Introduction: In just a few weeks now, I’ll be a grandfather. I look forward to it in a way I struggle to articulate. There’s something profoundly humbling about it. You realize that life goes on quite readily without you, that another generation goes away and another generation comes, and a new set of eyes will gaze into my eyes as Papa, and in turn I’ll gaze into her eyes as Lennon, and I’ll wear another hat as a grandfather, and do all I can to love her as I did her mother.

That’s what Solomon wrote about too in one of his most moving passages:

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises (Ecclesiastes 1:4-5).

Spiritual Infancy vs. Spiritual Maturity: Towards the end of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, he uses the analogy of infancy to maturity to illustrate God’s command for Christians to be people of depth and discernment:

“Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20).

How clear is that? Crystal. Spiritual infancy vs. spiritual maturity.

We are not to be childish thinkers. We’re to think deeply. We’re to cultivate the life of the mind in order that we may discern the times and know what to do, and then do it.

That’s why the men of Isacchar were lauded, remember? “Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).

Yet in many places, it’s spiritual TED Talks with Jesus-y sprinkles. No depth, just talk, talk, talk. It’s blather. And now with AI, it’s often computer-generated prattle.

How much more important is it, therefore, that Christians not be children in our thinking.

We’re to be mature in our thinking, to discern, to practice wisdom.

As Spurgeon wrote, “Discernment is not simply a matter of telling the difference between what is right and wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.”