Test everything and keep what is good

Date: 29 Decem­ber 2024 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:16–22
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

With the sen­tence «Test ever­y­thing and keep what is good» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:21), Paul first chal­lenges the church com­mu­ni­ty in Thes­sa­lo­ni­ca at the time, but also us, to a trus­ting open­ness towards the Holy Spi­rit. The lis­ten­ers are also allo­wed to be cri­ti­cal throug­hout and have the task of test­ing what they hear. What are sui­ta­ble cri­te­ria for this examination?


«Test ever­y­thing and keep what is good» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:21 EU) – this is the Lord’s Watch­word for 2025. The advice makes sen­se imme­dia­te­ly. Nobo­dy thinks that we should nai­vely belie­ve ever­y­thing or serious­ly scru­ti­ni­se not­hing. What sounds banal at first beco­mes spe­cial with its con­text: In the bibli­cal con­text, it is about the test­ing of Spi­rit-empowered prophecy.

The first let­ter to the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans is the oldest let­ter in the New Tes­ta­ment. It was pro­ba­b­ly writ­ten around 50 AD. Thus, in this let­ter we find the oldest refe­ren­ces to the work of the Holy Spi­rit in the ear­ly church. The major dis­pu­tes about the Chris­ti­an approach to ques­ti­ons of the Torah, cir­cumcis­i­on or the coexis­tence of dif­fe­rent peo­p­le in the church have yet to be sett­led. Thus the let­ter con­ta­ins only three topics: 1. the elec­tion by Christ, 2. the expec­ta­ti­on of his immi­nent appearance and 3. the com­mon iden­ti­ty through a prac­ti­ce of love (disci­ple­ship).

Trusting openness to the Holy Spirit

Paul is inte­res­ted in an open, fearless, expec­tant and curious atti­tu­de towards the Holy Spi­rit and his good gifts. In the imme­dia­te con­text, it is about the spi­ri­tual­ly deter­mi­ned life of the con­gre­ga­ti­on: «Always be cheerful. Do not stop pray­ing. Wha­te­ver hap­pens, be thank­ful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:16–18 NLB). With rejoi­cing, pray­ing and giving thanks, Paul empha­si­s­es the Spi­rit-led basic fea­tures of the Chris­ti­an faith.

And then Paul expli­cit­ly refers to the Holy Spi­rit and his utteran­ces: «Do not sup­press the Holy Spi­rit. Do not des­pi­se pro­phe­tic spea­king» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:19f NLB). In Thes­sa­lo­ni­ki, mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­ti­on were obvious­ly pro­phe­tic and clai­med to speak in a spi­ri­tual­ly gifted and inspi­red man­ner. Appar­ent­ly, ecsta­tic expe­ri­en­ces were com­mon. Should­n’t we first main­tain a cri­ti­cal distance? When Paul warns us not to sup­press the Holy Spi­rit, the­re was at least one group that was get­ting too colourful and would per­haps pre­fer to do wit­hout the super­na­tu­ral work of God’s Spirit.

What does the ins­truc­tion «Exami­ne ever­y­thing and keep what is good» to do with us in a well-sett­led Swiss church like the see­tal chi­le? Moreo­ver, unli­ke the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans, we have the who­le Bible inclu­ding the New Tes­ta­ment at our dis­po­sal, whe­re ever­y­thing is writ­ten for you.

First of all, the mes­sa­ge to us is not to sup­press the Holy Spi­rit, not to extin­gu­ish the fire (cf. Ephe­si­ans 4:30). Would­n’t it be nice and right if things were some­ti­mes a litt­le more enthu­si­a­stic and enthu­si­a­stic among us? The Spi­rit inspi­res and God (The­os) makes us enthu­si­a­stic. The effects and mani­fes­ta­ti­ons of God’s spi­rit are mani­fold, and we must learn to endu­re and app­re­cia­te this. It would ener­gi­se our church life and our per­so­nal rela­ti­onship with Jesus if the Spi­rit of God were given a litt­le more space among us. The mot­to for the year does not want to clo­se us off, but rather open us up. It wants to open us up to the good things that life, the Spi­rit of life, has to offer us.

The open­ness to the Spi­rit of God recom­men­ded by Paul is signi­fi­cant for us today. Becau­se our atti­tu­de towards someone or some­thing deter­mi­nes what we expe­ri­ence. With fear­ful scep­ti­cism, we cut our­sel­ves off from cer­tain expe­ri­en­ces of God’s pre­sence of mind from the out­set. If the phra­se «test ever­y­thing» inhi­bits our expe­ri­ence, the­re will soon be not­hing left to test.

