What did you hear?
What happens when we stop defending our positions and listen to the Scriptures, the living Word, and ask: what did you hear?
Airton Humber · 28/08/26 · 2 min de leitura
When we talk about politics, philosophy or any other subject, it is very easy to reach a point where each person takes a position and starts defending it.
On sacred ground, this can happen even more easily.
Because we are no longer just defending an opinion. We may begin to believe that we are defending the truth, the Scriptures or even God.
But does God need to be defended?
Maybe we can do something simpler: listen.
The Scriptures themselves teach us some caution.
We see as in a mirror, dimly.
We are invited to be quick to hear and slow to speak.
And Jesus kept saying:
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Maybe recognizing that we still see dimly does not diminish what we are already able to see. It only reminds us that we may not be seeing everything.
The other person may have noticed something we have not noticed yet.
Even different translations can help us with this.
Sometimes one translation says it one way and another chooses different words. We do not need to immediately make one of them win. We can put them side by side and ask:
What are we able to see better when we listen to both?
And the Bible itself sometimes records the same saying in different ways.
Matthew tells of Jesus saying that if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will the Father give good things to those who ask him.
Luke records the same comparison, but ends by saying that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
Do we need to set Matthew against Luke?
Or can we simply listen to both?
There is an even more surprising scene.
In the desert, Jesus answers the tempter:
It is written.
The tempter also knows the Scriptures. He quotes the Psalm:
For it is written…
Having a biblical text, therefore, does not necessarily end the conversation.
And then Luke records a small change in Jesus' answer:
It is said.
It is written.
It is said.
Maybe there is a precious difference here for those who approach the Scriptures.
It is not enough to ask only:
What is written?
We can also ask:
What is being said?
Because the Word of God is living and active.
And Paul reminds us that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
This does not mean that all interpretations are equal.
Nor does it mean that truth and error do not exist.
It only means that maybe we do not need to decide everything immediately.
We can stay for a while before the text.
We can listen to one translation.
Listen to another.
Listen to Matthew.
Listen to Luke.
Listen to the person sitting next to us.
And when someone sees differently, before answering, maybe we can ask:
Paul even advises Titus to avoid controversies, arguments and quarrels, because they are “unprofitable and useless.”
Maybe the question is not only whether we are right, but what our argument is producing.
What did you hear?
Maybe our gathering does not need to be a place where we find out who is right.
It can be a place where we learn together to listen.
No trenches.
No need to defend God.
No rush to turn what we still see dimly into a final definition.
Only with the willingness of someone who recognizes:
the Word is living.
That is why we keep listening.
