Discernment

This was something I read a couple of weeks ago so i thought I would share it with you all.

Every Christian educator is faced with the dilemma: how do you teach your students about things like literature and the arts without exposing them unduly to corrupting influences? The answer is to equip them with a mechanism for discernment. Christians turned loose in the world without this mechanism either revert to insularity and close-mindedness, which makes outreach difficult, or succumb to worldly influences, which makes holiness impossible. So the question is, how do we promote discernment?

In the courtroom, prosecutors are often put in a similar situation. They want to call a witness to the stand to provide valuable information, but they are suspicious of the motives this witness brings to the case. How can they extract the testimony without introducing a misleading bias in the jury? They designate the individual as a hostile witness. With a hostile witness, the prosecutor has more freedom in his tactics ­ and more importantly, the jury entertains no doubts about the relationship between the witness and the facts. What the witness says may be true, but it must be tested.

The topics we discuss should be approached in the same way. Many contain important information ­ sometimes they will deepen our faith, sometimes they will help us understand the world better ­ but they are not entirely reliable. Where they glorify, condone or rationalize sin, we must call them to order. But where they present truth, we should remain open to it.

Paul found pieces of truth very things the Greeks worshiped, then used that to point the people to the one true living God.

How can we direct people to truth in our world today?