Communication Skills Matter 

Babies learn to listen before they can learn to speak. A deaf baby is severely handicapped and will need to overcome many challenges that those with hearing take for granted. My oldest daughter, Laura, was born with a hearing deficiency. Ellie (my wife) and I did not discover it until she was in kindergarten, when a hearing test revealed her hearing issues. She had learned to read lips at a very young age. Laura has worn hearing aids ever since. She has excelled in school, work, and building and maintaining more friendships than anyone I know in spite of her hearing loss. Her experiences have taught us to cherish our gift of hearing as a gift from God. 

We are now retired and live in a retirement community. Hearing loss is almost normative among senior citizens. Often I am asked to repeat something I have said. But as with children, hearing loss in adults can lead to much more significant health issues. Loss of hearing in older adults can lead to loneliness, social isolation, depression, dementia, and premature death. Hearing decline inevitably erodes one’s quality of life by undermining relationships. Quality of life requires healthy relationships and life-enhancing relations are built upon communication which requires both speaking and listening skills. If either one is missing, the relationship is severely diminished. Communication, both speaking and listening, are essential life skills.

Relationship is the Goal 

Believers frequently contrast religion with a relationship. Religion focuses on doing more than being, law more than love, externals more than internals, and duty more than grace. But since a relationship with God through Jesus is the central quest of the Christian faith, these priorities are reversed. Contrasting relationship with religion is simplistic but provides a helpful perspective on what disciples are to be and do. We can only follow Jesus’ example and teaching to the degree that we know him. Consequently, developing an authentic relationship with Jesus is the primary means of following the Jesus Way. As we grow closer to Jesus, we become more like him and reflect his character, which is the essence of spiritual maturity. 

The first two challenges focused on God’s initiative in reaching out to us in love. The Father demonstrated his love for us by sending his Son who sacrificed himself for us. Love is relational. Through the Son, we are reconciled to the Father. Reconciliation is relational. The Spirit draws us to the Son and makes the Son come alive to us. God went all in for us. Everything we receive from God is a gift of his grace. God has done all of this to forge a relationship with us, his rebellious children. His actions clearly communicate his desire to have a relationship with us. The Jesus Way is the means of developing a relationship with God. 

Relationships are central to the Christian faith. The God revealed to us in the Bible is relational. God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a profound mystery. God is one, and to say otherwise is both foolish and heretical. Yet the one and only God exists in three persons. The very nature of God is relational. God created people in his image, as male and female. Accordingly, we are relational by nature as well. Consequently, life as God created it, is relational. The better our relationships, both with God and each other, the better our lives. 

The third challenge described our natural response to God’s initiating love as giving thanks to God. Giving thanks to God is also relational. Without thankful hearts we will inevitably veer away from a relational approach to living as disciples and replace it with a more religious, dutiful approach, like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. Part D of the third challenge indicated saying “thank you” to God, is both the simplest of prayers and the gateway to entering God’s presence. The fourth challenge focuses on “listening” to deepen our relationship with the Lord.191 

Spiritual Disciplines Bring Intimacy with God 

Spiritual disciplines are repeated practices that have become habits which help draw us closer to Jesus. More specifically, they are tools that facilitate hearing the Lord. Some examples of spiritual disciplines are simplicity, silence, solitude, Bible reading, confession, fellowship, meditation, fasting, and frugality. 

Practicing positive communication skills is essential to every healthy relationship. The most challenging communication skill is learning to listen. The closer and more intimate the relationship, the more important listening becomes. Intimacy is knowing another person at a heart level. The scriptures sometimes speak of sexual intimacy between a husband and wife as “knowing” the other (i.e., “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived…” Genesis 4:1, NIV). Yet intimacy is not necessarily sexual. It’s knowing another person as they really are, with no pretense or secrets. Developing a closer relationship with Jesus is a joyous privilege for every disciple. 

We must always remember that spiritual disciplines are never the ends, they are always the means to the end. The purpose of this challenge is to develop a deeper relationship with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Thus, we must learn to recognize and listen to his voice. Jesus said that his disciples would recognize and listen to his voice. 

