastor might not be hearing from God, and it could be that those pastors are— like I say, that, that, that's gray areas and things like that. But if you're truly— I'm just going to make the assumption that you're truly plugged in and God has you at the local church that you are supposed to be it. And you know that this pastor is a true man of God, his wife is a true woman of God if he's married, you know, and, and things like that. The leaders and things that you see at the church, I'm just gonna make the assumption that they are true people of God. And so now your pastor has to compete with other pastors that they have their local context. Because we live in this technology age, is information is always being shared. And again, let's just say, because these people are influential, and if we don't recognize it, if we don't discern what's— if it's of God or if it's of the flesh, then we can get in trouble. And that's why it's so essential to recognize this challenge of discerning genuine spiritual guidance. It is very essential to recognize the challenge. It's very essential, as I just said, to have a discerning spirit. This is something that we are called to do. And so I love what Jackie Hill Perry, uh, pointed out one time, and I'm going to read the quote. She said that there is a need to distinguish between spiritually dead imitations and faithful teachers of the gospel who align with the Holy Spirit and the text of the Bible, or the scriptures of the Bible. Read it again. There is a need to distinguish between spiritually dead imitations, which he says knockoff, false, and faithful teachers of the gospel who align with the Holy Spirit and text of the Bible. Listen, right there I could stop the episode right there, but I'm not because we have to dig on. But the reason why I say that is because, again, if we cannot make that distinction, distinction between, okay, this person is a faithful, committed teacher. I didn't say perfect, but a faithful, committed teacher. Yes, perfect in Christ, but faithfulness. You've heard me say this before. A person say, hey man, I have faith in God. It's the same way as saying, hey, I have faith in my marriage. Well, if I have faith in my marriage, I should be faithful in my marriage, habitually, consistently practicing that. I should always be showing up. If I say, hey man, I got faith in my kids, I should be faithful to my kids, meaning that I'm showing up to what I can. I'm doing everything that I can as a father through the power of God. But if I wasn't— say for instance, like, if you see me and I really didn't invest in my marriage, I really never just spent time with my kids, but I'm up here teaching on marriage and teaching on kids, something is not clicking, something is not connecting. Now, if you see me sometimes for— hey, you're like, oh, my wife and I, we got an argument. Hey, I wasn't at this kid's game. I wasn't in my kid's game this time, but because I was you know, something came up that I could have been traveling, I could have been doing XYZ. But 8 times out of 10, I'm, I'm there. Uh, I just miss, miss it at times because I've had something going on. Not that it was more important, but— or you can't say, well, if you were in there, it had to be more important. Let's just say, like I said, I had to travel for work, and, and it was a requirement, I couldn't push it off. Well, this job helps, uh, give kids— the kids access to a lot of stuff that they're doing. So I might. But now, at the same time, I haven't took a job where I'm always on the go and away from my kids. So it— like I said, again, you know, I want to be very careful here because, I mean, like I said, we already at a rate where we just hijack the scriptures to justify whatever we want to do. But there is a heart posture, is what I'm trying to say. There's a heart posture. So if I have a heart posture where I'm really invested in my marriage and really invested in my kids most of the time you're probably gonna listen to me because I'm living it. I'm faithful to this versus not being faithful. And so we have to make that distinguished, uh, but let's say for instance that, uh, popularity— let's say if I learn how to say all the right things to become a skillful communicator but I don't really live it, well, I'm false, I'm fake. I don't— I haven't even been convinced by the very thing that I'm teaching husbands and fathers to do in their families. So again, If someone is truly locked in and they're living a life and they're studying the scriptures, trust me, they're going to find out, say, ah man, it's something off about him. He's a really good talker, but it's just something off about him. And we can go on and on and on, but, but like I said, that's why that distinction is very important, because what tends to happen is people stop testing things. They stop, and it's all inclusive. We, we stop and we start to follow the person more than we follow God, or God, the God of the Bible.. And so we have to be faithful to that. And so I would say point number 1 for that one— maybe I should have said this first— is that, uh, the challenge of spiritual— it's the challenge of spiritual discernment in the digital age. It's the challenge of spiritual discernment in a digital age. And so point number 2, emphasizing biblical scrutiny and discernment. Now scrutiny is not a critical spirit, it's just examine, like a deep examination of whatever is going on. This is not, hey, I'm here to be super super critical, uh, nitpick every little thing that you do. But I am going to really take a deep dive and examine what you're saying, because as one of my mentors, you know, said— a guy I follow, he's like a virtual mentor, I should say— but he said a lot of times we as people spend, uh, if we spend a lot of time talking about the crooked stick— if someone lays and it's