Spit Out the Bones

From 1972 until 1976 I worked at Mueller Foundry while a student in college here in Chattanooga.  It was hot, dirty, and heavy work, but it paid well.  Since I was in school, I worked afternoon shift and night shift, depending on what was available.  I had several great foremen who helped mold me as a young man.  One was a black man who wore a blue hardhat all of the time.  At lunch time (which was at 7:30 pm) he would take off his hard hat and his Afro was formed exactly like his hardhat as if the hard hat was still there.  He had a Mason jar of hot peppers marinating in vinegar in the office.  He would bring a fried chicken breast sandwich and sprinkle some of the pepper pot liquor on the chicken to spice it up.  He always puzzled me: the chicken breast had the backbone and ribs in it, but he ate it on a sandwich.  One night I asked him, “John, how in the world do you eat that sandwich without choking on the bones?!”  He replied, “I just eat the chicken and the bread, and spit out the bones and the cartilage.”  Sounded pretty simple.  Hey, I have learned in life to do the same with advice.  Not everyone has good advice all the time.  Not everyone has good spiritual insight all the time.  But everyone has SOME good advice and SOME spiritual insight all the time.  I just have to be discerning.  I must listen, consider, and be able to discern between good advice and poor advice.  And just like John, I use the good advice and spit out the bad advice bones.  So, exactly how do I discern between good advice and poor advice?  Paul told young Timothy how to be discerning when he said in II Timothy 3:16&17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  When someone gives me advice, I compare the advice to Scripture.  If the advice lines up with Scripture, I take it; if it doesn’t line up with Scripture, I spit it out.  And that is good advice.