Chapter 25

Discernment — A Red-Flag Guide for Pastors and Families

Pastor Tom Hartwell sat at his desk on a Thursday afternoon in late October. Three thin manila folders lay in front of him. He had labeled each one with a single name.

The first folder belonged to Greg, a longtime member of the church who had survived a serious heart attack the year before. Greg had told Pastor Tom about being out of his body in the emergency room. He had described a Light he could only call beautiful. He spoke of being known and loved in a way he had no human words for. Greg had wept while telling the story. He had gone back to his small group with a hunger for Scripture that had startled the other men.

The second folder was about Linda. Her mother had died four months ago. Two weeks ago, Linda had come into the office shaken. She said she had felt her mother's presence in the kitchen on a Saturday morning, just for a moment, while she stood at the sink. Then it was gone. Linda had asked Pastor Tom: was that real? Was that allowed?

The third folder belonged to Marvin, eighty-two years old, dying in hospice. Last weekend Marvin had told his daughter, with great clarity, that his deceased brother had been sitting at the foot of his bed. The brother had said simply, "It's all right. We are waiting for you." Marvin had been at peace ever since.

Three stories. Three faithful Christians. Three different kinds of experience. And Pastor Tom realized, with a sinking feeling, that nothing in seminary had given him a careful framework for evaluating any of them. He picked up his pen.

The Two Errors to Avoid

When Christians encounter an unusual spiritual experience — a near-death experience, a deathbed vision, a sensed presence of someone who has died — the temptation is to fall off one of two cliffs.

The first cliff is credulity. Credulity is the uncritical acceptance of any experience as a direct word from God. The experiencer felt deeply moved. The story is vivid. So we believe every detail without testing. We treat the experience as if it were Scripture. We let it overrule what God has already said. This is not faith. It is a kind of spiritual gullibility that Scripture itself warns against.¹

The second cliff is reflexive fear. Reflexive fear is the equally uncritical labeling of every unusual experience as demonic. Someone tells us they saw a Light. We say, "That was the devil." Someone tells us they felt their mother's presence. We say, "Open your Bible and resist that spirit." We mean well. But we have not actually examined anything. We have only reacted.

Both cliffs are unfaithful. Scripture does not say, "Believe every experience." It also does not say, "Reject every experience." It says something harder and wiser: test the spirits. Receive what is from God with thanksgiving. Reject what is not. And refuse the cheap relief of a snap verdict.

This is the third path, and it is the path of historic Christian wisdom. The theologian and missionary statesman Robertson McQuilkin used to say, "It is easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay in the center of biblical tension." Discernment lives in the center. It is harder than either cliff. But it is the only place where pastoral love and biblical fidelity meet.²

Test the Spirits — 1 John 4:1–3

The clearest single passage on discernment in the New Testament comes from the apostle John, writing to a church being unsettled by competing voices. He gives both the command and the test.

Three things stand out.

First, John commands testing. The Greek verb is dokimazete (δοκιμάζετε), the same word used for assaying metal — putting something to the fire to see whether it is what it claims to be.³ John does not assume his readers will know what is from God by feeling alone. He tells them to test. Feelings are not the standard. Scripture is.

Second, the content of the test is Christological. Does the spirit — the figure, the voice, the message, the experience — confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh? This was an urgent question in the first century, when some teachers denied that Jesus was truly incarnate. It is still the urgent question today. An experience that diminishes Christ, denies His unique deity, sets Him beside other "ways," or contradicts the Christ of the Gospels has already failed the central test.⁴

Third, the framework is gentle. John does not say, "Anything strange is from the devil." He says, "Test." He gives a careful reader a careful tool. The tool fits in your pocket. You can carry it into a hospice room or a quiet conversation in the church kitchen. Does this experience honor Christ as the Christ of Scripture, or not? That single question, asked seriously, will resolve more cases than any ten others.

