“He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:9)
Good communication can be tough, can’t it? Experts say we spend about 75% of our conscious hours communicating: 10% writing / texting, 15% reading, 30% speaking and 45% hearing (ecgcoaching.com). If you were wondering why you feel so tired, now you know! English-speaking persons typically talk at a rate of 110-170 words per minute (debatrix.com), although you likely know people who absolutely obliterate both ends of that spectrum. But get this. The proverbial “average person” can hear up to 450 words per minute. And there’s more – one can think at a rate of 1000-3000 words per minute! In other words, we can hear at three times greater the rate that most people can speak. And we can think at a rate that’s easily 10- 15 times higher than the speediest of speakers. Therein lies both the beauty and the difficulty of communication.
Jesus said in Mark’s account of the Parable of the Sower, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:13). Jesus all too plainly states that if one misses the big idea behind the Parable of the Sower, one is not going to get what He is saying in any of the rest of His parables. A close examination of the Parable of the Sower as found in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8 shows Jesus referring to “ears,” “listening” and “hearing” at least 32 times!
How we need to keep our eyes on our ears. How often have we heard, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”? (Romans 10:17). Hebrews 5:11 speaks of the possibility of becoming “dull” of hearing, while Hebrews 2:1 speaks of giving the “more earnest heed to the things” we have heard. Jesus also said, “Take care then how you hear” (Luke 8:18). While we may have a speaking problem, God doesn’t. Because God has spoken through His dear Son, our listening is especially crucial. How we ever need to hear the word of God for what it really is – the word of God Himself.
-Mike Vestal
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