Last week’s bulletin article introduced the importance of discernment. Without it, others will truck us into believing lies and manipulate us to act foolishly. This article discusses three ways we can discern the truth in what we hear and read.

Discern with the word of God. We must always make sure that what we are hearing can be harmonized with God’s word. If people are telling us that we need to rise up and revolt against our corrupt government, we must see first what God’s word says about that course of action. We will find that open, violent revolt against the government is not something scripture condones (Rom 13:1–7). We should practice this with everything we read and hear.

Discern with logic and reason. It is worthwhile to learn to identify logical fallacies, that is, showing how and why arguments are weak or invalid. For instance, I saw a meme that said, “This house was priced at $75,000 in 1990 and now it is priced at $250,000. Still don’t think we need to raise minimum wage?” This argument may be listing completely true facts, but these facts are misleading. There could be several factors not listed for why this house increased so much in value over 30 years, such as improvements and additions to the house or neighborhood, the location of the house, and changes in the housing market. In sum, always check to see if they are missing any data and whether it changes the argument.

Discern by fact-checking. When Paul proclaimed the gospel in Berea, the Christians there were not passive listeners (Acts 17:10-15). Instead, they wanted to make sure that what Paul said was true. They did this by
fact-checking what Paul said. We need to do the same with the resources we have available. We need to do this when we read religious literature, even by those who are members of the church of Christ. Instead of blindly trusting everything you read, we should verify what these people say to the best of our ability. There are occasions where we cannot verify people’s work, such as whether they are using Greek or Hebrew correctly. In those instances, you should investigate further until you have found out whether that person is a reliable source or not by checking other sources and seeing who has the clearest explanation.

Next week, I will discuss the need to understand our own biases that can blind us from discerning the truth.