Discernment Ministries Should Not Reject the Holy Spirit’s Gifts

Discernment ministries have their place because sadly, there are many false teachings and practices in the Body of Christ. For example, I am not in favor of things like “Fire Tunnels” where you let everyone lay hands on you for a spiritual impartation. Who knows what all those people were doing last night? I do not agree with trying to get the anointing of past revivalists by lying on their tombstones. And certainly, the fact that someone speaks in tongues or works miracles does not mean that they are teaching the Word of God correctly. However, it certainly doesn’t mean they are not teaching it correctly.

We need to have discernment about these discernment ministries. Finding fault where there is no fault is sinful. But even if faults can be found, one has to keep one’s assessment in balance and have humility. One of the worst things that some discernment ministries do is this: they find an error in something a Charismatic or Word of Faith minister does or says. They then use this to justify a wholesale attack on these movements and the fundamental doctrinal premises behind them. In doing this, they don’t establish why they think it is O.K. to doubt or ignore God’s gifts and His instructions about using the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They don’t establish why they believe that proper exegesis of the Scripture is the ONLY real way to receive communication from God (if they believe that). They don’t prove the doctrine of Cessationism with their attacks.

In this website, I believe I provide lots of Scriptural evidence for the position that The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a divine empowerment for ministry that can and normally does happen subsequent to spiritual regeneration. I do provide evidence that what we speak both reveals and affects what we believe. I do believe that Mark 11:23 is true, because no apostle ever said it is now false. Many “discernment ministries” would be very uncomfortable with some of these truths. These truths demand faith responses. You cannot hold to these truths and then merely sit in a theological ivory tower, criticizing everyone who doesn’t think the way you do. You have to take hold of the things of God, and together with the Body of Christ use what He has provided to help people. This is something that Discernment Ministries must take hold of if they want to claim they are doing what God wants them to do. Without teaching these things, they cannot be teaching the whole counsel of God.

Many Discernment Ministries are following Augustine and Calvin in their view of God’s plan and the Gospel. They view their teachings as the plumbline of Sound Doctrine. There is no record that either of these men ever moved in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. They worked hard, they wrote a lot, they fought with their theological opponents and came out on top in many ways – but none of this proves that they were successful in modelling their lives on the example of the Lord Jesus Christ who told us that those who believe in Him would do the works that He did (John 14:12). Both of these men used State Power to persecute their doctrinal opponents within Christendom and at times sought to (or did) put them to death. It was horrible really.

I can’t really see why I should trust Augustine, a Roman Catholic, to be the plumbline of true doctrine. Neither can I see why I should trust Calvin. Both of them were heavily influenced by notions in Greek philosophy. The idea that the world plays out like a 3 dimensional video tape in which the whole script has been produced in advance is not something that the Scriptures compel us to believe. The idea that God is impassable – emotionless – is also something that only someone who doesn’t really know God personally could say.

We need Discernment Ministries that turn their guns on some of these teachers and their doctrines, and show how pitifully they have carried on the traditions established by the Lord Jesus Christ. They have created a sinning religion in which the Theologian (who doesn’t know God) is King.

I realize that I have made many claims which cannot be justified in a few words only. Nevertheless, I would like to return to my main point which is this. If someone is called to be a Discernment Ministry, they have just as much responsibility to model the truth as they do to uncover the errors of others. And if their own doctrines are out of line with what every writer before the Council of Nicea said, and if there are no supernatural signs following their ministry, they should not be so quick to assume that they are sent by God to sit on the seat of judgment concerning everything happening today.