I figure that I’ve earned the right to occasionally re-post a past favorite article when circumstances so dictate (hey, it’s my site!). I’m doing that today. I wrote this one a couple of years ago and was thinking about it yesterday while sitting on a plane in the pouring rain.

*****

At four o’clock in the afternoon of August 2, 2005, I was just a few minutes into a long online training session with a software manufacturer. As we spoke, and as the technician showed me the features of this software, I suddenly noticed that it had gotten very dark in my office. I looked outside and saw that the sky was as dark as ever I’ve seen an afternoon summer sky. Within minutes rain began to fall—hard, driving rain—the kind of rain that will soak you to the skin in seconds. I said to the technician, “this is the worst rain storm I’ve ever seen.” The rain was falling so hard and in such great drops that I could only barely see the house across from my own.

The pilots of Air France flight 358 may have been echoing my words. As the rain fell in Oakville, it also poured down in nearby Toronto. At that very moment their aircraft was on its final approach to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. The airplane, an Airbus A340, had left France’s Charles de Gaulle International Airport just over eight hours prior to this and the passengers—businesspersons, vacationers, and students—had enjoyed an uneventful flight. Uneventful so far, that is.

As they neared Toronto, the pilots were warned of thunderstorms in the area and, as they began their approach, were told that jets landing moments earlier had warned of poor braking action on the runways below. Their weather radar showed heavy rain immediately over the airport. Despite such warnings, the pilots felt they would be able to safely land their aircraft. When they were nearly 200 feet above the runway threshold, while on the instrument landing system approach to Runway 24L and as the pilots reacted to rising winds, the aircraft began to deviate slightly from its glidescope. A series of lightning strikes struck the ground in the area of the runway. Flight 358 crossed the runway threshold nearly 40 feet above the standard glideslope. As it neared the ground, violent winds rocked the plane and heavy rain pelted it, drastically reducing forward visibility.

The pilots, unaware that they still had plenty of time to bring the plane around for a second, safer landing attempt, pressed forward. The aircraft’s wheels touched down at 4:01 PM, but did so at almost the halfway point of the 9,000 foot runway. Improper procedures kept the pilots from activating the thrust reversers until 13 seconds after touchdown and from going to full reverse for a further 3.5 seconds. In such weather conditions and with delayed activation of thrust reverses, the laws of physics dictated that a plane weighing almost 185 tons would require nearly 6,700 feet of usable runway to come to a complete and safe stop. The pilots did not yet know it, but they were facing an impossible task.

With the pavement covered in water and a runway surface that was now far too short, the pilots did their best to stop the aircraft as it skidded down the runway. Twenty six seconds after touching down, still traveling at 90 mph as it came to the end of the runway, the Airbus careened across a strip of grass, crossed a service road, crushed fences and light posts, and hurtled across Convair Drive before coming to rest, finally, in a small ravine adjacent to Etobicoke Creek. Some fifteen to twenty seconds had elapsed from the time the aircraft left the runway. Amazingly, the fuselage was largely intact. But as the plane had crossed Convair Drive, fuel had begun to leak and had immediately caught fire. As the plane came to a halt the fire began to spread and to intensify.

It had been almost three decades since the last serious incident at Pearson Airport. On June 26, 1978, Air Canada flight 189 to Winnipeg suffered a burst tire while taking off. The pilot aborted the takeoff but did so too late. That plane, a DC-9, also overran the runway and plunged into Etobicoke Creek, killing two passengers and injuring most of the 105 who survived. It was an eerie foreshadowing of the events of August 2, 2005.

Since flight 189 in 1978 there had been no serious occurrences at the airport—no major accidents or incidents. For twenty-seven years the firefighters had trained to deal with a situation like this one. An entire generation of firefighters had come and gone without seeing a single incident. They could almost be excused for being under-prepared, slow to respond, slow to act.

Seeing flashes of fire and realizing the plane had overrun the runway, a tower controller activated the airport’s crash alarm twenty-six seconds after flight 358 left the runway. But by this time the airport firefighters who, due to the bad weather, had been in the alarm room and had watched the plane land, were already on their way to the crash scene. They arrived only 52 seconds after the plane left the runway. Already they found that half of the passengers had been evacuated. The Air France flight attendants had reacted promptly and just as their training dictated, ushering the passengers to the closest available exists. By the time fire began to consume the fuselage, the last passenger had been evacuated.

Despite twenty seven years without an incident, those firefighters were ready and they responded well in advance of the parameters dictated by safety regulations. In less than a minute they were on the scene and were assisting the passengers. It took less time for them to get to the crash site than it did for fully half of the passengers to leave it.

In the aftermath of this crash, and as I read reports about it, I immediately zeroed in on this simple number that appeared almost unbelievable to me: 52 seconds. I couldn’t believe just how ready these firefighters were.

The theme of preparation is important in the Bible and was much on my mind around the time of that crash as it was then that I was in the early stages of writing a book on the subject of discernment. This incident has been sitting in the back of my mind ever since. Preparation, I’m convinced, is one of the keys to discernment. In all my studies on discernment, this was the one thing that stood out above everything else. The simple fact is that those who are discerning are those who prepare themselves by knowing and studying Scripture. They dedicate themselves to the simple disciplines of reading, prayer and sitting under biblical preaching at the local church.

Just this morning I spent some time studying Genesis 3 and I read of Satan tempting Eve. It seems that Eve was somehow inadequately prepared to deal with this adversary. She was so easily led astray, so easily allowing Satan to lead her away from what was true. Perhaps she just hadn’t given enough thought to the command of the Lord that she not eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Perhaps she had never paused to consider what God meant by not eating. Regardless, she certainly did not trust in His Word or in His goodness. She was unprepared. And so often we are the same way. Though Satan’s tactics have changed little in the millennia between then and now, we are still woefully unprepared to deal with him.

The crash of Flight 358 ended far better than it could have. Almost unbelievably, all of the 297 passengers and 12 crew members survived the crash. There were only a few serious injuries, almost all of which were caused by the leap from the plane to the ground below. Air France flight 358 was a disaster averted.

The last to leave the shattered wreckage were the plane’s First Officer and several airport firefighters. They firefighters had swept through the plane ensuring that no one had been left behind. They stepped out just as the fire consumed and destroyed what was left of the cabin. They were where they were needed when they were needed. They were ready.

Last night was one of those nights where the kids kept me up for pretty much the whole thing. This morning I tried to do some writing but my brain was still clearly lying in bed. Therefore I am going to post something I wrote a couple of years ago; it is a topic that has been in my mind a good bit lately and I hope you can benefit from it.

It’s no secret around here that I love the book of Proverbs and consider it my “home page” in the Bible. I read through Proverbs at least once a year and, whenever I’m not sure what else to read, I turn to it. And while I love Proverbs and envy the wisdom of Solomon I find something really sobering about his life. Whenever I consider Solomon, I am faced with the question of how a man of such great wisdom and discernment could end his life so far from the Lord. How did such a wise man become so foolish? How did such a discerning man stray so far? If Solomon was the most discerning man who ever lived (besides Jesus, of course), and discernment is the application of wisdom, then how do we account for his spiritual digression? How can a truly discerning man be disobedient? How did Solomon, who was so wise and so discerning, end up so far from the Lord?

Solomon’s wisdom is unparalleled by any other human. The Bible tells us that the Queen of Sheba once came to Solomon, having heard of his great wisdom, and “told him all that was on her mind.” There was nothing she asked that he could not answer, for “Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.” We know that “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men…” In the history of mankind, there was no one like Solomon. He was extraordinarily gifted by God.

“Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.” He was richly blessed, with wealth and power beyond measure. “He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. And Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders received them from Kue at a price. A chariot could be imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through the king’s traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.”

When the Queen of Sheba witnessed Solomon’s wisdom and gazed at all his wealth, the Bible tells us that there was no more breath in her. She was completely overwhelmed. I have felt the same as I’ve read about his life and have read his proverbs. The man’s wisdom and discernment is clearly unsurpassed among men. And yet there is more to the story.

It is always a shock to turn to the tenth chapter of 1 Kings and to read about Solomon’s downfall. It is awful to hear how a man with such wisdom strayed so far from God. “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.” I find the next verse instructive. “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” His wives turned away his heart so that it was not wholly true to the Lord his God. Solomon’s heart was at first divided between women and God, but it soon turned away altogether. He allowed the lust of his heart to overcome and overwhelm his love for God.

This is sobering, is it not? A man with the wisdom of Solomon, a man who had had the Lord appear to him twice and who had heard the Lord directly command him not to turn after other gods, turned away nonetheless. Though he was a wise man, the Lord told him “you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you.” How could this happen?

Ironically, I believe that we can find the key to Solomon’s downfall in one of his own proverbs. In Proverbs 19:27 we read “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” There are some proverbs that are multi-layered and which require great thought. This is not that kind. That meaning of this one is plain. Those who cease to listen to wise instruction, instruction based on the fear of the Lord, will quickly stray. While we cannot know for certain, I am increasingly convinced that this is what happened to Solomon. While he was young, he was visited by God and was endowed with great wisdom and discernment. When he was only a young man, but still a king, he called out to God in what seems to be a healthy apprehension of the difficulties he would face as king:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

God was pleased with Solomon’s request, replying “I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” Solomon knew his weakness and, in humility, cried out to God and asked for His strength. As a little child cries to his father for help Solomon cried out in dependence on God. God was pleased to hear, pleased to answer, and pleased to give to Solomon far more than he asked. Solomon asked for discernment, but was also given great wisdom, great wealth, and great power. God lavished gifts upon him.

But as Solomon grew older, he began to depend less on God. I believe he began to depend on his own wisdom and to stray ever-further from God’s instruction. Where there was once humble dependence on God, there was now dependence on himself. In so doing, he strayed from words of knowledge, and strayed from God Himself. John Anderson once preached a sermon in which he said, “Erring from the words of knowledge is direct rebellion against the authority of God, whose law binds us to believe whatever he reveals. The language of obstinate error is, I prefer my own wisdom and my own will in such a particular to the wisdom and will of God himself.” Solomon preferred his wisdom to God’s wisdom, his ways to God’s ways. The whole earth once “sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.” But I believe Solomon soon allowed his own earthly wisdom to overtake his mind. He ceased hearing instruction and strayed from words of knowledge. He strayed from wisdom. He strayed from God.

Wisdom and discernment, then, are character traits that, like the moon, can wax and wane. They are gifts of God, but gifts that we can throw away. They are gifts that need to be nurtured and maintained. We cannot take them for granted, taking refuge in the fact that we may be wise and discerning right now. We need to continue to strive after them and to seek them. We need to learn from Solomon that even the wisest man today may be the greatest fool tomorrow. We depend on grace, even to sustain our wisdom and discernment.

If Solomon could stray so far from the Lord, I know that I can too. This is a sobering thought. This is a terrifying thought, even. But the solution to avoiding the folly of Solomon is clear. I need to take care that I never cease to hear instruction. I must live with an intense focus on God’s Word, never believing that I have learned enough, never believing that I’ve arrived. I must know that from this day to the day I die, I need to maintain a humble dependence on God. I must trust that His words of instruction will continue to edify and strengthen me, protecting me from straying from the words of knowledge. I will never outgrow my need for His sustaining grace.

At four o’clock in the afternoon of August 2, 2005, I was just a few minutes into a long online training session with a software manufacturer. As we spoke, and as the technician showed me the features of this software, I suddenly noticed that it had gotten very dark in my office. I looked outside and saw that the sky was as dark as ever I’ve seen an afternoon summer sky. Within minutes rain began to fall—hard, driving rain—the kind of rain that will soak you to the skin in seconds. I said to the technician, “this is the worst rain storm I’ve ever seen.” The rain was falling so hard and in such great drops that I could only barely see the house across from my own.

The pilots of Air France flight 358 may have been echoing my words. As the rain fell in Oakville, it also poured down in nearby Toronto. At that very moment their aircraft was on its final approach to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. The airplane, an Airbus A340, had left France’s Charles de Gaulle International Airport just over eight hours prior to this and the passengers—businesspersons, vacationers, and students—had enjoyed an uneventful flight. Uneventful so far, that is.

As they neared Toronto, the pilots were warned of thunderstorms in the area and, as they began their approach, were told that jets landing moments earlier had warned of poor braking action on the runways below. Their weather radar showed heavy rain immediately over the airport. Despite such warnings, the pilots felt they would be able to safely land their aircraft. When they were nearly 200 feet above the runway threshold, while on the instrument landing system approach to Runway 24L and as the pilots reacted to rising winds, the aircraft began to deviate slightly from its glidescope. A series of lightning strikes struck the ground in the area of the runway. Flight 358 crossed the runway threshold nearly 40 feet above the standard glideslope. As it neared the ground, violent winds rocked the plane and heavy rain pelted it, drastically reducing forward visibility.

The pilots, unaware that they still had plenty of time to bring the plane around for a second, safer landing attempt, pressed forward. The aircraft’s wheels touched down at 4:01 PM, but did so at almost the halfway point of the 9,000 foot runway. Improper procedures kept the pilots from activating the thrust reversers until 13 seconds after touchdown and from going to full reverse for a further 3.5 seconds. In such weather conditions and with delayed activation of thrust reverses, the laws of physics dictated that a plane weighing almost 185 tons would require nearly 6,700 feet of usable runway to come to a complete and safe stop. The pilots did not yet know it, but they were facing an impossible task.

With the pavement covered in water and a runway surface that was now far too short, the pilots did their best to stop the aircraft as it skidded down the runway. Twenty six seconds after touching down, still traveling at 90 mph as it came to the end of the runway, the Airbus careened across a strip of grass, crossed a service road, crushed fences and light posts, and hurtled across Convair Drive before coming to rest, finally, in a small ravine adjacent to Etobicoke Creek. Some fifteen to twenty seconds had elapsed from the time the aircraft left the runway. Amazingly, the fuselage was largely intact. But as the plane had crossed Convair Drive, fuel had begun to leak and had immediately caught fire. As the plane came to a halt the fire began to spread and to intensify.

It had been almost three decades since the last serious incident at Pearson Airport. On June 26, 1978, Air Canada flight 189 to Winnipeg suffered a burst tire while taking off. The pilot aborted the takeoff but did so too late. That plane, a DC-9, also overran the runway and plunged into Etobicoke Creek, killing two passengers and injuring most of the 105 who survived. It was an eerie foreshadowing of the events of August 2, 2005.

Since flight 189 in 1978 there had been no serious occurrences at the airport—no major accidents or incidents. For twenty-seven years the firefighters had trained to deal with a situation like this one. An entire generation of firefighters had come and gone without seeing a single incident. They could almost be excused for being under-prepared, slow to respond, slow to act.

Seeing flashes of fire and realizing the plane had overrun the runway, a tower controller activated the airport’s crash alarm twenty-six seconds after flight 358 left the runway. But by this time the airport firefighters who, due to the bad weather, had been in the alarm room and had watched the plane land, were already on their way to the crash scene. They arrived only 52 seconds after the plane left the runway. Already they found that half of the passengers had been evacuated. The Air France flight attendants had reacted promptly and just as their training dictated, ushering the passengers to the closest available exists. By the time fire began to consume the fuselage, the last passenger had been evacuated.

Despite twenty seven years without an incident, those firefighters were ready and they responded well in advance of the parameters dictated by safety regulations. In less than a minute they were on the scene and were assisting the passengers. It took less time for them to get to the crash site than it did for fully half of the passengers to leave it.

In the aftermath of this crash, and as I read reports about it, I immediately zeroed in on this simple number that appeared almost unbelievable to me: 52 seconds. I couldn’t believe just how ready these firefighters were.

The theme of preparation is important in the Bible and was much on my mind around the time of that crash as it was then that I was in the early stages of writing a book on the subject of discernment. This incident has been sitting in the back of my mind ever since. Preparation, I’m convinced, is one of the keys to discernment. In all my studies on discernment, this was the one thing that stood out above everything else. The simple fact is that those who are discerning are those who prepare themselves by knowing and studying Scripture. They dedicate themselves to the simple disciplines of reading, prayer and sitting under biblical preaching at the local church.

Just this morning I spent some time studying Genesis 3 and I read of Satan tempting Eve. It seems that Eve was somehow inadequately prepared to deal with this adversary. She was so easily led astray, so easily allowing Satan to lead her away from what was true. Perhaps she just hadn’t given enough thought to the command of the Lord that she not eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Perhaps she had never paused to consider what God meant by not eating. Regardless, she certainly did not trust in His Word or in His goodness. She was unprepared. And so often we are the same way. Though Satan’s tactics have changed little in the millennia between then and now, we are still woefully unprepared to deal with him.

