The Bible has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
As a small child I would creep downstairs early in the morning to find my father reading its pages. As a teenager I would struggle to defend it to my cynical school friends. As a student I would try to preach its message in small village chapels. And through a variety of critical moments in adult life its rock-solid affirmations have proved foundational, its promises have been the fresh air of heaven in the smog of a sinful heart and a depraved world.
Yet, paradoxically, I have frequently struggled to engage with that living word of Scripture. Too often I have been deaf to its call and distracted from its message. I know about its authority, its power and its relevance, yet I often fail to hear its voice. There are many reasons why this happens, but one sustained difficulty has related to my capacity to truly listen.
We are familiar with different types of listening. We all know the experience of speaking with someone whose mind is elsewhere. It’s in one ear and out the other. But what if one morning, as you waken to the sound of a news programme on the radio, the announcer suddenly interrupts with an SOS message, and mentions your name as the person they are trying to reach because of a dangerously ill relative. You not only hear, but your mind – your whole person – absorbs the message and immediately responds.
Listening expectantly
Hearing God’s Word through Scripture is a dynamic which lies at the heart of Christian living. Rightly understood, the reading of Scripture is ‘not so much a technique as a spirit: it is the spirit of eagerness which seeks the mind of God; it is the spirit of humility which listens to the voice of God; it is the spirit of adventure which pursues earnestly the will of God; it is the spirit of adoration which rests in the presence of God’ (Merryl Tenney). In Jesus’ parable in Luke 8, the word ‘hear’ is used nine times in the first 21 verses. Of course, it means more than simply listening to words. ‘Hearing’ means listening with spiritual receptivity.
Urgency
So how is your hearing? Hebrews 3 is a text which shows us that hearing God’s voice is a very urgent matter. It’s a very insistent piece of writing: ‘So, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…’, and it is repeated twice more (Hebrews 3.7, 15; 4.7). Perhaps the better question is: How is your heart? ‘See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbe-lieving heart that turns away from the living God.’ The main reason for our sense of spiritual dryness or stagnation is that we have stopped truly listening to God.
Listening wholeheartedly
Cultivating the listening and responsive heart is of the essence of discipleship. Isaiah describes how the Servant of the Lord truly listens: ‘The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears …’. (Isaiah 50.4,5). It is a daily discipline of listening to God before speaking on behalf of God. But ‘the morning by morning appointment is not a special provision or demand related to the perfect Servant but it is the standard curriculum for all disciples’, says Alec Motyer.
Heart and mind
Such listening engages heart and mind. The Psalmist reminds us that for the heart to love God’s Word, the mind has to think about it and the memory has to store it. So ‘I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me’ (Psalm 119.97,98). The verses imply that the Lord’s teaching has truly become a part of him.
The danger is that we adopt the mentality of so much of our global culture which specialises in the sound bite and lives off fast food. But the calling of true disciples is to develop the basic disciplines of listening, thinking, chewing, memorising, meditating. In this way we are entering into the text and the text is entering into us. It is truly taking it to heart, absorbing it and digesting it, just as Ezekiel and John were called to do (Ezekiel 3.3; Revelation 10.9). When this happens, then like Martin Luther we discover that the Bible truly is alive – it is dynamic, it is transformational, it is life-changing. ‘It has hands and grabs hold of me’, Luther said, ‘it has feet and runs after me.’
Listening obediently
But one other thing. Hearing God’s Word means listening with a firm purpose to obey. True listening incorporates willing obedience. The truth is not simply something to be believed; the truth is to be done. ‘I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts’ (Psalm 119.100, 101, 104). As Michael Wilcock puts it: ‘Our understanding of God’s Word has to do with our obedience, not our brains’. And this is the kind of hearing which Jesus commended.
The good soil stands for those ‘who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.’ ‘My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practise’ (Luke 8.15,21). The only true response to the Word is one that issues in lasting spiritual productivity, one that demonstrates the truth in action.
We cannot remain the same
And the purpose? It is to come to know God himself. ‘Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.’ (Psalm 119.2). As we hear God’s Word, we cannot remain the same. Our attitudes, motives, values, convictions, and commitments are re-shaped by a dynamic encounter with the living God, into whose presence the Bible takes us. As for the disciples on the road to Emmaus, so for us: truly hearing God’s Word is completely life-changing.
