DN=: Part 5–Discrimination

Discernment is the divine enablement to distinguish between truth and error, good and evil, right and wrong. A person with this gift can differentiate pure from impure motives, identify deception in others, determine authenticity of messages from God, recognize false teaching and sense the presence of evil. (Paraphrased from “Network” by Bruce Bugbee and Don Cousins.)

In other words, discernment is God’s B.S. detector.

Have you ever known someone who accurately saw something fake or sinister in a person’s character before anyone else did? Have you ever had a friend who told you what you were thinking when you couldn’t even explain it yourself? This is discernment at work.

(Remember back at the beginning of this series when I talked about people talking in code? I didn’t forget about that. From here on out, we’re going to defuse political correctness one code-bomb at a time.)

Another word with a meaning similar to discernment, in the literal sense of having the ability to distinguish differences, is discrimination.

While discernment is a spiritual gift, given by God to whomever He chooses, discrimination is a natural skill that can be learned and developed by anybody through careful observation and judicious contemplation.

It would seem, then, that discrimination should actually be a positive thing, since being UN-able to recognize differences would be a sign of a lack of intelligence or observance.

Nevertheless, this word has gradually become associated with “bigotry,” even though those two words really aren’t connected.

DISCRIMINATION DN= BIGOTRY

There’s a big difference between distinguishing the differences in people and treating people differently. Paul wrote:

In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:28 MSG)

And also:

[In this new creation all distinctions vanish.] There is no room for and there can be neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, [nor difference between nations whether alien] barbarians or Scythians [who are the most savage of all], nor slave or free man; but Christ is all and in all, everything and everywhere, to all men, without distinction of person]. (Colossians 3:11 AMP)

In making these statements, Paul is instructing these early churches that although the Church is made up of all kinds of different people from different backgrounds, it is much more significant that Christ is our common ground. Being the original Truthseeker, Paul discriminates by noting the differences, but does not show favoritism, because Christ does not show favoritism.

Looking at it this way, we can clearly see that bigotry is defined by emphasizing differences with the motive of boosting one’s own status over that of another based solely upon those differences. Bigotry may START with discrimination, but it ends somewhere else entirely.

So how do you know when you’ve crossed the line?

Labels

Whenever you refer to another person with a label instead of their name, that’s a pretty clear sign that you are crossing over to the dark side of discrimination, because you are now seeing that person not as an individual, but as part of a subset of humanity, most likely one to which you do not belong yourself.

Once you have identified the difference and affixed a label to it, the emphasis of that difference comes naturally. From there, it’s a very short walk to bigotry, simply because our human nature is to justify ourselves, and the easiest way to do that is to lower our view of others. Labels just streamline that process.

So how does discernment fit into this?

From the definitions we have already discussed, discernment is essentially God-level discrimination. But since we have already seen that God sees all of His followers as equal in Christ, then it should be obvious that the purpose of discernment is not to enable bigotry by labeling humans and dividing them into groups.

Discernment is not about judging character or outward appearances, but rather motives and the behavior that arises from them. Which leads me to my next DN=.

(Come back for Part 6–Judgmental)

DN=: Part 4–Holy

Another troublesome churchy word is “holy.” Like “righteous,” the word “holy” also has some unnecessary baggage attached to it. Just as some people see the word “righteous” and think “self-righteous,” some people see the word “holy” and think “holier-than-thou.”

If you’re not familiar with the term, “holier-than-thou” describes the attitude of a Christian condescending to someone else. Naturally, this attitude is very off-putting.

HOLY DN= HOLIER-THAN-THOU

The word “holy” simply means “set apart for God’s purpose.” It can refer to a day, a place, a nation or an individual. Mostly, however, it refers to God Himself. As Isaiah wrote:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

(Isaiah 55: 8-9 NIV)

God is holy, or set apart, simply because He’s God, and we’re not. When people put their faith in Jesus Christ, trust in His saving work on the cross to make them righteous, and make Him the Lord of their lives, then they also become holy. They are still human beings, but now they are set apart from the world to do God’s work.

