Author: Paul Nordman

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Good News Worth a Listen

Several of our executives gathered for a seminar on how to interact with the news media. The instructor cautioned that reporters are looking for attention-grabbing soundbites and are trained in “gotcha” questions in order to get one. Both the interviewer and interviewee know tight news program schedules only allow for a 15-second exchange, so it becomes a game, the former trying to elicit an eyebrow-raising quote, and the latter trying not to provide one. A key seminar take-away, then, was to know how to respond with a comment related to an entrapping question, rather than answering it directly.

The religious leaders of Jesus day were fluent in “gotcha.” It must have been a normally reliable dialect, for despite mounting failures to entrap Jesus through insincere interrogatories, they kept trying. In one such encounter, a group of Sadducees asked Jesus, if a married man died and his wife married the next oldest brother, and if this pattern continued down to the seventh brother, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? It was a taunting question, for this sect did not believe in life after death, and everyone knew it. How then did Jesus respond? First, He exposed the faulty premise to their question. “You are wrong,” He asserted, “because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.”1 Then He spoke foundational truth: “As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”2 Yet the Sadducees clung to their defeated narrative, and rather asking Jesus about this hope, they “did not have the courage to question Him any longer about anything.”3

Jesus once asked the Jews who gathered to hear Him, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.”4 Therein lies one of the most common challenges to hearing God: Our flesh wants to hear what its “itching ears want to hear,”5 and rejects all other soundbites. But God’s thoughts and ways are infinitely higher than ours,6 and He would have us listen for them. “It is the Spirit who gives life;” said Jesus, “the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”7 God’s Word is good news—news we can trust. Tune in to the Spirit and hear for yourself.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak . . .”—John 16:13.

“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.” 8 Amen.

1 Matthew 22:29-30, emphasis added
2 Matthew 22:31-32
3 Luke 20:40 NASB
4 John 8:43, emphasis added
5 2 Timothy 4:3 NIV
6 Isaiah 55:8-9
7 John 6:63
8 Psalm 85:8

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Obstacles to Hearing God

“For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it.”—Job 33:14

A few years ago, I underwent some medical diagnostics, which included a hearing evaluation. Speech reception thresholds were where they should be, word recognition was “excellent,” and sensorineural hearing loss tested within normal limits, albeit with one notable exception: I had experienced “mild” loss in two of the measured sound frequencies. It just so happens that these two outliers were higher-pitched frequencies, specifically those common to female voices, so this mild hearing loss has occasionally served me as a credible (and convenient) defense. (“Honest, honey, I didn’t hear you.”)

God speaks in many ways, and over time His people have heard Him through each of them. This is not to suggest we hear God whenever He has something to say; perhaps most often when God “speaks in one way, and in two,” we do not “perceive it.” Why is this? How can we possibly miss the authoritative Voice that spoke creation into being and us into His image? What forces divert our attention, and which noises clutter our thoughts in confusion?

There are several obstacles to hearing God, and it is crucial that we recognize them as they confront us. Our “flesh”—that part of us that is prone to sin and opposed to God—has its worldly cravings, and these “desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.”1 So, tuning out all desires but our own comes naturally to us, and conversely, we are susceptible to ascribing our self-serving thoughts as being God’s will. These temptations are deliberate, for spiritual warfare is real, and Satan, our adversary, is an active schemer2 who will do anything to deceive us,3 even if it means disguising himself as “an angel of light.”4 He would confuse us, in his cunning, and lead our thoughts astray.5 Then there is outright rebellion against God and the brazen refusal to hear Him. God grieves through the prophet Jeremiah: “I spoke to you, speaking again and again, but you did not listen, and I called you but you did not answer.”6

Yet there is no obstacle that can prevail against God. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world,”7 assured Jesus mere hours before His arrest. Born of God through faith in Christ, we, too, are overcomers.8 His Spirit lives in us in truth and works through us in power. Then like our forebears in the faith, may this be our resolve: “We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”9

Obstacles confront us; watch for them. Truth is on our side; listen for Him.

“Speak, for Your servant is listening.”—1 Samuel 3:10 NASB

Father, draw us near to You, that we would know Your voice, hear Your voice, trust Your voice, and obey Your voice. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Galatians 5:17
2 Ephesians 6:11
3 2 Corinthians 11:3
4 2 Corinthians 11:14
5 2 Corinthians 11:3
6 Jeremiah 7:13 NASB
7 John 16:33
8 1 John 5:4
9 2 Corinthians 10:5 RSV

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More than a Watchword

One of Peggy’s and my joys in life is developing friendships with internationals who come to the United States to pursue their education. They have taught us much about their countries and cultures, and to some degree we have helped them navigate our own. In relaxed conversation one evening, a young woman from China recalled arriving in the U.S. for the first time. “We [Chinese students] begin to learn English as children and study it throughout our school years,” she began. “I thought I knew the language well, but when I arrived here and stepped into the airport, I couldn’t understand anything. For my first three months here, it was a wall of noise.” (What a great metaphor!)

We long to hear God; we strain to hear His voice. At times, however, other voices overwhelm us, distracting us from hearing God or dissuading us from trusting Him. For the Bible teaches us we have an enemy; his name is Satan. Jesus says this evil one “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When the devil lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”1 This is who our enemy is, and lies are the obscenities he shouts from the wall of noise.

Satan deceives us in many ways, such as misapplying Scripture. Tempting Jesus to prove His deity by throwing Himself down from the temple high point, Satan “assured” Him through Psalm 91, saying, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’” and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”2 Conveniently omitted, however, was the prior verse in the psalm—the premise to the promise: “Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place. . .”3 In faith and obedience, Jesus did take refuge in the Lord, His dwelling place, and, though tempted as we are, He overcame the devil’s scheme and remained without sin.4

How do we read Scripture rightly? Probably the most effective means is through a lifetime practice of this timeless wisdom from the twentieth century German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “There can be . . . little doubt that brief verses cannot and should not take the place of reading the Scripture as a whole. . . Holy Scripture is more than a watchword. It is also more than “light for today.” It is God’s revealed Word for all men, for all times. Holy Scripture does not consist of individual passages; it is a unit and is intended to be used as such.”5 More Word, more clarity. Less noise; more peace.

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”6—Peter, to Jesus

Father, Your Word is life itself. Inspire us to consume it and understand it, living by every word that comes forth from Your mouth. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 John 8:44
2 Matthew 4:6
3 Psalm 91:9
4 Hebrews 4:15
5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1954) 50–51
6 John 6:68