How to Use LoCK

Seeing Clearly

Jesus warns us about the danger of seeing another person’s error more clearly than our own. “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3, CSB). We can quickly recognize the assumptions behind someone else’s argument, the distortion in a cultural claim, or the weakness of another worldview while remaining unaware of what has shaped our own sight.

Jesus does not say the splinter does not matter. He tells us where clear sight begins: “First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5, CSB).

Then you will see clearly.

That is where using LoCK begins. We come to every question having already learned ways of seeing the world. Family, education, experience, church tradition, culture, fears, desires, and other worldviews have shaped our sight. Some have helped us see what is true. Others may be like an old pair of glasses whose distortion has become so familiar that we no longer notice we are wearing them.

If LoCK is new to you, begin with What Is LoCK? before using this guide.

Humble submission does not mean finding every beam before we begin. Often we cannot see the beam. That is the problem. It means coming before Christ willing to be corrected. The distortion may be in the idea before us. It may also be in the way we have learned to see it. Before employing LoCK, we must be willing to submit both the question and ourselves to Christ.

Ask yourself honestly:

1. Am I genuinely willing for Jesus Christ and His Word to correct me?

2. What do I want the answer to be, and why?

3. What assumptions might I already be bringing with me?

4. If faithful discernment leads somewhere I did not expect, am I willing to follow Christ there?

A Prayer of Humble Submission

Lord Jesus, You are King, and I am not. You see clearly where my sight is clouded. Search my heart and show me the assumptions, desires, fears, and loyalties that keep me from seeing faithfully. Give me humility to hear Your Word without bending it toward what I want to believe. If I am wrong, correct me. If I have learned to see falsely, teach me to see again. I submit this question, and myself, to You. Lead me in truth. Amen.

Bring the Idea

Name what you are trying to discern. State the question, claim, practice, or decision as fairly and simply as you can. Do not settle it before you have looked carefully.

Not every question in this guide will have an answer for every issue. Some may not apply. Others may show that you do not yet have enough information. Do not force an answer simply to complete the guide. Where God’s Word speaks clearly, receive its authority. Where evidence is limited or a question remains open, acknowledge that honestly. Sometimes faithful discernment includes saying, “I do not know yet.”

1. What am I actually trying to discern?

2. What do I currently believe about it, and why?

3. What do I want the answer to be?

4. What do I know, and what am I assuming?

Bring what you presently see beneath LoCK.

Jesus Christ

Begin with the King. Jesus Christ is crucified, risen, and reigning. The question before you belongs to His world and falls under His authority.

1. What changes about this question because Jesus Christ is crucified, risen, and reigning?

2. Does anything here claim a place or authority that belongs to Christ? What does it promise about identity, meaning, hope, or salvation?

3. Am I submitting this question to Christ, or asking Christ to affirm the answer I already want?

Biblical Authority

Now ask what God has said. Do not search the Bible for support for the answer you brought with you. Let God’s Word govern the answer.

If you are unsure where the Bible speaks to the issue, take time to search. Use a Bible app, concordance, cross-references, or a trusted study Bible to locate relevant passages and themes. A generative AI tool may also help locate possible passages, but use it only as a starting point. Open the Bible yourself. Read each passage in context. Verify that it actually says what the tool claims. A tool may help you find a passage. It carries no biblical authority.

Search broadly enough to be corrected. Slow down and look.

Jesus’ Words

1. What has Jesus said that bears on this question?

New Testament

2. How does the New Testament witness clarify or apply His teaching here?

Old Testament

3. What foundation does the Old Testament provide when understood through Christ and the New Testament?

Then consider the whole witness of God’s Word:

4. What can I say with confidence because God’s Word has spoken?

5. Am I reading what God’s Word actually says, or relying on what I remember it saying?

6. Has God’s Word challenged something I thought was settled, or made clear something I thought was open?

What follows may help us see more clearly. It cannot overturn what Biblical Authority has established.

Reflection

With Biblical Authority established, look at the Created World, Cultural Memory, and Worldviews. These are reflections, not authorities. They can help us understand what is before us, but they remain submitted to Biblical Authority and must be interpreted in its light.

Created World

Creation is real and can be observed, but observation and interpretation are not the same. Culture or a worldview can supply meaning to what we observe and then present that meaning as though it were simply part of the created world.

1. What does the created world reveal that bears on this question?

2. What can I actually observe, and what meaning am I assigning to it?

3. Have cultural assumptions or worldview claims been presented as though they were simply observations?

4. Does my interpretation agree with or distort what God has revealed?

Cultural Memory

Cultures can preserve echoes of truth while changing their meaning or forgetting their source. Biblical Authority helps us distinguish what has been remembered truly from what has been distorted.

1. What might culture be remembering or echoing here?

2. What has been preserved or remembered rightly?

3. What has been distorted, renamed, detached from its source, or forgotten?

4. How does Biblical Authority help me distinguish the faithful echo from the distortion?

Worldviews

Ideas carry assumptions about what is real, what a person is, what is good, and who has authority. Those assumptions must also be brought beneath Biblical Authority.

1. What assumptions about reality, humanity, morality, identity, or authority lie beneath this idea?

2. Who or what is given the final word, and does that authority submit to Christ?

3. Where does this worldview agree with or borrow from biblical truth?

4. Where does it distort, reject, or replace what God has revealed?

Before leaving Reflection, ask:

What has Reflection helped me see more clearly without changing what Biblical Authority has established?

For the Christian theological and intellectual roots of this ordering, see LoCK within Christian Thought. 

Discern

Return to the idea you brought in. You do not need to have answered every question. Ask what you can now see more clearly in the light of Christ.

1. What do I now see more clearly?

2. What is true?

3. What is distorted, false, or counterfeit?

4. What remains uncertain?

5. Has this examination revealed a beam in my own sight?

The beam may not have been visible when you began. A tradition, fear, political instinct, personal experience, desire, or other worldview may have shaped how you saw the question. The idea may need correction. Your understanding may need correction. Sometimes both will.

LoCK is a tool for discernment. It can help reveal the beam, but it cannot remove it.

Respond Faithfully

Seeing more clearly brings responsibility.

1. What does faithfulness to Jesus Christ require of me now?

2. Do I need to receive, reject, correct, repent, speak, act, wait, or continue discerning?

3. How can I respond in truth and love?

4. What fruit should faithful obedience produce?

If a beam in your own sight has become visible, faithful response may require repentance or a changed belief, word, habit, or action. If something false has been exposed, reject or correct it as faithfulness requires. If something good has been seen more clearly, receive it rightly. If uncertainty remains, do not claim certainty simply because you want an answer.

Seeing something clearly does not give us permission to respond with pride toward someone who does not. The purpose is not to finish an analysis. It is to follow Christ faithfully in what you have seen.

A Prayer for Faithful Fruit

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your truth and for the clarity You give through Your Word. Do not let what I have seen remain only in my mind. Give me courage to obey where obedience is required, humility to repent where I have been wrong, wisdom where uncertainty remains, and grace toward others. Remove what needs to be removed. Strengthen what is true. Let my words, choices, and actions bear fruit that honors You. Keep my eyes fixed on You as I respond faithfully. Amen.