Soon after giving a talk on the Holy Rosary, a young enthusiastic fellow approached and asked this particular question that I also asked to my Spiritual Director when I was a seminarian:
“What is discernment? What is its origin? Is it in the Bible?”
Discernment comes from the Latin words: “discernere” and “discretion.” Discernere literally means “to separate by sifting,” it has the prefix dis meaning apart and the root word cernere meaning – to sift, separate.
In the Greek New Testament, the term discernment has an equivalent to the verb “to discern” and the noun “discernment,” it is as follows:
1. Amakrino (verb) to distinguish or separate
2. Diakrino (verb) signifies to separate, discriminate
3. Dokimazo (verb) to test, to prove, to decide
4. Diakrisis (noun) judging, a clear discrimination
In the New Testament, the expression “discernment of spirits” first appeared. It is never mentioned in the Old Testament. It was St. Paul who particularly brought up this need to discern when he mentioned in his letter to the Corinthians that one of the many gifts of the Holy Spirit to the early Church was “the power to distinguish one spirit from another” (1 Cor 12:10).
