The Importance of Hearing
Hearing is central to Christianity.
Romans 10:13-15 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”
If we look at this passage in reverse order,
- Someone is commissioned to communicate the gospel. It starts with a person.
- The “preacher” is the source of words, proclaiming the message. The actual communication can take many forms: preaching in person or via a recording, or a written medium such as a blog or book.
- Someone hears the words. It doesn’t have to be audible; even deaf people “hear” the gospel and get saved.
- That person receives and believes the message.
- They act on and put into practice what they heard. In the case of hearing the gospel, they call on the Lord to be saved.
For communication to occur, there must be a transmitter and a receiver. Hearing is on the receiving side of communication.
When the Bible talks about hearing, it means much more than audio waves impacting your eardrums and your brain registering words. It means you listen. It is possible to hear things without listening. We have the phrase “In one ear and out the other”. That means the person may have heard the words, but they didn’t give them any priority or attention.
Proverbs 4:20-22 20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
22 For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.
Give attention, incline your ear – these describe someone who is actively listening, not just passively hearing. Another way to say it would be to take heed to my words.
Jesus had a phrase that he often repeated after His teaching:
Matthew 11:15 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
Now most of the people Jesus preached to would have “ears to hear”, unless they were deaf (and Jesus healed many deaf people). But the implication is that you could have ears to hear, but not “hear”. There is more than one level to hearing.
Just a couple of verses down from our opening scripture, we have this:
Romans 10:17 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Most people read this like “Fath comes by hearing the Word of God”. But that’s not what it says. It says that faith comes by hearing. It’s that deeper level of hearing. The capacity to hear at a deeper level, which produces faith, comes from the Word of God.
How You Hear
Luke 8:18 18 Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”
Your attitude of mind, your willingness to hear, will affect what you really hear with those inner ears. I.e., your willingness to receive – to accept and embrace – will affect how much you get out of what is being said. I like the way the Amplified Bible says it in Mark 4:24:
Mark 4:24 AMP And He said to them, “Be careful what you are hearing. The measure of (thought and study) you give (to the truth you hear) will be the measure of (virtue and knowledge) that comes back to you, and more (besides) will be given to those who hear.”
What out of that you hear are you willing to let influence you, and are willing to act on? That is what it means to heed.
You have to be willing to be taught. The meaning of the word “meek” is to be teachable. We must also be willing to correct what we believe if it doesn’t line up with what the Word says.
Matthew 10:41 He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.
There are two different Greek words used for receive in this verse.
δέχομαι (dechomai) = welcome/accept → relational and receptive, highlighting attitude and hospitality. “Whoever welcomes a prophet…” – The focus is on the attitude of welcome, acknowledging the prophet’s calling.
λαμβάνω (lambano) = take/obtain → concrete and often result-oriented, highlighting the act or fact of gaining. “…will receive a prophet’s reward…” – Here it conveys actual possession: the person will get/obtain the reward.
“Receiving the prophet” does involve how you receive their ministry and the words that they speak, but it also has to do with how you treat the person. Do you honor them, treat them with respect? What about supporting them financially, if they are a guest in your church? How you treat them will influence the grace that will be imparted to you through their ministry.
In the same verse, it talks about the righteous man. This is not necessarily a minister of any sort; it could just be a fellow believer. It’s the principle of sowing and reaping – the good that you do will come back to you.
Parable of the Sower
The Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:3-30 is about how people receive the Word of God. First of all, this is not just about salvation and how people receive the gospel – it applies to any word of God. Some things to note:
Every one of the individuals in the parable heard the Word. They were exposed to the message. The real subject of the parable is how they received the Word determined how much they got out of it – what fruit was produced.
The seed sown on the path, that was eaten by the birds: This person did not receive the Word at all. They ignore it – they don’t assign any value to it. A parallel passage in Matthew 13:19 assigns a more innocent reason they don’t receive – they don’t understand it.
The seed sown in the rocky soul scorched by the sun: This person received the Word with gladness. They get excited! And it germinates and grows. However, they are not well-established in it; they have no depth of roots. Affliction and persecution arise for the Word’s sake. All of the things the parable speaks of that hinder the seed’s growth – the birds, the scorching sun, the thorns, etc. – come to stop the Word from bearing fruit in your life.
The seed sown among thorns that gets choked: In this person, the Word has taken root and grown into a plant. But it is surrounded by thorns, thistles, and weeds. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust for other things. These are distractions that pull you away from the Word of God.
Where do weeds come from? They come from seeds also.
Matthew 13:24-26 24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
If the “good seed” is the Word of God, then the “bad seed” is the Word of the enemy. This could be anything that contradicts what God has said. It would be the things you hear that contribute to the “cares of this world” that choke the Word.
What You Hear
Jesus not only told us to take heed how we hear, but what we hear (Mark 4:24).
There are many voices in the world that bombard us daily. Many of them we cannot prevent from hearing. But we can keep from listening to them: i.e., we purposely do not receive from it, take heed. We reject it.
Job 12:11 Does not the ear test words And the mouth taste its food?
Technically, the ear and the tongue are sensors that convert input (for the ear, sound waves, for the tongue, chemical interactions of food) to electrical impulses that are sent to the brain. The brain interprets these impulses and gives them meaning. Additionally, we also introduce preferences for things – what do we like? It’s easy to describe in terms of taste. There are some flavors we love, some we can tolerate, and some we dislike immensely. For me I don’t care for the taste of raw tomatoes. Yet I love the taste of cooked tomato (go figure). I can’t stand the taste of horseradish or wasabi.
