Christian discernment, when understanding where some individual, or a ministry, is coming from or going to, does not only involve listening to what they do say. You should also notice what they don't say.
This, of course, takes longer, and has to be done fairly. If someone writes a short article about marriage which fails to list every article of Christian belief then, well, that's as you'd expect things. But nevertheless, people reveal their hearts clearly by their silences as well as their speeches. Not only what excites them: but also what is barely, or not at all, on their radar, or only in a nominal, box-ticking way. What does their belief system and the direction of their desires *not* interest them in? Why not? Is it because their over-emphasised belief in something else is also not actually representing the Biblical view-point, but is based upon a distortion of it?
Of course, this also demands of us that we have a solid and comprehensive understanding of the Scriptures. Otherwise we might identify people as failing to have a sufficient interest in some topic when it's actually us who has an excessive one. What did the apostles actually teach the churches? What excited them? What motivated them? What were their responses in different situations? What are the consistent presences and the driving desires and assumptions about the great pillars of their understanding of things in those responses, as opposed to what someone claims they can detect in the silences in between the lines, or as a dubious interpretation of an ambiguous phrase? If we don't have a strong grip on this ourselves, then we can never be discerning when listening to others, but will be vulnerable to being blown around by every wind of doctrine.
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