The crash of Flight 358 ended far better than it could have. Almost unbelievably, all of the 297 passengers and 12 crew members survived the crash. There were only a few serious injuries, almost all of which were caused by the leap from the plane to the ground below. Air France flight 358 was a disaster averted.

The last to leave the shattered wreckage were the plane’s First Officer and several airport firefighters. They firefighters had swept through the plane ensuring that no one had been left behind. They stepped out just as the fire consumed and destroyed what was left of the cabin. They were where they were needed when they were needed. They were ready.

It’s no secret around here that I love the book of Proverbs and consider it my “home page” in the Bible. I read through Proverbs at least once a year and, whenever I’m not sure what else to read, I turn to it. And while I love Proverbs and envy the wisdom of Solomon I find something really sobering about his life. Whenever I consider Solomon, I am faced with the question of how a man of such great wisdom and discernment could end his life so far from the Lord. How did such a wise man become so foolish? How did such a discerning man stray so far?

I’m far from the only person who has wondered this. Just last week I received an email from a friend and reader of this site who had just finished reading The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. He asked a question that went something like this: If Solomon was the most discerning man who ever lived (besides Jesus, of course), and discernment is the application of wisdom, then how do we account for his spiritual digression? How can a truly discerning man be disobedient?” I’ve written about this a little bit in the past but it seemed like a good chance to say something more. How did Solomon, who was so wise and so discerning, end up so far from the Lord?

Solomon’s wisdom is unparalleled by any other human. The Bible tells us that the Queen of Sheba once came to Solomon, having heard of his great wisdom, and “told him all that was on her mind.” There was nothing she asked that he could not answer, for “Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her.” We know that “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men…” In the history of mankind, there was no one like Solomon. He was extraordinarily gifted by God.

“Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.” He was richly blessed, with wealth and power beyond measure. “He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. And Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders received them from Kue at a price. A chariot could be imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through the king’s traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.”

When the Queen of Sheba witnessed Solomon’s wisdom and gazed at all his wealth, the Bible tells us that there was no more breath in her. She was completely overwhelmed. I have felt the same as I’ve read about his life and have read his proverbs. The man’s wisdom and discernment is clearly unsurpassed (except by Jesus). And yet there is more to the story.

It is always a shock to turn to the tenth chapter of 1 Kings and to read about Solomon’s downfall. It is awful to hear how a man with such wisdom strayed so far from God. “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.” I find the next verse instructive. “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” His wives turned away his heart so that it was not wholly true to the Lord his God. Solomon’s heart was at first divided between women and God, but it soon turned away altogether. He allowed the lust of his heart to overcome and overwhelm his love for God.

This is sobering, is it not? A man with the wisdom of Solomon, a man who had had the Lord appear to him twice and who had heard the Lord directly command him not to turn after other gods, turned away nonetheless. Though a wise man, the Lord told him “you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you.” How could this happen?

Ironically, I believe that we can find the key to Solomon’s downfall in one of his own proverbs. In Proverbs 19:27 we read “Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.” There are some proverbs that are multi-layered and which require great thought. This is not that kind. That meaning of this one is plain. Those who cease to listen to wise instruction, instruction based on the fear of the Lord, will quickly stray. While we cannot know for certain, I am increasingly convinced that this is what happened to Solomon. While he was young, he was visited by God and was endowed with great wisdom and discernment. When he was only a young man, but still a king, he called out to God in what seems to be a healthy apprehension of the difficulties he would face as king:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

God was pleased with Solomon’s request, replying “I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” Solomon knew his weakness and, in humility, cried out to God and asked for His strength. As a little child cries to his father for help Solomon cried out in dependence on God. God was pleased to hear, pleased to answer, and pleased to give to Solomon far more than he asked. Solomon asked for discernment, but was also given great wisdom, great wealth, and great power. God lavished gifts upon him.

But as Solomon grew older, he began to depend less on God. I believe he began to depend on his own wisdom and to stray ever-further from God’s instruction. Where there was once humble dependence on God, there was now dependence on himself. In so doing, he strayed from words of knowledge, and strayed from God Himself. John Anderson once preached a sermon in which he said, “Erring from the words of knowledge is direct rebellion against the authority of God, whose law binds us to believe whatever he reveals. The language of obstinate error is, I prefer my own wisdom and my own will in such a particular to the wisdom and will of God himself.” Solomon preferred his wisdom to God’s wisdom, his ways to God’s ways. The whole earth once “sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.” But I believe Solomon soon allowed his own earthly wisdom to overtake his mind. He ceased hearing instruction and strayed from words of knowledge. He strayed from wisdom. He strayed from God.

