Whoever Has Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear

A few weeks ago I began a very simple experiment: removing from some letters of the New Testament the chapter and verse numbers, the titles and the subtitles, and going back to reading them as what they originally were, letters.

First I prepared Paul's letter to the Colossians for continuous reading. I separated only small blocks where the message itself seemed to ask for a pause, preserving the connecting words and trying not to interfere with the flow of the text.

The difference in the reading was much greater than I expected.

Yesterday, at church, I was reading this letter with the children. Very slowly. One sentence at a time. We were trying to understand who was speaking, who Paul was speaking about and how one sentence connected to the next.

At one point we came to these words:

the mystery that was hidden for ages and generations, but now has been revealed to his saints. To him God chose to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

To him?

Who was “him”?

We stopped.

And then we noticed something very small: that “To him” was like that in the very Bible we were reading. It was not a mistake in the continuous letter we had prepared. There was a small flaw there, of translation or of editing: the meaning called for the plural, to the saints, to them, to whom God chose to make known the riches of that mystery.

It was just a small “s”.

But that small missing “s” made me realize something: it had bothered me because it was getting in the way of what I was hearing.

I was not just reading words. I was trying to follow a message.

And when we do that, even a small word out of place interrupts the thread.

---

We went on.

Shortly before, Paul had spoken of hope:

of which you heard through the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

Further on, speaking of his responsibility, Paul says:

to present to you fully the word of God, the mystery that was hidden for ages and generations…

And finally:

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

I stopped again.

The connection was right before our eyes:

the word of truth, the gospel.

the word of God, the mystery.

the mystery: Christ in you.

---

Then other words of Scripture began to come back to my memory.

In the beginning:

God said: Let there be light.

And there was light.

God speaks and what did not exist comes into existence.

John goes back to exactly the beginning:

In the beginning was the Word.

And he says that all things were made through it.

Jesus, explaining the parable of the sower, says something very simple:

The seed is the word of God.

Seed.

Not just information.

A seed contains life.

James says:

receive with humility the word implanted in you.

Shortly before, he had said that God:

brought us forth by the word of truth.

The same expression we find in Colossians:

the word of truth, the gospel.

Then I remembered Hebrews:

the word of God is living and active.

Living.

Active. At work.

Like a seed.

---

And then a sentence of Jesus that I have known for many years appeared before me in a way I had never understood before:

The Spirit gives life; the flesh produces nothing that profits. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

That was when another sentence of Paul took on a new force for me:

the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Paul does not say that the letter is dead.

He says that the letter kills.

This made me remember the desert.

There, the devil himself says to Jesus:

It is written…

Jesus answers:

It is written…

The devil goes back to the Scriptures:

It is written…

He also knows the letter. He also knows how to quote the Scriptures.

And if that conversation had stayed only on that ground, we could imagine it going on indefinitely:

It is written…

It is also written…

But it is written…

Until, in the last answer recorded by Luke, Jesus changes the expression:

It is said…

And the dialogue ends.

I do not want to build a doctrine on the difference between “It is written” and “It is said.” What Jesus says also comes from the Scriptures.

But the image strikes me.

Jesus does not remain in an endless contest of quotations.

It is said.

And he closes it.

This means that knowing what is written, quoting what is written and even arguing about what is written does not necessarily mean hearing the Word of God.

We can know the letter.

We can memorize the letter.

We can teach the letter.

We can argue about the letter.

And we can spend our whole lives saying:

It is written.

While someone else answers:

It is also written.

Maybe that is why Jesus said so many times:

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.

---

Then I remembered another sentence:

faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Maybe I have begun to understand a little better why this experience of continuous reading has been so powerful.

Not because we removed the numbers of chapters and verses.

Not because we discovered a new technique.

Much less because we found a “correct” way to read the Bible.

Maybe we have simply begun to hear.

When we read a whole letter, the connecting words matter again.

A “therefore” matters.

A “for” matters.

A “him” matters.

Even a small missing “s” bothers us.

Because something interrupts what we were hearing.

And that is how, sitting with some children, slowly reading a letter written almost two thousand years ago, I understood in a new way words I had known for a long time.

I was there to help them understand.

And I was the one who heard.

Maybe there is an enormous difference between teaching a child the Bible and sitting down with a child before the Scriptures to listen.

In the first situation, I already know and I am going to pass it on.

In the second, we both listen.

And this preserves something precious: the one who teaches also remains under the Word.

That is exactly what happened in that reading.

I was not looking for that discovery. I had not prepared an explanation about the Word of God, the gospel, the seed, the Spirit and life.

The connections appeared as we read.

At that moment, maybe there was not really a teacher and some children learning.

There were people before the same Word, listening.

---

And this made me notice a very simple difference between two sentences we use almost without thinking:

“Let's study the Word of God.”

and

“Let's listen.”

Studying is not bad. The problem perhaps begins when study takes the place of listening.

When I say “let's study,” it is very easy to come to the text bringing what I already know, what I have learned, the explanations I have received, the doctrines I know and even the answers I expect to find.

But when I simply say:

“Let's listen”,

something changes.

I also need to be quiet.

I also do not know in advance what I am going to notice.

I also remain before the Word.

And room is left open for what happened to me that night:

“I had never understood it like this.”

Maybe there is a much greater difference than we imagine between knowing the Scriptures and hearing the Word.

I do not want to turn this into another method.

Much less into a new doctrine about reading the Bible aloud.

It would even be funny.

Before long we would be arguing again:

It is written…

Maybe it is better to end simply as Jesus so often ended.

He did not say:

“Whoever has the intelligence to understand, let him understand.”

He said:

“Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

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