A trained palate can discern the quality of something, much like wine connoisseurs. When I was a pastor, we had several people who worked for Dryer’s Ice Cream. (A side story: they would occasionally bring in overstocks or flavors that had dented containers that couldn’t be sold but were perfectly good, and filled the freezer. I got to say to people, “Hey, we got ice cream!” Everybody loved that.) Dryer’s had a taste tester that could tell the maker of vanilla ice cream just by tasting it.
The ear tests/judges words. We all have a filter – a preference or bias that we apply to the things we hear. Some things we accept, some we reject. This is a good thing if we have trained our filter well.
Dull of Hearing
Hebrews 5:11 of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
What are some things that can make us dull of hearing?
Pride: You have to remain teachable. Arrogant, prideful people are not. They are full of themselves and their own opinion.
Traditions of Men/Past Teachings: It is not easy to overcome what you were first taught. This is often the case with people who are very learned. They invested so much time studying and learning what they know that being confronted with something new is viewed as a challenge or threat. Learning something new, especially if it goes against what you’ve already been taught, requires risk-taking. You are going from a place where you are an “expert” to an area where you are a novice. The Pharisees could not accept Jesus’ teaching for this reason.
Bias: We all have biases in who we like to listen to, the circles we move in, and the “tribe” we belong to.
Familiarity: This could be familiarity with the person bringing forth the message (Mark 6:3) “Is this not the carpenter’s son?…”. It could also be familiarity with the subject: “Oh, I’ve heard this before”. We have the saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Think of it not as hating something or someone, but as not ascribing the importance or weight it deserves.
In another sense, familiarity also has to do with what we are familiar and therefore comfortable with. This aligns perfectly with our bias.
Physical Weariness: When you are physically tired, it is hard to expend the mental and spiritual energy it takes to “hear with faith”.
Everyone has “selective hearing”. We tend to hear/take heed of those things that reinforce what we already believe. Our hearing has a bias.
Social media does this. It will apply filters to show you the type of things you pay attention to.
In the natural, our brains filter the things we hear. We don’t pay attention/give heed to every audible sound wave that enters our ears. For example, you hear someone mention your name in a crowded, noisy room. You hear your child’s voice.
Autism is a disorder where the brain’s ability to filter input selectively is not working correctly. They suffer from input overload.
We need to train our selective hearing to accept the beneficial things and reject those that are harmful. In John 10:3, we have the sheep that hear the shepherd’s voice but reject the voice of a stranger.
John 10:1-5 1 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Additionally, one of the primary ways to change your beliefs is to intentionally hear/focus/give heed to the thing you want to believe.
The Hearing of Faith
Galatians 3:1-5 1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have you suffered so many things in vain–if indeed it was in vain?
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?–
Galatia was a region in Asia Minor, containing four cities. It would be like referring to the San Francisco Bay Area. Galatia was the destination of Paul’s first missionary journey as an apostle. These were the first Gentile churches that came into being specifically because of Paul’s ministry.
Paul’s message, “Christ, and Him crucified”, was one that emphasized that faith in Jesus Christ, his sacrifice, and resurrection from the dead, was the only way to have a relationship with God. After Paul left the region, Jewish Christians from Jerusalem came up. They started teaching these Gentile believers that yes, you get saved by believing in Jesus, but to really be spiritual, you need to obey the Law of Moses.
This upset Paul greatly, because it was an undermining of the gospel. His language in the letter to the Galatians is pretty harsh – more so than any other letter. He uses this phrase to describe how the Galatians started off well, by the hearing of faith.
That phrase can describe two things:
- The message they heard was about faith – that salvation comes by believing in Jesus. Like it says in Romans 10:8, Paul preached the Word of faith.
- How the Galatians responded to Paul’s preaching. They received it, they believed it, and they acted on it. They heard with faith.
Mixed With Faith
Hebrews 4:1-2 1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.
2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). But here it says the Word they heard did not profit them because they didn’t mix it with faith. So, which comes first? The hearing, or the faith?
The “them” being referred to begins in Hebrews 3, where it discusses the Israelites in the wilderness and their failure to enter the Promised Land. The story is in Numbers 13. As Israel was poised to enter the land of Canaan, they sent twelve spies —one from each tribe —to scope out the land. They reported two things: what the land was like (flowing with milk and honey), and what the inhabitants (including the giants) were like. These were the facts. Vs. 27-29
The conclusion of Joshua and Caleb, who were two of the spies: “Let’s go up and take possession, we are well able to overcome it” vs. 30
But they also heard the “bad report” of the 10 spies, who spoke their conclusions about what they saw. They were full of fear and projected that fear. Look at what they said:
Numbers 13:31-33 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”
32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.
33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
In vs. 32, the 10 spies described it as “a land which devours its inhabitants.”?? How can it be a land which devours its inhabitants and be a land of milk and honey at the same time?
“We were like grasshoppers in our sight, and so we were in their sight” vs. 33
The bad report the 10 spies gave was to justify the fear they were feeling. And they infected the whole nation with it.
Hebrews 3:12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;
An evil heart of unbelief. We know about a heart of unbelief, but why was it an evil heart of unbelief? Because it was in direct rebellion to God’s promise and command:
I’ve given you the land – take possession of it.
Fear is irrational: They said, “We’re afraid of dying. If only we had died in Egypt, or died in the wilderness. Wouldn’t it be better if we went back to Egypt?”
They also questioned the character and motives of God. 40 years later, Moses is rehearsing what had happened to the new generation as they were about to cross the Jordan:
Deuteronomy 1:21-28 21 Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.’
22 And everyone of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.’
23 The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.
24 And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out.
25 They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.’
26 “Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God;
27 and you complained in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28 Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ‘
Israelites did put faith in what they heard, but in the wrong thing. Unbelief is faith in the Word that contradicts God.
