Test All Things

“Test all things; hold fast what is good”
1 Thessalonians 5:21

We expect a lot of things to be tested. Everything from food to our heath is tested. Sometimes we do it ourselves, sometimes we trust others to do it. Not only do we want things to be tested, we want them to be tested as “good” before we are satisfied and content. The same must be true of spiritual things.

Look at 1 Thessalonians 5:21 closely…

“Test” – this word means “examine” (NASB) carefully. It’s not a passing look or even a feeling or sense that something is good or bad, right or wrong. And it is testing it by the standard of God’s word (see 2 Th 2:15 – the acceptance of things handed down by and taught by the apostles in person or by their writings).

“All things” – literally “everything” (ESV, NASB). Test the things we believe and don’t believe. Test old things and new things. Test the things we are taught, even by people we trust and think are godly and sincere. Test the things we like and don’t like. Test the things we’ve always done and things we’ve never done. Test the things the majority believes and is doing and the things only a few people believe and are doing.

“Hold fast what is good” – we test everything with the determination to “hold firmly to what is good” (NASB). This is not permission to throw away or abandon everything we have ever believed or done. Should we be willing to question things? Yes! But we don’t have to start with nothing. We start with God and His word which we know to be good. And “hold fast what is good” also means that we don’t enter testing things assuming that we can’t discover truth or establish what is good. True skeptics don’t just ask questions in their search for truth, they begin either with the mindset that something isn’t true and set out to prove it isn’t true, or they assume that what is good cannot be established and work to deny all evidence that is provided. We are determined to find “what is good” and are confident that with God’s help we can find it in His Word.

One important side note: We hold onto what can be proven to be good. If we can’t show from Scripture that it is good (approved by God), then we don’t hold onto it – we don’t believe it, we don’t do it. It’s not enough to say, “Prove that it’s wrong!” This verse is saying, “Prove it is right and hold firmly to that, and only that!”     dd