Six Markers for Discerning an Experience

Beyond the central Christological test, six markers help fill in the picture. These are not a checklist where you tally up scores. They are a set of lenses you hold up to the experience, one at a time, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you see clearly.⁵

Marker 1 — Christological

Does the figure encountered display the love, identity, and authority of the Christ of the Gospels? Does the experience increase the experiencer's reverence for Jesus, or relativize Him? Pastor John Burke, who has interviewed many NDE experiencers, observes that the central figure in the great majority of NDEs displays attributes that map remarkably well onto the Jesus revealed in Scripture: penetrating knowledge of the experiencer's heart, overwhelming love, holy authority, and a presence that produces both awe and joy.⁶

Marker 2 — Scriptural

Does the content of the experience align with Scripture, or contradict it? Scripture is the canon — literally, the measuring rod. An experience that teaches reincarnation, that denies the bodily resurrection, that says "all roads lead to God," or that adds doctrines Scripture does not contain has crossed a clear line. Paul is blunt: even an angel from heaven preaching another gospel is to be rejected (Galatians 1:8).⁷

Marker 3 — Fruit

What does the experience produce in the experiencer's life over time? Jesus said we know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:15–20). Does the experience produce love for God and neighbor, growth in holiness, deeper faithfulness, a hunger for Scripture, peace? Or does it produce fear, pride, doctrinal drift, and isolation? Studies of NDE outcomes by Sabom and Sartori have found, contrary to early assumptions, that experiencers often become more engaged with prayer, Bible reading, and church life — not less.⁸

Marker 4 — Sought or Unsought

Was the experience initiated by the experiencer through occult practice — a séance, a Ouija board, a hallucinogen, a deliberate ritual? Or was it received unsought, in the course of ordinary life or sudden crisis? Scripture forbids the seeking. It does not forbid receiving. The vast majority of NDEs and DBEs come unsought, often to people who had no expectation of them and were not pursuing them.⁹

Marker 5 — Pull Toward or Away from the Church

Does the experience pull the experiencer deeper into the body of Christ — into worship, fellowship, discipleship, service? Or does it pull them out, toward private spirituality and away from the local church? Genuine encounters with Christ in Scripture — Saul on the Damascus road, the disciples on the Emmaus road, the women at the tomb — drive the experiencer into the gathered people of God, not away from them.

Marker 6 — Coherence with Spiritual Growth

Is the experience coherent with the experiencer's ongoing spiritual maturation? Is it producing growth in Christlikeness — humility, patience, love, the fruit of the Spirit? Or is it producing spiritual elitism, mystical pride, and a sense of being more enlightened than fellow believers? Jonathan Edwards, in his classic Religious Affections, made this point three centuries ago: real spiritual experience produces real spiritual fruit, and especially humility.¹⁰

Specific Red Flags

Within those six markers, certain warning signs deserve special attention. None of these alone proves an experience is demonic, but together they should slow a pastor down considerably.

Watch for explicit denial of Christ's unique deity. Watch for content urging the experiencer toward occult or New Age practices: mediums, channeling, divination, contacting the dead.¹¹ Watch for demands of secrecy — figures telling the experiencer "tell no one in the church" or "do not test this." Watch for experiences that produce lasting fear and torment rather than peace; while a brief season of holy fear can be biblical, ongoing terror that does not lead to repentance and rest is not the fruit of God's Spirit.

Watch for content urging unbiblical action — abandoning a spouse, leaving the church, founding a new movement based on private revelation, "correcting" the apostles. Watch for figures claiming to be deceased loved ones with messages that contradict Scripture; the real mother in Christ would not preach a different gospel from the pulpit of eternity. And watch for growing pride or spiritual elitism in the experiencer — a sense of being chosen, special, beyond ordinary believers.

These are real signs of real concern. They should not produce panic. They should produce a slower, more careful conversation, with Scripture open and the Holy Spirit invited in.

In the literature on distressing NDEs, researcher Nancy Evans Bush has documented a small but real subset of experiences that involve fear, darkness, or content out of accord with the experiencer's prior faith.¹² These do not invalidate the broader pattern of comforting, Christ-centered experiences. They do remind us that not every encounter at the threshold is benign. Hence the need for careful, biblical discernment — and hence Chapter 20 on distressing NDEs, where these cases are handled in their own pastoral context.

Specific Green Markers

The same care that names red flags must also name green ones. Many experiences carry strong, biblical markers of God's hand at work, and pastors should be ready to name those clearly too.

