17 Bible Verses about Distinguishing

Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come closer so I can touch you, my son, and know for certain if you really are my son Esau."

But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

Then they brought the special tunic to their father and said, "We found this. Determine now whether it is your son's tunic or not."

But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has brought this great calamity on us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to us by accident."

The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No," then they said to him, "Say 'Shibboleth!'" If he said, "Sibboleth" (and could not pronounce the word correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they?

So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.

"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own will. If these men die a natural death, or if they share the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord does something entirely new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up along with all that they have, and they go down alive to the grave, then you will know that these men have despised the Lord!"

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are revealed: Everyone who does not practice righteousness -- the one who does not love his fellow Christian -- is not of God.

When it was full, they pulled it ashore, sat down, and put the good fish into containers and threw the bad away.

for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from brambles.

Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples -- if you have love for one another."

But whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in him.

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God,

We are from God; the person who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.