Learn to Discern

I will never forget one of the faded dog eared posters that we had hanging in the English classroom at school. I can still see it sitting there with the faded yellow words "Test the Spirits" on it. To be honest I'm not really sure why I remember it maybe it was because of the long hours we spent in that classroom or because we did have a large number of our TEE exams in there throughout year 11 and 12 and I would look around the classroom for inspiration and too see if anything had changed.

The words are important though. We must learn to be discerning,to test what we learn and compare it against what we know. We should all be able to evaluate what we hear, read and see and hold it up against the light of God's word. 

That is not to say that we should look over something because it may possibly have something contrary to our beliefs and understanding of Gods word, but rather we should look at these things and compare it with what we know as right. There may be parts of it that we find are not true or accurate but we can pass over them while still learning from the rest of what we have. Books, movies, speeches  and articles all present us with a collection of themes. We may not agree with all the themes but we can take and learn from those that we do agree with and pass over what we don't agree with.

God has given us the wonderful gift of his word. Study that and know it well so that you can use it to shine light upon what ever else you may read, watch or listen to.