What is the spiritual gift of discerning spirits?

[Pergamum]

1 Cor. 12:4-11: "Now tthere are varieties of gifts, but uthe same Spirit; vthere are varieties of service, but uthe same Lord; uthe same God who empowers them all in everyone. wTo each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. xwisdom, and to another the utterance of yknowledge according to the same Spirit, zfaith by the same Spirit, to another agifts of healing by the one Spirit, bthe working of miracles, to another cprophecy, to another dthe ability to distinguish between spirits, to another evarious kinds of tongues, to another fthe interpretation of tongues. gwho apportions to each one individually has he wills.

What does this gift look like today?

One website explained this spiritual gift in the following manner: "Simply put, discerning of spirits means to spiritually see and understand what the Holy Spirit and demonic spirits are doing as they impact our earthly realm."

 

[Scott Bushey]

I guess the first question would be, 'is this spiritual gift still active in this age'? If it is, I would agree with the definition u provide. Myself, I feel as if I have a similar gift. It only takes me a short while (sometimes, minutes) to know a person. It gets a bit creepy at times for me as it is so detailed. After conversing with the person a bit, what he is telling me, about himself or his issues, I already knew; it is akin to the HS showing me it all in a split second. Like a movie all at once.

 

[Timmay]

I guess the first question would be, 'is this spiritual gift still active in this age'? If it is, I would agree with the definition u provide. Myself, I feel as if I have a similar gift. It only takes me a short while (sometimes, minutes) to know a person. It gets a bit creepy at times for me as it is so detailed. After conversing with the person a bit, what he is telling me, about himself or his issues, I already knew; it is akin to the HS showing me it all in a split second. Like a movie all at once.

What do you mean you already knew?


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[Scott Bushey]

What do you mean you already knew?

Theologically speaking, I am a cessationist. But given the passage cited above ( the ability to distinguish between spirits), I see a relationship...but who knows.

I don't know what to attribute it to but I generally have a handle on a good amount of data on the person prior to them telling me. Most of it is general stuff, but none the less.

 

[Edward]

Some years ago, an Associate Pastor administered 'spiritual gifts' tests to a group of us. I recall scoring very high on discernment, lower on one or two others.

 

[Timmay]

I always understood this gift to be able to tell if someone is preaching/teaching orthodoxy or not even if orthodox language is being used.


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[Pergamum]

Among Pentecostals this gift is often explained as being more in tune with the presence of the occult or demonic forces and these people say they are extra-sensitive to such things so that they can pray against the forces of evil.

If you have this gift then you can feel the presence of the demonic and discern how the demonic is attacking and be able to fight it better.

This seems to be a novel interpretation and probably less than 200 years old. I am looking for Puritan works on this spiritual gift or even medieval views of this gift to counter or to confirm this Charismatic interpretation.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

To the OP, I believe this gift ceased in the church at the end of the apostolic age. But Scott’s post made me think about two things I’ve read that I related back to this phenomenon, because I’ve experienced something along this line as well. This may sound unspiritual but I hope not in a bad way because I think it’s very interesting and shows how marvelously we’re made. Anyway, one of the books is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The subtitle is “the power of thinking without thinking.” He shows how people who are very studied on or inclined in a certain way are able to assess or recognize certain things in an eyeblink without any *conscious thought prior. It’s very interesting. Scott, you may be wired to be a very good student of human nature. The other book is an interesting little one called “Good news for anxious Christians” by Philip Cary, subtitled “10 practical things you DON’T have to do.” Chapter 2 is “why you don’t have to believe your intuitions are the Holy Spirit.” This book was written as a help and antidote for people coming out of the wilderness of charismatic thinking and it’s a good one. Anyway, I hope this isn’t too off-topic as it doesn’t address the OP directly. Just to show that we could consider that humans are wonderfully made with amazing powers sometimes of intuition.

 

[EvanVK]

If I recall correctly, Rev. Todd Ruddell made the connection between this gift and the discerning of the Spirit of Antichrist(and his doctrine) and the Holy Spirit (and his doctrine) int the Apostolic church. This was in one of the Reformation 500 sermons on Antichrist. Here is the link to the sermons:

https://purelypresbyterian.com/2017/02/22/the-pope-is-antichrist/

p.s. Sorry, I cant remember which sermon it was; but you might as well listen to them all anyway, they are very good.

 

[KMK]

It is the ability to discern the difference between scotch and bourbon...blindfolded.