Discernment the Result of Experience
R. Johnstone, LL. B. Philippians 1:10 That you may approve things that are excellent; that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. When offered food, a child takes palatableness only into account, and will as readily eat, if it be pleasant to the taste, what is unwholesome or even poisonous, as what is most nourishing. The power of discriminating, so as "to refuse the evil and choose the good," comes by experience. Now the skill which experience, to a great extent unsought, thus gives in the physical sphere, must, in the spiritual, be sought by definite pursuit. Observation and reading, the reading particularly of the biographies of eminent Christians — and especially the Bible biographies, which have an absolute truthfulness seldom even approached in others — these will supply materials, the thoughtful and prayerful consideration of which will produce acuteness of moral perception. There are Christians in whom natural delicacy of feeling and accuracy of judgment, fostered by various helpful surroundings, give, from the very beginning of their religious life, a faculty of spiritual discrimination which acts almost with the readiness and certainty of an instinct. (R. Johnstone, LL. B.) Parallel Verses KJV: That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; WEB: so that you may approve the things that are excellent; that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ;