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1 Thessalonians 4:8
DailyBibleStudy.Org
8 He therefore [toigaroun] that despiseth, [atheteo] despiseth [atheteo] not [ou] man, [anthropos] but [alla] God, [theos] who hath [didomi] also [kai] given [didomi] unto [eis] us [hemas] his [autos] holy [hagios] Spirit. [pneuma] KJV-Interlinear
8 Consequently, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. NASB
God has given you intellect, and common sense. In some cases, generally among females, there is also intuition, for sorting out that which is right from that which is not right. Women just seem to have a better feel for certain things in life while men strive to be as smart as rocks.
That last part is a stab at humor … to some extent!
Anyway, we all have the ability to sort out the rights from the wrongs of life. That is simply the function of ones intellect. But this is a temporal attribute in life.
When doctrine is absent from your soul, then that intellect, common sense, intuition, become dysfunctional and do not operate as well as they could.
Bible doctrine is the filter through which all truth and all perspectives get sorted out correctly.
This is not a filter that operates correctly and with complete reliance, immediately, when you become a believers in Christ. You have to grow up, learn doctrine, experience life and then put it all together, making mistakes along the way and learning from them as well. And though this is difficult in life to accomplish, with doctrine it is accomplishable, while without doctrine in your soul, it is not.
With doctrine, your senses get better as time goes on. Without doctrine, your senses get dulled and therefore worse as time goes on.
The key ingredient for sharpening your mental focus, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the conduit through which all truth and discernment is transferred to you.
You cannot feel it, you cannot sense it, you cannot detect the presence of the Holy Spirit or His work within you. The spiritual side of life is not perceived in the usual ways, but is a supernatural mechanism by which God provides you doctrine and spiritual truth.
Not only does God provide it, communicate it, and store it within your soul, but He does this for everyone, regardless of their intellectual, common sense, intuition abilities or handicaps. The playing field is perfectly level for every human being who has or will ever live in history.
This life may give us all advantages or disadvantages between each other, but the spiritual life is perfectly fair and equal for all.
Now, in the first part of this verse, Paul states clearly that when you reject truth, you reject God. We will all have encounters with people and life, during our lifetime, where we get upset by the circumstances of life and frustrated with people. It’s inevitable.
But remember one thing. Jesus Christ controls history. Getting upset means losing some trust in Gods handling of life. And while there will be times when you just want to blow a cork over some situation, you need to focus your thoughts and give God the credit for giving you this test of difficulty and the opportunity to exercise your self control.
Likewise, you will encounter many views and opinions in life. Most of them will be wrong. You may even have beliefs that disagree with the scriptures. You need to keep an open mind and allow God to instruct you. That takes time and exposure to doctrine on a daily basis, and sooner or later you will come to recognize the truths being taught in doctrine, as well as the untruths that some try to teach.
This is not brain washing, because truth is never force fed to you, making you to agree with it, and the untruths of life are never kept from you. Brainwashing comes from the force feeding of lies to you, with the intent of keeping truth from you. Doctrine never keeps the lies from you, but allows you to see the truth and the lies for what they are. Then you decide of your own free will.
Given time and a positive attitude, you will recognize doctrine for its truth, and not because of what you hear, or read, or see in life, but because of the invisible effort of the Holy Spirit within you.
By rejecting doctrine, you reject objectivity, you reject listening to alternate views, and you in fact reject God.
But since the Holy Spirit makes discernment available and easy, then therefore if you reject truth, you are in fact rejecting the easiest path to learning.