It is critical to understand the progression here. God makes us righteous through JESUS’ work, not ours. In the same way, God makes us holy only when we realize that we AREN’T made righteous by our good deeds.

If a person claims to have faith in Jesus, but still lives as he did before being saved, then how has that person been set apart?

He hasn’t.

Christians are SUPPOSED to stand out. We are SUPPOSED to be different from everybody else. Otherwise, what would be the point of being one?

The irony of holiness is that just as we were set free in order to become servants, we were also set apart to become unified—not to the world, but to each other. As Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus about Jesus:

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ephesians 4: 11-16 NRSV)

When Paul refers to “saints” in this context, he is referring to all believers, not people (such as himself) who are referred to with a St. in front of their name. The “work of ministry” for which said saints are being equipped is the service to which we are called upon having been made free. Still with me so far?

In addition to the gifts Paul mentions above, there are many other spiritual gifts that believers receive when they are made holy. I’m not going to go into all of them here. However, in light of the sudden aggressive turn our culture has taken, I feel it necessary to expound upon one of them—discernment.

(And I will do that in Part 5–Discrimination)

DN=: Part 3–Righteousness

One of the pitfalls of using churchy jargon is the proclivity for misunderstanding by those outside the church. (For more on this topic, check out this post.) One of those commonly misunderstood words is “righteousness.”

To be “righteous” is to have “right standing” with God. This is not a status that can be achieved through human effort. As Solomon pointed out, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. (Ecclesiastes 7:20 ESV).”

This concept is explained further in Romans 3:

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

(Romans 3:9-12, 19-26 NIV)

The passage above contains the word “justify” a couple of times. Justificiation is the act of being made righteous by one who has the authority to do so.

In other words, since we can do nothing to make ourselves righteous, God makes us righteous through faith in Jesus.

Redemption

When we were slaves to sin, we were lawbreakers and were therefore under the penalty of the law. That penalty is death. Jesus paid that penalty for us in order to pay our debt to God. This is the “redemption” the passage above refers to.

The danger for Christians, having been made righteous by faith, is to forget that we had nothing to do with being forgiven. Sure, we made the choice to follow Christ. However, we are forgiven because HE says so, not because WE say so.

If we become too accustomed to our view from the mountaintop, and forget how we got there (by God throwing us down a rope, not by our climbing), it is all too tempting for us to look down on the people still “down in the valley.”

Basically, if you ever find yourself looking down on someone else from a position that you have not earned, you have crossed the line to self-righteousness.

RIGHTEOUSNESS DN= SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

For Christians, self-righteousness comes from the mistaken idea that we are somehow better than other human beings are because of our relationship with Jesus. For a non-Christian, self-righteousness occurs when they must put another down in order to elevate themselves.

Since true righteousness comes from faith in Jesus alone, a person without that faith would have no means of being made righteous. Since no one can earn the favor of God by good deeds, anyone who boasts in those deeds would be self-righteous as well.

Simply put, self-righteousness is unrighteousness.

(For more clarification of church jargon, come back for Part 4–Holy)

DN=: Part 2–Freedom

“All things are allowed,” you say. But not all things are good. “All things are allowed.” But some things don’t help anyone. (1 Cor 10:23 ERV)

We are big on freedom in this country, aren’t we? We have a Bill of Rights in our constitution guaranteeing us freedom of speech, the press, assembly, religion and petition. When our soldiers go off to war, we are told that they are “fighting for our freedom.”

It’s in all the songs we learn as kids. America is the land of the FREE and the home of the brave. We are proud to be Americans where at least we know we’re FREE. From every mountainside, let FREEDOM ring.

Christians are also fond of the words “free” and “freedom.” We also have phrases that we repeat or sing in songs, such as:

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.
My chains are gone; I’ve been set free.