Wisdom and discernment, then, are character traits that, like the moon, can wax and wane. They are gifts of God, but gifts that we can throw away. They are gifts that need to be nurtured and maintained. We cannot take them for granted, taking refuge in the fact that we may be wise and discerning right now. We need to continue to strive after them and to seek them. We need to learn from Solomon that even the wisest man today may be the greatest fool tomorrow. We depend on grace, even to sustain our wisdom and discernment.

If Solomon could stray so far from the Lord, I know that I can too. This is a sobering thought. This is a terrifying thought, even. But the solution to avoiding the folly of Solomon is clear. I need to take care that I never cease to hear instruction. I must live with an intense focus on God’s Word, never believing that I have learned enough, never believing that I’ve arrived. I must know that from this day to the day I die, I need to maintain a humble dependence on God. I must trust that His words of instruction will continue to edify and strengthen me, protecting me from straying from the words of knowledge. I will never outgrow my need for His sustaining grace.

Do you remember learning to do long division back when you were in grade school? It was probably fourth or fifth grade when we learned to do it. It was a long and laborious process and one that, even in my day, seemed irrelevant. After all, we all had calculators and we knew that they could do it quickly and easily. With the tapping of a few buttons we could get our solution and it would be correct every time. Kids today can probably make an even better argument that division is best handled by computers or calculators. I've little doubt that once most of them are out of school they never do long division again.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a good step-by-step example of long division in operation (drawn from Wikipedia).

950 divided by 4:

1. The dividend and divisor are written in the long division tableau:

Now instead of dividing the whole dividend (950) by the divisor (4) we will simply divide each digit of the dividend by the divisor, one at a time, starting from the most significant (leftmost) digit:

2.The first number to be divided by the divisor (4) is the leftmostdigit (9) of the dividend. Ignoring any remainder, we write the integer part of the result (2) above the division bar over the leftmost digit of the dividend.

Since we ignored the remainder, though, we have not accounted for the leftmost place entirely. That is to say: 4 2 is merely 8, and the relevant digit of the dividend was 9. Thus we subtract 8 from 9, yielding the remainder 1, to tell us how much of the leftmost place remains unaccounted for.

3. We “bring down” this unaccounted-for remainder from the leftmost place (1) then bring down the next digit of the dividend (5) and place it to the right of the remainder to create a new bottom number (15).

4. Next we repeat steps 2 and 3, using the newly created bottom number (15) as the active part of the dividend, dividing it by the divisor (4) and writing the results as before above and under the next digit of the dividend.

5. We repeat step 4 until there are no digits remaining in the dividend. The number written above the bar (237) is the quotient, and the result of the last subtraction is the remainder for the entire problem (2).

The answer to the above example is expressed as 237 with remainder 2. Alternatively, one can continue the above procedure to produce a decimal answer. We continue the process by adding a decimal and zeroes as necessary to the right of the dividend, treating each zero as another digit of the dividend. Thus the next step in such a calculation would give the following:

I’m sure you remember this kind of problem and solution. You probably remember hating having to go through all the bother. You probably remember, as I do, trying to get out of it. The argument my teachers made, and the argument I'm sure teachers continue to make today, is that doing the onerous task of long division not only teaches us how to do it on our own for those rare occasions that a computer or calculator or cell phone isn't handy, but it also teaches how division works. By going through each step we see how it works—we learn not only the solution, but we also learn the process of solving it. It isn’t fun, but neither is it meant to be. It’s an educational process.

Since the release of my book I've done quite a few written and radio interviews and I've spoken to many people about the book face-to-face. A question that gets asked often is what I hope people will take fromthe book--what are one or two things that I really want people to learn. And this is where the parallel to long division comes in. If there is just one thing I want people to take away from the book it’s the categories of discernment. If Christians can read the book and begin to think in the black and white terms of discernment, I’ll be well pleased. Just knowing that discernment is an expectation for all of us is valuable knowledge and something many Christians really do not understand.