This year we expe­ri­en­ced how the Holy Spi­rit gave some peo­p­le the impres­si­on that in see­tal chi­le we should focus on the topic of For­gi­ve­ness should accept. We took up the impul­se and a lot of good has come out of it.

The mot­to for 2025 encou­ra­ges us not to be afraid of new and unfa­mi­li­ar things, but to look at ever­y­thing with an open mind, exami­ne it careful­ly and stay in dia­lo­gue. This keeps our faith ali­ve and crea­tes free­dom. I hope that we can dis­co­ver both the old and the new with fresh eyes.

Critical trust

«Checks ever­y­thing […]» When I build a new machi­ne and want to know how long it will last, I have to take the rele­vant com­pon­ents to the Empa mate­ri­als test­ing cent­re. The­re, the mate­ri­al is put through its paces. Howe­ver, they can only test com­pon­ents that are deli­ver­ed to the labo­ra­to­ry. If they get stuck in recep­ti­on, the­re is no test­ing pro­cess. Even in a spi­ri­tu­al sen­se, we can only test if we first recei­ve what we have heard. This requi­res an advan­ce of trust. With fear­ful scep­ti­cism, we cut our­sel­ves off from cer­tain expe­ri­en­ces of God’s spi­ri­tu­al pre­sence from the outset.

It is chal­len­ging that Paul does not demand blind sub­mis­si­on to the spi­ri­tu­al speech of God. With him, the Spi­rit-led exami­na­ti­on by the con­gre­ga­ti­on takes pre­ce­dence over the Spi­rit-led utterance. Every reli­gious cla­im to vali­di­ty must be sub­jec­ted to com­mon scru­ti­ny. No one can pre­su­me to say unequi­vo­cal­ly and uni­ver­sal­ly what is good or bad, neither Paul nor the pro­phe­ti­cal­ly gifted nor anyo­ne else. What is decisi­ve is a spi­rit-led joint pro­cess. Dis­cern­ment of spi­rits is just as much a spi­ri­tu­al gift as pro­phe­tic spea­king.

Paul trusts the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans to be able to exami­ne what has been said, even though they do not yet have the New Tes­ta­ment. He also refrains from spe­ci­fy­ing in detail what is right and wrong. He trus­ted that the Spi­rit of God would help them to make the right jud­ge­ment in the community.

Today, we have a huge reli­gious mar­ket of books, pod­casts and ser­mons at our fin­ger­tips. When we con­su­me such media, we should also do so with cri­ti­cal trust. We do not have an important New Tes­ta­ment test cri­ter­ion at hand, name­ly an insight into the life of the pre­a­cher. Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of decon­s­truc­tion­ism and post-evan­ge­li­cal­ism are curr­ent­ly very popu­lar and very acti­ve. Both move­ments share an inte­rest in the cri­ti­cal exami­na­ti­on of tra­di­tio­nal reli­gious con­cepts and the refor­ma­ti­on of faith. Alt­hough the ques­tio­ning of tra­di­tio­nal posi­ti­ons is always desi­red, the ques­ti­on of the «ina­li­enable», the relia­ble foun­da­ti­on, the abso­lu­te truths remains.

Suitable test criteria

Spi­rit-empowered speech wit­hout reasonable respon­si­bi­li­ty is a rap­tu­re. Just as, con­ver­se­ly, a dog­ma­tism that is ful­ly unders­tood and secu­red remains a power­less shadow. The fol­lo­wing the­r­e­fo­re appli­es: «[…] keep the good.» The con­ti­nua­tion in ver­se 22 links the mot­to of the year with the con­trast bet­ween good and evil: «Avo­id evil in any form!» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:22 NLB). The­re is good and evil – but how can we tell the difference?

When it comes to test­ing, we find our­sel­ves bet­ween two poles: On the one hand, Solo­mon alre­a­dy said that the­re is not­hing new under the sun (Eccle­si­as­tes 1:9). It is very sus­pi­cious when someone brings a revo­lu­tio­na­ry new tea­ching or cha­rac­te­ri­ses hims­elf and his move­ment with abso­lu­te terms, such as Last Refor­ma­ti­on. On the other hand, we should always get out of our «echo cham­bers» and allow our­sel­ves to be chal­len­ged by new ide­as. Echo cham­ber means that we pre­fer to expo­se our­sel­ves to spea­k­ers or doc­tri­nes that repre­sent our own opi­ni­on. We feel com­for­ta­ble when our estab­lished opi­ni­on is con­firm­ed and hard­ly allow our­sel­ves to be chal­len­ged by other thoughts. I grew up in an envi­ron­ment whe­re things to come were cle­ar­ly orga­nis­ed and recor­ded: First comes the gre­at apo­sta­sy, then the rap­tu­re, the gre­at tri­bu­la­ti­on, the second coming of Christ, the 1000-year king­dom and then the final jud­ge­ment. For years I belie­ved that this was bibli­cal truth shared by the enti­re world. The mot­to of the year would like to encou­ra­ge us to embrace new things with gre­at open­ness and to test them.

