Then Jesus said,
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Mark 4:9
In Mark 4, Jesus began to teach using parables. Our word, parable, comes from the combination of two Greek words:
Para – alongside
Ballo – to throw or cast
Our definition of parable: A story placed alongside to help us understand the teaching.
A teachable, listening heart is required to glean the deeper truth the parable reveals. Those with “ears to hear” will ponder and pray over the parable (and, indeed, all Scripture) to seek out the deeper truth it reveals.
Does your heart want to hear? Are we allowing the world, our own shallow thinking, or the evil one himself to drown out the powerful truth of Scripture? Jesus Christ, the living word of God, wants to teach us. Are we willing to listen?
I heard a story about a woman – let’s call her Linda – who had a five-year-old daughter. Her daughter had disobeyed and had been sent to her room. After a few minutes, Linda went in to talk with her about what she had done. Teary-eyed, her five-year-old asked, “Why do we do wrong things, Mommy?”
“Sometimes the devil tells us to do something wrong,” Linda replied to her daughter, “and we listen to him. We need to listen to God instead.”
To which the five-year-old little girl sobbed, “But God doesn’t talk loud enough!“
Sometimes that’s what we want…God to talk louder over the noise we allow into our lives. But I believe Jesus is a gentleman. He wants us to come to Him, to want Him …and if we prefer someone or something else, He will politely keep knocking at the door of our hearts…keep whispering in our ear…calling out our name…but He will seldom push and shove His way in. He gave us free will to CHOOSE Him. He is persistent in His pursuit of us…because He loves us.
He gave us ears to Hear…but the question is …do we want to hear? Do we want to behave as if we have heard?
{ If you are studying through Mark with us, please read Mark 4 this week. Here is the recorded teaching lecture on this passage: http://fbcsiloam.podbean.com/2013/10/13/ladies-bible-study-mark-lesson-7-laura-macfarlan-10-10-13/ }
