But Are You Really Listening?
The past several weeks has been excerpts of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus started speaking to this big crowd of people from the mountain side. He started with The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11) and things to do if we want to be blessed. Last week was about being salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16) and how this makes the world better.
This week, Jesus tells us He is the fulfillment of the law (Matthew 5:17-20). He tells us that He has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
The group of people He was speaking to was big enough that He had to go up on the side of a mountain so that everyone could hear him. Of course, His twelve closest disciples were there, but there were many more than just these twelve. There would have been many followers in different places along their journey.
There would have also been a variety of other people who weren’t followers. There would have been church leaders, sinners, zealots, tax collectors, and people who were curious about what this man, Jesus, was saying.
The problem was that each was hearing from their own perspective. They most likely had preconceived opinions and weren’t really listening.
This is often what we do. We hear without listening.
There is a difference between hearing and listening.
We often interchange the words “hearing” and “listening” and mistake them for the meaning the same thing. Although there are similarities, they are significantly different. One being more active, requiring effort, and the other being involuntary and natural.
Hearing is a passive, physical act that requires one sense and has to do with the perception of sound. It does not rely on concentration. Hearing is like collecting data; we hear sounds and words all day long, even if we are not paying attention to them.
Listening revolves around actively paying attention to the words and sounds that you hear to absorb their meaning and develop an emotional response. Merriam-Webster defines it as…
Listening is “to hear something with thoughtful attention.”
Listening is a mental, active process that requires multiple senses. Listening is a voluntary act, meaning that an individual can choose whether or not to listen. If you choose to listen, then it is an active process. You can hear sounds and words without having to listen or focus on what you are hearing. Hearing without listening is an example of the common phrase “in one ear and out the other”
Too many of the people hearing Jesus’ message were hearing but not listening. They came with preconceived ideas about who He was and what His message was.
They weren’t listening with their hearts.
We need to listen to Jesus and to others with an open heart.
Even when we listen to what others are saying, it doesn’t mean that it’s truth. We need to listen to things through a Biblical filter to determine if what we’re hearing is the truth.
Open your heart and listen to what you hear.