Test them all

1 Thessalonians 5:19–22—Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

Paul was giving closing exhortations to one of his earliest congregations. It’s a remarkably concise but loaded instruction about discernment in a community where ecstatic experiences and spiritual utterances were common.

What are “prophecies” here?

In this context, “prophecies” doesn’t mean predictions about the distant future, as we often imagine. In the early church, prophecy usually referred to Spirit-inspired speech—words spoken under a perceived divine impulse meant to edify, exhort, or encourage the community.

A “prophet” in that setting was not a fortune-teller but someone who believed the Spirit moved them to speak insight, guidance, or warning. In gatherings, multiple people might share such messages (see 1 Corinthians 14:29–33).

So when Paul says, “do not treat prophecies with contempt,” he’s warning against cynicism or dismissal of charismatic gifts. Apparently, some in Thessalonica were skeptical or uneasy about spontaneous spiritual speech—maybe after seeing abuses or wild claims. Paul doesn’t want them to swing too far toward disbelief.

“Test them all”

Paul’s balance is striking. He doesn’t say “believe every prophecy,” but “test them.”

Testing means discernment—evaluating the message’s origin and content:

• Does it align with the teaching about Christ and the gospel Paul delivered?

• Does it build up the community rather than divide it?

• Does it produce the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) rather than arrogance, fear, or confusion?

You can see this principle echoed in 1 John 4:1, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”

In practice, early Christians would weigh prophetic speech communally—others with discernment would evaluate whether it resonated with the known truth of God’s character and purpose.

“Hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil”

This is the ethical conclusion of discernment. Paul’s point is not to despise all prophetic claims, nor to accept all of them uncritically. It’s to sift—to embrace what genuinely reflects divine goodness and truth, and to reject whatever is false, manipulative, self-serving, or destructive.

Hold on to what is good and reject what is bad. But the verb “reject” (Greek: apechesthe) implies active avoidance—not merely disapproval, but intentional refusal to let harmful or false messages take root.

In essence, Paul envisions a community that is both spiritually open and intellectually alert—neither gullible nor cynical. Faith and reason in dynamic tension.

It’s one of the earliest models of critical thinking within a religious framework: openness to divine inspiration tempered by disciplined discernment.