Tim Challies’ freshmen effort The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is a helpful addition to the rather ambiguous void that exists in this area in Christian writing. With all of the self help, devotional and otherwise Christian literature available it comes as a bit of a shock that more hasn’t been written on this vital topic.
Challies, of Challies.com fame is a much heralded blogger, Christian commentator and correspondent. It comes as a bit of a surprise that this is Challies first book, for it reads as a sage work. Filled with well rounded illustration and gripping analogy, Spiritual Discernment reads quickly but prompts many instances of pause and reflection. Nestled at the back of the book is a study guide to help facilitate this venture as well.
In the introduction, Challies states he writes to the general reader who wishes to understand what the Bible teaches about discernment, showing that discernment is a discipline that Christians should seek to practice deliberately. In this stated goal, Challies succeeds by doing a fine job of highlighting examples of discernment in process and action in Scripture as well as providing a framework for this same discernment to take place in the life of the reader. Of especially good value in this regard are chapters 4 and 6 which focus on practical application concerning principles of discernment. Another helpful chapter by Challies was 8, Concerning the Dangers of Discernment. This chapter serves as a helpful corrective against those who would label themselves the discernment or spiritual gifts police. In addition, Challies rightly warns of the dangers of both guilt and honor by association as well as going on unfounded witch hunts in the name of discernment.
With all that is notable about The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, the book is not without some difficulty. First, an overly negative view of culture is taken as God is seen to be at war with culture and not working within it, in order to redeem. Secondly, at times it felt the communal aspects of discernment were overlooked in favor of the individual. Next, Challies seems to set up Discernment as the penultimate among spiritual gifts, somehow exercising authority or preeminence over the others. Also, for as complex an enterprise as discernment is, many of the solutions seemed overly simplistic, as when Challies writes “Obeying God’s will is a relatively simple process of uncovering the truths of God so we might do the will of God”. Sounds real good on the exterior, yet in the Christian life, there are many difficult situations for which we must labor over to make decisions. Finally, most troubling in Challies work is an overt infatuation with all things John MacArthur. While I have nothing against MacArthur, and his ministry and teaching, over dependence on any one author is bound to color any perspective and this is evidently true in Challies work.
All in all, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is a good and helpful read in an otherwise lacking area of Christian writing. This work would be of especially good value for a college or new believer’s class, yet is well worth the time of a seasoned Christian as well.