false, if it's messed up and it's crooked, we spend a lot of time describing that crooked stick. But he said, I would challenge you to lay a straight stick right beside it and talk about that one, because that's what the truth does. Don't spend so much time talking about the crooked stick, but if you lay a straight stick beside it, I will know that, that, that other stick is crooked. And that's what I believe that we, we have to do as teachers of the gospel, or whatever we doing, because a lot of times it's, it's a fine line. Like I said, we can just spend too much time always talking about the problem in, in our teaching of the gospel. But then it's like, okay, I'm sitting here, I'm sitting here, and I still don't know how to, to, to, um, combat that. I still don't know how to live in a way that you're talking about because you just went on a rant or just went on and on and on talking about the crooked stick. But can you spend a little bit more time talking about the straight stick so I can recognize it? So through the power of God, of course. So like, we have to emphasize that. And one of the ways to do this is that when it comes to teaching the gospel or preaching the gospel, whatever, um, faithful teachers, faithful teachers of the Bible— I know I do, I emphasize the importance of scrutinizing all teachings, even the teachings that I am presented to do, even this podcast right now. Hey, listen, go get your Bible and examine what I'm saying. Like, examine what I'm saying against the scripture. And if you come to a distinction, rightly dividing the word of God, between, hey Tim, something you said is not consistent with scripture, uh, then I can tell you, like, if you show me that, and you know, like I said again, it's not isolating the scripture, but it's contextually with the Bible, I'm going to yield to that. I'm going to reason to this. Hey, I was wrong. I need to go back and clean that up. And hey, you know, I was wrong. I, I need to apologize. Will you forgive me? I wasn't trying to deceive. I was just wrong. And I want to pause right there because sometimes we do make just mistakes. We, we make mistakes because we live in our humanity. That does not mean that everybody is a false teacher because they made a mistake. But now if you see habitual practice and person doesn't want to own ownership and they double down on it and they can't be corrected, then yeah, you're probably dealing with a false prophet. Um, but, uh, but outside of that, someone that continues to echo, echo the Bible, like echo, say, hey, I'm— this is biblical advice, this is sound advice. Sound doctrine. This— I'm taking you to the word of God, or if I don't take it to the word of God, what I say is so influenced by the word of God. Because again, if we look at or echo, uh, in Thessalonians 5:21, it says, test everything, hold fast what is good. Test everything, hold fast what is good. Okay, if we move on with that and then draw the parallel from Acts 17, uh, 10 and 11, we see a noble-minded— this is what we see. We see a noble-minded Jews who receive teachings eagerly but also diligently examine the scriptures daily to confirm the truth. Highlighting this, highlighting this, testing all things is a crucial practice of discernment. So in other words, you cannot enhance, you cannot develop, you cannot even mature in your discernment unless you are seeking the scriptures and praying and communing with God, rely— hearing from God through his word. I don't care what you think you know about discernment, I don't care how sharp you think your gift is, if you are not diligently in the scriptures and studying them and spending time and asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate the scriptures, your discernment is tainted. Your discernment is off, and there's going to be a lot of humanity in your discernment versus a lot of the Holy Spirit in your discernment. And so, uh, that gives us the ability. And see, and then what, what tends to happen is I remember, uh, my dad's pastor Dr. Carl, I use his name. I remember being in seminary the first time around when I was working on counseling, and I just remember him— I've said this many times in messages and everything— he told me, the more that you study and you examine the scriptures and you become one with the word, in so many words he said that sometimes you will know and you won't know. And I was like, man, he said, it's gonna make sense one day. He said sometimes you'll know and you won't know. And then I remember there's another way he worded it, and I can't— I used to say it all the time and I've just lost my train of thought. But essentially what he was telling me, he was like— what it came to make sense in clarity is that he was saying, okay, Tim, the more you spend time in the word of God, in the presence of God, and seeking the Holy Spirit and testing things, sometimes people will say something and you might not know verbatim how to back it up, but you're— the Holy Spirit in you will reject it, and you will come to learn why you reject it. Or he said, and then reverse that, sometimes people will say something and you won't reject it, but you're just neutral because you have not yet been exposed to it. So you will find yourself saying, well, I'm not rejecting it, but I'm not in agreement with it either, but I'm neutral. There, there's a compelling in me to go search this out. And then you'll find it to be true. Because again, you're, you're studying, you're, you're examining the scriptures, but the Holy Spirit, you're learning to yield to him and he's directing you. That's a sign of testing all things. I'm just not quick because someone says something or it sounds good in the sermon, or no matter how many credentials they have, uh, I'm never gonna follow— even my dad, my father-in-law— I'm never going to follow someone so