³ …the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ …they follow him because they know his voice.
John 10: 3-4 

The sheep (disciples) learn to “recognize his voice” (of Jesus, the Good Shepherd) and then “they follow him because they know his voice.” Discerning and listening to Jesus’ voice is a distinguishing characteristic of being a disciple. It started when we heard his voice through the Spirit saying, “follow me.” If we do not learn to listen, we will become confused and disoriented by the competing voices swirling around us and follow a rabbit track rather than the Jesus Way. 

The Importance of Listening 

When I was in my early teens and enjoying summer vacation, each evening my dad gave me a list of jobs that I had to finish the following day before doing anything with my friends. We had a large yard and mowing the lawn was always my least favorite assignment. More than once, I failed to mow the yard per his instructions. Then, when he returned home from work and saw the un-mowed grass, he would find me, look me in eye and say, “Son, you didn’t listen. Whatever I say to you seems to go in one ear and out the other.” 

God repeatedly spoke the same message to his people in the OT in various ways. He told them to offer him their exclusive worship, but they did not listen and worshiped idols. He told them to take care of the poor, the needy, and the foreigners, but they took advantage of them instead. God’s words to his people seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Listening to God can be an exhilarating experience. Yet it takes effort and requires perseverance. 

God told his people to “listen” hundreds of times. Jesus also frequently instructed people to “listen.” Failure to listen undermines your relationship with Jesus. If you do not hear him, you cannot follow him. I suggest from this point forward you underline or circle the word “listen” every time you see it in the Bible. 

Listening requires time and effort because the Lord seldom speaks in an audible voice. Perhaps this is why there are so many spiritual disciplines. However, there are no quick and easy methods or shortcuts that guarantee success. Listening is hard work and requires life-long perseverance. I struggled long and hard before learning how to discern God’s voice. When I finally began to recognize his voice, I realized I had been hearing it for years, but had not realized it was God speaking. I had not learned to listen well. Like my dad had said, it seemed to go in one ear and out the other ear. 

To listen to God is to develop a deeper, more intimate relationship with him. Our lives are enhanced. We experience more joy and freedom. Life feels light, not burdensome. Jesus said: 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message) 

Listening is the primary way we develop intimacy with Jesus. Listening may be one of the unforced rhythms of grace. The gospels are filled with Jesus’ teaching on listening. The theme of listening is prominent in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. Imagine you are one of Jesus’ disciples listening to this story and his explanation of what it means. Be alert to every time he speaks of listening. 

¹ Later that same day Jesus left the house and sat beside the lake. ² A large crowd soon gathered around him, so he got into a boat. Then he sat there and taught as the people stood on the shore. ³ He told many stories in the form of parables, such as this one: 

“Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. ⁴ As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. ⁵ Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. ⁸ Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! ⁹ Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” 

¹⁰ His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?” 

¹¹ He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. ¹² To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. ¹³ That is why I use these parables, 

For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand. ¹⁴ This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says, ‘When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. ¹⁵ For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’ 

¹⁶ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. ¹⁷ I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it. 

¹⁸ “Now listen to the explanation of the parable about the farmer planting seeds: ¹⁹ The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. ²⁰ The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. ²¹ But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. ²² The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced. ²³ The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”
Matthew 13:1-23

Disciples Learn to Listen and Listen to Learn 

The actual parable is only six and one-half verses long (3b-9). After hearing it, his original disciples asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?” (v. 10). Jesus’ answer is recorded in the next seven verses (vs. 11-17). He began by explaining that his disciples were privileged to hear and understand things (secrets or mysteries) about the Kingdom that others did not understand. He added specifics: “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” Essentially, Jesus said that disciples must learn to listen so they may listen to learn. Listening (sometimes described as “paying attention”) is one of the chief responsibilities in the job description of a disciple. Consequently, disciples must continually seek to become better listeners. 

Jesus quoted Jeremiah 5:21 to explain what happens when people come to him but fail to listen attentively: 

“For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.” 

In other words, they (those who rejected him) were not receptive and so could not perceive the meaning of what Jesus taught. Disciples hear and understand what others cannot hear or understand. 

He went on to explain (vs. 14-15) that people who had not understood his teaching fulfilled Isaiah 6:9-10. His meaning was unmistakable: failure to listen and understand is a heart issue, not an auditory issue. Hearing aids would not help because we hear God with our hearts. Intimacy is the product of heart level communication. Jesus’ teaching reveals the heart of God, but only those who have soft and receptive hearts can truly hear and understand. Those who do not hear have hardened, unresponsive hearts. 