And second to that, I want people to realize that discernment is something we are responsible for as individuals. We cannot simply leave discernment to the experts. Rather, we each need to learn to discern and we each need to grow in the skill of discernment. Like using a calculator for division, we can rely on others to give us the bottom line. But like doing long division, it is far better to do the work ourselves and to ensure we understand how to discern. The theological equivalent of using a calculator may be just Googling what John Piper or John MacArthur says about a certain topic and taking that word as law. It may be asking a parent or pastor and accepting what they say without further thought. We are all prone to want to get to the final tally without going through the intervening steps.

But like the kid who cheats by using a calculator, we cheat ourselves if we do not do the difficult work of discernment. As we discern what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, we train ourselves to think as Christians and we train ourselves to really understand what discernment is. We make sure that we understand the difficult business of discernment—not only the end result but the process of getting there.

Today marks the end of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour. This was meant to be only a two week tour, but events conspired to keep me from visiting SharperIron on the scheduled date. We decided we would add one date to the tour so I could make that stop.

The guys at SharperIron focused on the common belief that discernment is intuitive rather than something that requires dedicated thought and practice. How does Scripture tell us to view discernment as a step of rational thought guided by the Holy Spirit, rather than a supra-rational sixth sense? After that opening question, they asked several questions that furthered application. For example, If I use my knowledge of Scripture to judge some action as evil, and this discernment seems clear, how should I view my brother who does not make the same discernment? These were surprisingly difficult questions that I struggled with for quite some time.

Read my answers here.

I am grateful for all of the bloggers who chose to participate in this tour:

Today is the second to last day of the blog tour for my new book The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. For the past two weeks I’ve been answering questions that have been asked by a variety of bloggers. Though something neither I nor Crossway had tried before, this blog tour has been fun, I think, and I’ve been pleased to receive quite a lot of positive feedback. Today the tour moves to Church Matters, the blog of 9Marks Ministries. They asked the following two questions: Tim, from your perspective as a layperson, what steps would you like to see more pastors taking to grow in discernment? And, Are there specific areas of church life and pastoring in which you find yourself wishing pastors would exercise greater discernment?

Read my answers here

Here is a list of the blog tour stops:

We are nearing the end of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour and today the tour takes me to Michael Spencer’s blog. I appreciated these words from Michael: “Those of you looking for an argument can move along. I'm sure Tim and I disagree on many things, but scripture tells us that it's a good thing when brothers dwell together in unity. Our agreement on the Good News of Jesus outweighs our disagreements.” He asked questions about what happens to churches and Christians who refuse to practice discernment, about freelance discernment ministries, about a Protestant magisterial and about Tim Horton’s (along with a few other topics).

Read my answers here

Once more, here is where the tour has gone and where it will go for its last two stops:

Today brings us to the eighth day of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour. For those who were concerned about the fact that we missed the planned stop at SharperIron, you’ll notice in the schedule below that we’ve added one more date to the tour and we’ll finish up at SharperIron on Monday.

Today I stop by for a visit with the Pyromaniacs. I’ve been reading this blog since it first came into existence—back when Phil Johnson was the only contributor. But, as you may know, Phil eventually decided to rename the blog and to take on a team of people to blog with him. Thus Dan Phillips, Frank Turk and Pecadillo came on the scene. Earlier this week Frank Turk took the opportunity to ask me quite a few questions about the sources I relied on, about my hermeneutic, about the use of humor and levity in discussing serious topics, and about which of the Pyro team is my favorite.

Read my answers here

And here, once again, is where the tour has gone and where it will go in the days ahead…

The blog tour for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment marches on and today makes a stop at Between Two Worlds, the blog of Justin Taylor. Chances are that if you read my blog, you also read Justin’s or are, at the very least, familiar with it. Justin’s site is an indispensable source for news and good links to other resources and it’s a blog I recommend above just about any other.

Here is what Justin asked me:

As the World's Most Famous Canadian Reformed Blogger, you seek to practice discernment as you critically engage culture and review books. Having now extensively studied the concept of biblical discernment, I wonder what implications you think this has for "discernment blogging"? In part, I'm thinking of "watchdog" blogs and bloggers that have "discernment" as their primary focus. Speaking generally, what are they doing right, and where do they need correction?

Read my answer here

Here again is the schedule for this tour.