blindly to the point, hey, they my dad, man, I've seen him, he's been doing this for X amount of years, this is my father. No, I am going to test it. And if they took it any kind of way, then something would be off about them. And trust me, I've had this conversation, especially with my dad. I'm the same way. I'm the exact same way. If they was like, well, you should just take what I say, when I'm now I'm gonna have my Bible out all the time and being critical. And every time they say something, oh, let me go find, let me go find— no, no, no. Now I should have— if I'm diligent in my scriptures, studying my Bible, there should already be some just back and forth. Like, I, I know what you're saying, I'm gonna agree. Okay, I get that, that scripture. Or, you know, no, no, let's redirect. You know, like, that should be the thing. Because who would want to talk to somebody that every single time they got to bring out their Bible, uh, and, you know, just— I need to stop saying, you know, but bring out their Bible and talk and talk and talk, just testing every little thing, man. You would never be able to finish a conversation. Um, and I do— we do that in, like I said again, the discipline that you're in. I'm sure you're not referring back when two state troopers talk or two doctors talk. I don't believe they consistently referring back to books or whatever that they studied in school. It's just, it's a conversation because they live it, they're deeply in it. Now, if it gets to a point where it's like something is said and it's almost like left up to an interpretation issue, they probably will go back to something foundational that, that's the source of where this come from. And as long as people aren't in their feelings and stuff like that, there shouldn't be any private interpretations. Now, there could be different applications, but the interpretation should be consistent. And one should be, oh, okay, I can see it that way, but this is how I practice or carry this out. Because like I said, again, application might look different, but the interpretation of it shouldn't be different. Um, so we have to be careful with that. I just want to note that in there. Uh, I was compelled to, compelled to do that through the, uh, by the Holy Spirit. And so again, point number 2 was emphasizing biblical scrutiny and discernment. So whoever you're plugged into, they should be telling you, hey, get your Bible out, go, go test, go look this up for yourself and dig in. Because if they're not, man, all roads are going to continue to lead by them. You're never going to be developing a maturity where you can wrestle with things in the, in the text, wrestle with the text and allow God to, uh, help you come to those conclusions. That's another reason why I say no matter how trusted a commentary is Don't start there because you're already being shaped by the commentary of that person. Get in your word yourself and dig in and, and, and start— like, stop being, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, stop just researching everything, like, before you actually wrestle with it and, and have the self-discipline to say, no, I'm going to spend some time praying and asking God to illuminate this passage for me. Stop being lazy. Like, stop being lazy. Yes, you can research anything, but can you truly examine God's word and sit with him through prayer and spend time in that text or that passage over and over and over versus going to see, um, what somebody else say about it before God can even reveal anything to you? Because truthfully you have made research your God, not the Holy Spirit. And I understand, trust me, I look at things, I examine things. But one of, uh, one of my favorite communicators of the gospel from just a communication standpoint, Derrick James, he said, if you have eyes, I pledge your eyes. Meaning that, listen, I understand that the Holy Spirit just started talking to me and me only. I understand that there's a lot of books, a lot of stuff out there that, you know, the Holy Spirit and I just did it again, you know. But the Holy Spirit has talked to people and illuminated things. So yes, as I've done research and these people have become credible in my life, I'm going to 9 times out of 10 look at their material, but it's going to be after I have wrestled with the text, not before, because I don't want to be shaped or influenced by what they have said, um, to a degree. And so, uh, that, that's just something again, how we examine and test all things. Other than that, third one. The third one is the imperative of discerning spiritual influence. In other words, who's speaking? Who's speaking? Now we can go back to Genesis when Eve was influenced by the serpent, and basically he influenced her to eat of the fruit of the tree. Eat of the fruit of the tree. That God said don't eat. And we know that she basically gave some to her husband and he swayed her over because she was influenced by a voice that Adam chose to elevate over God. He elevated his wife voice— his wife voice over God's voice. But also too, we can draw lessons from Matthew 16. What I love about this, because we look at Matthew 16, we can explore an instance where Peter— no, Jesus asked the question, who do man say that I am? And Peter answered the question correctly. He, he, he correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah. And Jesus went on to tell him that flesh and blood didn't reveal to you this, you know, had to be my God. I'm paraphrasing it, this drawing this parallel from Matthew 16. But later in that same chapter Peter has succumbed to the impulses of his flesh, the human impulses. And what I love about this, what I really, really love about this, is because it underscores a necessity of discerning what is of God and what is of our own inclinations. It does, like, just straight up.