The parable is about listening, which is a spiritual issue. Since disciples have received new hearts through the presence of the Holy Spirit, they are uniquely equipped to listen and hear what God is saying. 

Jesus concluded this passage by explaining that each type of soil represents the different ways people hear and respond to his words. Listening well bears an abundance of fruit. Clearly, Jesus was underlining the importance of listening for every disciple. 

THINKING IT THROUGH

“Oh, that my people would listen to me! Oh, that Israel would follow me, walking in my path! Psalm 81:3 

THE TRUTH: The Lord continues to speak in this day and age. 

THE CHALLENGE: Disciples must learn to discern and listen to God's voice. 

Each part of every four-part challenge concludes with a “Thinking it Through” segment which consists of a list of Scriptures related to the topic being considered, questions for group discussion and personal reflection, and notes. Each of the twelve challenges will end with an exercise to guide you through the process of naming lies, believing the truth, and clarifying the personal implications and applications of the truth to your life. Truth, if believed, must be lived, and living the truth brings personal transformation (Kingdom living). Please consider this section as a tool to help you to understand the truth, not as a test or as busy work. 

Related Scriptures 

2 Chronicles 24:19 ¹⁹ Yet the Lord sent prophets to bring them back to him. The prophets warned them, but still the people would not listen. 

Job 22:22 ²² Listen to his instructions and store them in your heart. 

Nehemiah 9:30 ³⁰ In your love, you were patient with them for many years. You sent your Spirit, who warned them through the prophets. But still they wouldn’t listen! So once again you allowed the peoples of the land to conquer them.

Proverbs 23:19 ¹⁹ My child, listen and be wise: Keep your heart on the right course. 

Isaiah 42: 20 ²⁰ You hear with your ears, But you really don’t listen. 

Isaiah 65:12b ¹² For when I called, you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen. 

Jeremiah 6:8 ⁸ “Listen to this warning, Jerusalem, or I will turn from you in disgust. Listen, or I will turn you into a heap of ruins, a land where no one lives.” 

Jeremiah 7:24, 26 ²⁴ “But my people would not listen to me. They kept doing whatever they wanted, following the stubborn desires of their evil hearts. They went backward instead of forward.”

²⁶ “But my people have not listened to me or even tried to hear.” 

Jeremiah 26:4-8 ⁴ “Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: If you will not listen to me and obey my word I have given you, ⁵ and if you will not listen to my servants, the prophets—for I sent them again and again to warn you, but you would not listen to them— ⁶ then I will destroy this Temple….’” ⁷ The priests, the prophets, and all the people listened to Jeremiah as he spoke in front of the Lord’s Temple. ⁸ But when Jeremiah had finished his message…the priests and prophets and all the people at the Temple mobbed him. “Kill him!” they shouted. 

Ezekiel 3:7, 10 ⁷ “But the people of Israel won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn.”

¹⁰ Then he added, “Son of man [Ezekiel], let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself.” 

Ezekiel 33:5 ⁵ “If they had listened to the warning, they could have saved their lives.” 

Acts 10:44 [ The Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit] ⁴⁴ Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. 

Hosea 9:17 ¹⁷ “My God will reject the people of Israel because they will not listen or obey. “ 

Zechariah 7:11 ¹¹ “Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.” 

Matthew 15:10-11 ¹⁰ Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand. ¹¹ It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.” 

Matthew 20:18 ¹⁸ “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die.” 

Luke 6:27 ²⁷ “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you.” 

John 8:47 ⁴⁷ “Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.” 

Questions 

You are encouraged to use these questions for group discussion or personal reflection. Respond to the questions that are most relevant or interesting to you (I urge you to write your responses in a journal or notebook). 

1. Is there a connection between listening and obeying? If yes, what is the connection between them? If you answered no, state why there is no connection between these words. 

2. What role does listening play in any relationship? Can you have any sense of intimacy without listening in any relationship? 

3. Very few people claim to have heard God’s audible voice. Yet through the entire Bible we are told to listen. Many passages also indicate the heart plays an important role in hearing God’s voice. Try to express in a paragraph or two what role the heart plays in listening to a voice that typically is not audible. 