Green markers include increased love for Jesus Christ — an experiential intimacy with Him that turns the experiencer's eyes back to Scripture, where He is most clearly revealed. They include deepened humility — the experiencer feels smaller, not larger, in the wake of the encounter. They include reduced fear of death; not in a flippant way, but in a settled, hope-filled way: I have seen, and I am not afraid.

Green markers include reordered priorities. The experiencer suddenly cares less about money, status, and grudges, and more about people, prayer, and the things of God. They include integration into the body of Christ — the experiencer joins a small group, returns to the Lord's Table with new tears, volunteers for hospice ministry, finds a hunger for the gathered worship of the saints.

And green markers include doctrinal sobriety. The experiencer does not come back claiming to "know" things Scripture does not teach. They come back saying things like, "I have always believed in Jesus, but I did not know He was like that." That is the report of someone who has been met by the One they confessed all along.

The Question of Necromancy — Deuteronomy 18:10–12

For many pastors, the heaviest concern about NDEs and after-death communications is the Old Testament prohibition on consulting the dead. The passage deserves its full weight.

This is not a passage to soften. The prohibition is real, and it is severe. The question, however, is what specifically is forbidden.

The Hebrew construction names a series of actions. The verbs throughout the passage are active: burns, practices, tells, interprets, charms, inquires. The final phrase — dōrēsh el-hammētîm, "one who inquires of the dead" — describes the active, deliberate seeking of contact with the deceased. Scripture forbids the deliberate, ritual pursuit of contact with the dead through technique, mediumship, or sorcery. The pagan practices around Israel involved exactly this: séances, divination, professional spiritists who would summon shades on demand, often for a fee.¹³ God's people were not to imitate them. The prohibition was a fence around Israel's worship of the one living God.

What Scripture does not forbid is the unsought experience that a grieving believer or a dying saint may receive. These are categorically different. The widow standing at her sink who suddenly senses her husband's presence has not consulted a medium. The dying man who reports his deceased brother at the foot of his bed has not held a séance. They received something they did not seek.¹⁴

Indeed, the very prohibitions on necromancy presuppose the conscious existence of the dead — otherwise the warning would be unnecessary.¹⁵ And Scripture itself depicts moments where God permits the veil to thin: Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17), Samuel rising in 1 Samuel 28 (a complicated but real text), the cloud of witnesses surrounding the church (Hebrews 12:1, treated more fully in Chapter 24).

The biblical line, then, is clear and pastoral: do not seek; receive with discernment if given. God Himself, on rare occasions and for His own reasons, allows the veil to thin. He does not invite us to thin it ourselves. So a pastor can say to a Linda who felt her mother in the kitchen: "You did nothing wrong. You were not seeking your mother. You were doing the dishes. If God allowed you a moment of comfort, receive it with thanksgiving and hold it under Scripture. Do not chase it. Do not build doctrine on it. Just thank God and walk on."

Three Stories on a Pastor's Desk

Now let us return to Pastor Tom and his three folders. The framework above is the framework he needed.

Greg's NDE checks out at every marker. The Light displayed the love and authority of Christ. The content aligned with Scripture. The fruit has been deeper Bible engagement and renewed humility. The experience was unsought; Greg was unconscious in an emergency room. It has driven him into his small group, not out of it. He is more, not less, like Christ. Pastor Tom can say to Greg: "I think the Lord met you. Receive it with thanksgiving. Test it always against Scripture. Do not chase another such experience; live the one you have been given."

Linda's sensed presence is more modest, but the markers are clean. Unsought. Brief. Peaceful. Producing thanksgiving and a soft turning back toward God in her grief. No occult practice. No new doctrine. No fear. Pastor Tom can say to Linda: "What you experienced may have been a real gift from God. He sometimes allows such moments in grief. Hold it lightly. Do not seek another. Thank Him, and walk on."

Marvin's deathbed vision fits the long pattern of biblical and clinical accounts: a peaceful figure, a calming message, a death received with peace soon after. The fruit is the same fruit Scripture has always shown at the threshold of saints — the fruit of being met. Pastor Tom can tell Marvin's daughter: "Your father is being comforted at the door. Take it as the kindness of God. Sit with him. Read Scripture. Sing softly. He is not alone, and neither are you."