What are sui­ta­ble test criteria?

  • Gift of dis­cern­mentIn Thes­sa­lo­ni­ki, this was the most important test­ing instru­ment. My expe­ri­ence in this regard is that peo­p­le often cla­im this gift of the mind for them­sel­ves who do not even take the com­pon­ents to be tes­ted into the laboratory.
  • Jesus at the cent­re: «And this is how you reco­g­ni­se the Spi­rit of God: ever­yo­ne who con­fes­ses that Jesus Christ real­ly came to earth as a man has the Spi­rit of God» (1 John 4:2 NLB). The Holy Spi­rit always points to Jesus Christ, the incar­na­te God. It is not for not­hing that the Spi­rit of God is also cal­led Christ in us (Colos­si­ans 1:27).
  • God’s word as a stan­dardUnli­ke the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans, we have a gre­at advan­ta­ge: we have the Bible, God’s Word. Every impres­si­on and every pro­phe­tic utterance needs the back­ing of the Holy Scrip­tures. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the Bible know­ledge of the fol­lo­wers of Jesus is not at its best in our environment.
  • Con­fir­ma­ti­on in the com­mu­ni­tyPaul gave the who­le church in Thes­sa­lo­ni­ca the task of test­ing and kee­ping what is good. He did not say: Only tho­se who have the gift of dis­cer­ning of spi­rits should judge. The impres­si­on that we as see­tal chi­le should con­cern our­sel­ves with for­gi­ve­ness has been con­firm­ed and brought to us from various sides.
  • Taking bold stepsA per­son I know once had the firm impres­si­on late at night that she should go to Teuf­en­thal sta­ti­on. I was cont­ac­ted and we dis­cus­sed what to do. We came to the con­clu­si­on that it was good to fol­low this impul­se. Eit­her it was an impres­si­on from God or it is a good trai­ning ground to bet­ter hear the voice of God.
  • Take your timeDuring my theo­lo­gi­cal stu­dies we had a guest lec­tu­rer from Chi­na who said seve­ral times: «The devil is in a hur­ry.» He pro­ved the truth of this state­ment with impres­si­ve examp­les. God allows hims­elf the luxu­ry of time, he also crea­ted it. If you are unsu­re whe­ther some­thing is good or evil, you should take your time to make a judgement.
  • Cor­re­spon­ding to the natu­re of GodSome­ti­mes it is very hel­pful to look at the mat­ter from a meta-level. Does the thing to be tes­ted cor­re­spond to the cha­rac­ter and natu­re of Jesus? We fol­low Him. If we remain in Him and He in us, we will reco­g­ni­se the truth.

The mot­to for 2025 chal­lenges us to scru­ti­ni­se ever­y­thing and keep what is good. To prepa­re our­sel­ves for this task, we will be orga­ni­s­ing an event next spring tog­e­ther with the pas­tors in our regi­on. We have invi­ted a theo­lo­gy lec­tu­rer for this pur­po­se. The aim is to impro­ve our theo­lo­gi­cal matu­ri­ty so that we can bet­ter scru­ti­ni­se the many doc­tri­nes that are thrown at us. We would like to offer more evenings like this after­wards to look at other topics in more depth.

A new year lies ahead of us. I would like to make a wish for us as see­tal chi­le: I would like us to open our­sel­ves cou­ra­ge­ous­ly and trus­tingly to the Holy Spi­rit in the spi­rit of the mot­to for the year, to exami­ne impres­si­ons recei­ved and pro­phe­tic speech as a com­mu­ni­ty on the basis of sui­ta­ble cri­te­ria and thus, in the dust of our rab­bi, to fol­low Jesus closely.

 

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:16–22

  1. Paul says that the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans should not sup­press the Spi­rit or des­pi­se pro­phe­tic speech. How and in what con­text could the­se things be encou­ra­ged among us?
  2. Whe­re could you per­so­nal­ly con­tri­bu­te to a spi­rit-fuel­led life?
  3. Whe­re do you get the tea­ching for fol­lo­wing Jesus?
  4. How do you test what you hear? What are the cri­te­ria you use?
  5. Do you tend to be open and tole­rant or cri­ti­cal and dis­mis­si­ve? How could you bet­ter attu­ne yours­elf to today’s Bible text?