‘It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, fuilled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of Christ.’ (Phil 1v9-10).

I was reading an article on these verses this morning, and it set me thinking about how love can be based on discernment.  It is just fine when ‘knowledge and discernment’ lead us to ‘approve what is excellent’ in a person, but what happens when we DIS approve?  When, instead of discerning excellent things, we discern evil – violence, lies, bullying, arrogance . . . ? 

The danger with seeking to exercise discerment is the human tendency to judge – and the human tendency also to justify ourselves, and to get judgements of others wrong.  Jesus knew what He was talking about when He warned against judging others by reminding us that we too will be judged.  Perhaps that is why Paul, when putting together love and discernment, focusses on the approval of what is excellent rather than on disapproval of what is wicked.  Not that he would recommend approving falsehood and wickedness!  But, if we are to learn love, we have to learn to discern the good – to see the image of God in which each person was created, however obscured by sin it may be. 

So I pray for myself, and for others, that I may learn to love with the all-encompassing love of God, while at the same time learning what is true and discerning good and evil, so that I love goodness and hate evil, while loving saint and sinner alike.