Nevertheless, Christians can easily fall into the same trap as the rest of the world in the sense of abusing personal freedom at the expense of the freedom of another.

FREEDOM DN= LICENSE TO DO WHATEVER WE WANT

Within a generation of Jesus’ death, both Paul and Peter were dealing with this problem in the early Church:

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? Galatians 5:13-15 (MSG)

Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God’s emissaries for keeping order. It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government. (1 Peter 2: 13-17 MSG)

Do you see the tie there? Freedom = service. Some translations actually use the word “slave.”

Now for Americans, that notion can be jarring. For Americans of African descent in particular, it can feel like a harsh slap in the face. After all that this country and its people have gone through to win freedom, God wants us to be slaves again?

The original Greek word in Peter’s letter is doulos, which does mean slave, but not in the way we Americans think of it. When we hear the word “slave,” we think of forced labor. In other words, a slave’s status is determined by the work the slave does and the conditions under which he is compelled to do it.

A doulos, on the other hand, is also a bondservant, or one permanently bound and subservient to a master; however, their slave status is determined not by their work, but by their relationship to their master.

The implication then, made by both Peter and Paul, is that to be a bondservant of Christ, one must no longer be a slave to sin. After all, as Jesus Himself said, “No one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24a NIV).”

Furthermore, in this context a doulos is a VOLUNTARY bondservant. We are born slaves to sin, but we CHOOSE to be “slaves” for Christ. The only way to be in a position to make that choice is to have first been freed from the grip of sin in our lives. A slave cannot free himself; he can only be freed by the master. And the Master said this:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34 NIV)

And also this:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25:40b NIV)

Therefore, serving God and serving other people are actually one and the same. So being a doulos to Christ means being a doulos to the world as well, but to its people, not its philosophies.

As no one can serve two masters, and as it is impossible to serve both Christ and our own sinful desires, so it is also impossible to simultaneously serve the world while doing whatever we want.

This is the reason that no one is justified by their works alone apart from having been freed by the Master, with whom they have a relationship.

Which brings up another DN=.

(Which will be covered in Part 3–Righteousness)

DN=: Part 1–Does Not Equal

Perhaps, like me, you have noticed a preponderance of equal signs lately, on Facebook and elsewhere. I have also noticed a link between the equal sign and false accusations of “hatred, bigotry and ignorance” being directed at people who are not necessarily on board with the equal sign.

This got me to thinking about people and their differences. Obviously, there’s a whole bunch of us on this planet. We are all unique, as are our experiences and perspectives. We all see life a little bit differently. Yet it seems that we all carry with us the assumption that everyone sees life in exactly the same way.

I expect this is our natural self-centeredness at work. If someone doesn’t share our point of view, well, then there must be something wrong with that person.

This much is natural, but it seems that in this generation our society has taken this concept to absurd extremes. Simple misunderstandings of diverse points of view have become breeding grounds for character judgments and demonization.

This progression has given birth to the phenomenon known as political correctness, in which people speak in code words with the purpose of not offending others. Unless they feel offended themselves. In that case, there is another set of code words with which they can label and demonize their opponents without taking the time to hear them out.

Anyone else see a disconnect here?

I may have found a way to disarm this bomb, however. If we are speaking with integrity, that is, if we say exactly what we mean and mean exactly what we say, then in theory, we have eliminated the possibility for misunderstanding.

One problem with this theory however—people who speak in code also assume that you are doing it as well. So rather than hearing what you say, which is exactly what you meant to say, they waste much mental energy trying to figure out the hidden agenda you don’t have.

So in order to better understand each other, we need some clear definitions of the words we say and the thoughts and intentions behind them. To this end, I have come up with my own variation of the equal sign: the DN= (Does Not Equal). The purpose of DN= is to clarify the motives behind our words to be more thoroughly heard, and therefore, better understood.

To illustrate the DN= principle, let’s start with a word all Americans know–freedom.

(And that’s just what we’ll do, if you come back for DN= Part 2!)