It—

in other words, it underscores the necessity of discerning what is of God and what is of our flesh. Because what, what tends to take place is this: if Jesus would have sat there— and I know he wouldn't, I know Jesus didn't do it, thank God— but I'm just saying, think about our lives. If Jesus asked Peter that question and it was the power of God that spoke to Peter to answer the question, okay, and Jesus confirms him, if Jesus would have got so focused on Peter, and because Peter got it right the first time and it was truly from God, it was truly from God, what would have took place is Jesus would have had more trust in Peter than he had of God himself. Now again, Jesus is God. I know that might have make a lot of people upset. That's what I believe, and it's consistent with the Bible. Again, I don't want to isolate verses, but Jesus is God. But I'm just saying, let's like all that aside He knew the purpose of God. In other words, he was the Word. He knew the Word of God. He was the Word of God incarnated in flesh. So here we are. So in other words, we take that this is a person, they're living it, they're studying, they're plugged in, they are Spirit-filled. It's a continuation of Spirit-filled. It's not someone laying hands on them and saying that they are filling them with the Spirit. This person is Spirit-filled because they have consistently, habitually learned how to practice yielding to the Holy Spirit. And this person, their discernment, they discern the things of God. And so now in that moment when Peter tried to rebuke Jesus when he was talking about his death, giving up his life, laying down his life, when he was talking about that, Peter tried to rebuke him. If Jesus would have listened to that, because Peter got it right the first time and he didn't discern now Peter is in flesh, we all still be lost. We will all still be lost in eternity. Like, we will be lost and on our way to hell because we would not have a savior. Because he would have said, oh no, let me submit to that, not knowing that that was flesh talking. And this is why we have to consistently test all things. We have to discern what is of God and what is of flesh, even if it's our spouse, even if it's our children, even if it's our leaders, even if it's our boss, even if it's our, um, associates, friends, brothers, sisters, it doesn't matter the relationship. It can sound good, but is it scripture? It can sound good, but is it God? It can sound good, but is it his prescribed order? No matter Congress, the president, I don't care who wrote it, test it. Is it line on line with scripture rightly divided? And so I'm telling you, like, seriously, as we navigate these complexities, as we look into this and we navigate these complexities of the Bible teachings in this digital age, I would say one of the main key takeaways that you should have from this episode is that discernment is crucial. Discernment is crucial. Scrutinize all teachers, examine everything. Test everything against the yardstick of God's word. Not your feelings, not your opinion, not your favorite pastor, not your favorite preacher, not your favorite teacher, not your favorite evangelist, not your favorite influencer, not your spouse, not your daddy, not your mama. I don't care if they've been pastoring for 100 years. Examine it against the yardstick of the word of God and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit. Now, yes, God speaks through people. He does, and I do believe God speaks audibly, but out of, you know, audibly. So, but at the same time, he speaks through his word. Audible, yes, I do believe God can speak to us in an audible way, but primarily it's going to come through his word. And so this will help us as we, like I say, navigate the complexities of this. This will help us navigate through the noise and stay aligned with the true teachings of the gospel, the true teachings of the Bible. This right here, this Testing All Things is scripture. I believe this is going to help us a lot. It's going to be challenging, it's going to be hard because you have to have some discipline. You can't just keep going to watch 1-minute and, uh, 30-second TikTok videos. Like, there are certain teachers— I know all teachers aren't certain people's cup of tea, but I would say try to sit under more mature teachers of the gospel. Because when the hype runs out— and I'm not— and don't get me wrong, I'm, I'm not against the hype. I love high energy and all of that. But when the hype runs out, when the shouting and all of that don't work— because so many times, turn around 8 times and God gonna do this— you can turn around 50 times, but if you don't come in order with God's word He not turning nothing around because he cannot go against his prescribed order. So again, if you are living a life of sin and the pastor say, and I just want you to get up and I want you to just run 7 times, that God told me to do this and everything is going to go along— listen, it's not. Because you cannot live in opposition to God's word and then turn around 7 times and think God is going to turn around and bless that. No, he's going to bless bless you being obedient to his word. This is why it's important for us to test all things and not hijack scripture and just be saying stuff. And that's why people are living lives that goes against what God has prescribed, because we have gotten away from testing all things. Man, I love you all. I hope this episode helps. I hope it's Challenges. I know it was a little bit longer than what we usually do. I think I'm right now at the 32-minute mark. So again, I love you all, man. I'm always praying for you. If you ever want to talk, counsel, or whatever, hit the website. Um, I, I now offer consulting, coaching, uh, and even just some mentorship there, and it comes in the space of, uh, just the faith and, and understanding things. So man, I'm open as I can be. Like I said, I do have a wife and 3 kids. I work a pretty demanding job, and I mean other things, but nevertheless, uh, there's a— there's always a space in my heart to be about my Father's business outside of just a platform. So again, I love you all. Be blessed. I'm always praying for you. And remember, test all things against the word of God, and when it all comes down to it, let the word of God be truth. Let the word of God be truth. I'm not even gonna say the other part, just let the word of God be true.

Amen. Hey, what's up? I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this Student of Light podcast today. If this content has impacted you in any kind of way, please take some time to share it on your social media feeds. And also, if you want to connect with me or just learn more about me, go over to www.timothypratt.org. Once again, thanks.