4. Is there a difference between listening and hearing or do they mean the same thing? 

5. Read Exodus 19 and 20, the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. In 20:19 the people said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!” Why did they make this request? Did they keep their word? And how great a privilege is it for us to hear God’ voice? 

6. What will happen if a spiritual discipline becomes the end, not the means to the end? 

7. Ask your mentor or a believer you respect and trust, if they listen to God and if they do, how do they know when and how God is speaking to them? 

8. In the Parable of the Soils, what characterizes the good soil? 

9. Check which of the following you associate with listening: ____ The Heart ____ Love ____ Salvation ____ Warnings ____ Obedience ____ Knowledge ____ Jesus ____ Intimacy ____ Relationships ____ Understanding ____ God's Promises ____ Responsibilities 

10. Review the story of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin (Gen 2:15-17 and 3:1-10). Make a case that either their decision to eat the forbidden fruit was or was not the product of their failure to listen to God. Reflect on the relationship between gratitude/thankfulness and grace. Write down your insights.

Notes 

Progressive Revelation—A Metaphor 

Progressive revelation is not associated with any political ideology or group calling themselves “progressives”. Rather, the two words comprise a theological term used to describe a principle of Biblical revelation. God’s redemptive history began with a single person, Abraham (Genesis, chapter 12), who lived approximately four-thousand years ago. Chronologically, the last Biblical revelation is the book of Revelation, which can be dated in the last decade of the first century A.D. (when John, the last apostle died). Thus, the Bible spans nearly two thousand years of redemptive history, or we could call it God’s story. 

His story (history) is much like a river with its headwaters high in the mountains but the water flows in a long and twisting course to the sea. As it flows towards the sea, tributaries (other creeks and rivers) flow into the river, widening, deepening, and enlarging the river. The head waters of a river may be a brook that is only ankle deep so that a person could walk through it. Yet after the tributaries contribute their contents to the river, it becomes wide and deep enough for large, ocean-going ships to enter and travel upriver for many miles. The river that began as a small creek became a major river, a source of water for millions and a liquid highway for ships, barges, and recreational boats. 

I was born and raised in a town on the banks of the Columbia River. As a boy, I swam and fished in its blue waters. The water I drank came from the river. I also irrigated the yard and garden with water pumped from the river. The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America and its headwaters are in Canada. It flows 1,243 miles until it is seven miles wide when it meets the Pacific Ocean, adding 15,900,000 sq. ft. of water per minute. 

The Bible is like a great river bringing life-giving water to all who will receive it. Along its 2000-year course, the great river of revelation has grown wider and deeper. It started with a single man, Abraham, and grew into a large family, and then into twelve tribes. Those tribes were enslaved in Egypt, but God miraculously liberated them and entered into a covenant relationship with them, making them into the nation of Israel. Kings, priests, prophets, successes, failures, and promises of a coming Messiah followed. The river of revelation recorded God’s words and actions and the peoples’ obedience and disobedience. The OT ended with four-hundred years of silence, when God did not speak. 

The silence was broken when God spoke again through John the Baptist and then supremely through Jesus, the promised Messiah. Jesus spoke and demonstrated the good news, which transformed the river water into “living water.” The apostles embraced his teaching, which completed and clarified all that had preceded him. After his ascension, the promised Spirit came with power, giving birth to the church, and making the river accessible to all who were thirsty. Each book in the Bible, is like a tributary, flowing into the river of revelation and contributing new truths and additional insights. The Bible’s tributaries, unlike literal rivers, not only increased the flow of water; they also purified and clarified the river’s water, revealing the One who is the only way, the ultimate truth, and life as God intended it to be. 

The river began as a trickle when God blessed and called one person to begin a journey, but it ends with all humanity being blessed by its waters. That is why it is called “progressive revelation.” The river grows wider and deeper as God’s story and plan unfold. The Bible (which means the” book”) has shaped history more than any other document or book ever written. The headwater of the river began with God calling Abraham. Now, four millenniums later, those who are wise and seek understanding and truth come to the river’s living water to hear and obey God’s voice and to immerse themselves in its eternal truths, which is part of the Jesus Way. 

Copyright © 2024 Don Waite

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