day no. 16,769: gray is made from black and white

Hebrews 5:12-14

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Discernment is not merely knowing the difference between black and white, it is knowing the difference between white and off white. After all, gray matters are made up of blacks and whites.

Constant practice, however, can teach a man to identify off white. Discernment can be trained to see where the white and black are in the gray that it encounters. Without black and white there could not be gray. If anyone attempts to dismiss a discussion of something based on its grayness, it is simply an admission of their inability or unwillingness to decipher the amounts of black and white involved in the matter.  Everything, in essence, is composed of black and white. Do not sidestep issues that are gray simply for the sake of lazy indifference. Do not refuse to discuss hard things merely because they are hard. Discernment can develop, but not without effort. Just like muscles that must be pushed in order to expand, so discernment must be flexed in order to flourish.

All that said, some grays really are harder to pin down than others and an extension of grace should be afforded to all of those who at least seek to discuss it. This also means, that for some, the most gracious thing you can do for tem is to discuss things "less gray" and more adjacent to clear black and white since they have discernment that is very out of shape or atrophied. In other words, do not try to make your couch potato brained friend run a marathon with you who has been getting up to run every morning for the three years. Simply put, consider the frame of those with whom you interact. It is not kind to overwhelm them, but it is kind to get them to work harder than they have been. So prove that you have discernment by exercising some of it.

Romans 14:1

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.