Pastor Tom closes the folders, bows his head, and prays for wisdom. He has not solved every case he will ever face. But he has a framework — given by Scripture, sharpened by the church, applied with love.¹⁶

For Your Reflection

1. Have you (or someone you love) had an experience that you have not known how to evaluate? What has that uncertainty felt like in your soul?

2. Of the six markers in this chapter, which feels most natural to you? Which feels least?

3. Are there voices in your life pulling you toward credulity (accepting any experience without testing) or toward fear (rejecting every experience without examining it)? Which pull is stronger for you?

4. When you read 1 John 4:1, what do you hear? Comfort, warning, both?

5. If you have had an unsought experience that brought peace and pointed you toward Christ, are you receiving it with thanksgiving — or are you afraid to thank God for it?

6. Where do you most need the Holy Spirit's help right now in discerning something — an experience, a memory, a felt presence?

7. Who in your life — a pastor, a wise friend, a small group — can walk through these questions with you?

For Pastors and Caregivers

The hardest pastoral fact about discernment is that most pastors have not been taught how to do it. Seminaries cover counseling, preaching, leadership, and church polity, but rarely the specific work of evaluating an unusual spiritual experience reported by a parishioner. Without a framework, pastors default to one of two reflexes — credulity or dismissal — and both reflexes can wound the very people we are called to shepherd.

Key observations. The experiencer (or the bereaved who senses a presence, or the family who watched a deathbed vision) is almost always more fragile than they appear. They are bringing you something tender. They have likely been turning it over in private for weeks or months. They are watching your face. A snap verdict — in either direction — will close the door on the conversation that should still be opening.

Notice also that experiencers and the bereaved often hide their experiences from pastors precisely because they fear being told "that was the devil." This means that for every story you hear, there are likely several you have not heard. Make your study a safe place by your reputation for slow, careful, biblical discernment.¹⁷

What to say. "Tell me what happened. Take your time. Let us walk through it together." Or: "I want to honor what you experienced and also test it gently against Scripture, because that is what Scripture itself asks us to do." Or: "We don't have to decide everything today. The Lord is patient. So am I."

What NOT to say. "That was the devil." (Said without examination, this is spiritual abuse, and frequently wrong.) "Whatever you experienced is real for you." (Postmodern dismissal that abandons the experiencer to private interpretation and forfeits Scripture's authority.) "You shouldn't tell anyone about that." (Imposing shame on something that may be wholly legitimate, and isolating the experiencer from the body of Christ at the very moment they need the body most.)

Watch-outs. Spiritual abuse can occur in either direction — by demonizing what was real, or by uncritically affirming what should have been tested. The pastoral instinct must include slowing down. Many discernment failures come from hurried verdicts. Be aware also that the experiencer may face pressure outside your office, from family members, online communities, or charismatic personalities pushing them toward either extreme. Part of pastoral discernment is helping them see that pressure clearly.

A second watch-out: do not confuse your personal theological tradition's discomfort with biblical violation. Some pastors, formed in traditions deeply suspicious of any direct experience of God, may feel uneasy with experiences that more charismatic Christians would receive without hesitation. Discomfort is not the test. Scripture is the test. Hold the line at Scripture, not at your tradition's comfort zone.

Next steps. Sit with the experiencer over multiple conversations. Discernment is rarely done in one sitting. Pray with them. Read Scripture together — start with 1 John 4 and Matthew 7 on fruit. If a case is genuinely complex, do not be too proud to consult a wise older pastor, a trusted theologian, or a Christian counselor familiar with these questions. The framework in this chapter is yours to keep, but no framework removes the need for the Spirit's leading and the wisdom of the wider church.

For Further Reading

John Burke, Imagine Heaven — Burke's chapters on testing experiences are among the most pastorally sensitive treatments of NDE evaluation in print, and his framework for distinguishing biblical from unbiblical content is broadly compatible with this chapter's.

J. Steve Miller, Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? — Miller's "Gray Scale" of red flags offers a rigorous and accessible companion checklist for evaluating individual NDE accounts.

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology — Grudem's chapters on spiritual gifts and discernment provide a sound theological backbone for the work this chapter sketches.

Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections — the classic Christian text on distinguishing genuine spiritual experience from counterfeit, written across the First Great Awakening; still indispensable for this kind of discernment work.

D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit — careful exegetical treatment of testing prophecy and spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians, useful background for pastoral discernment generally.