This wasn't and isn't easy work. I can remember moving to a new house with my family in the late eighties. My dad was a huge gardener at the time and my brothers and I were put to work in the backyard getting it ready to plant. Unfortunately, when you got about a spade length down into the soil, you ran into serious hardpan. We tried everything, and broke more than a few shovels along the way, breaking through that stuff. Finally, we had to take out our pickaxe's and go to work. Day after day, we pounded the hard, seemingly impenetrable earth until we finally had carved out a deep enough space to put new soil. I am not sure the work is any easier for God. Quite frankly, our skulls are harder than the hardest hardpan due to the cultural conditioning that has taken place both in the church and in the world.
Stop for a moment and think about the last time you sat in total silence. How long was it before you got antsy? How long before your mind wandered to the lists of things you had to accomplish? The reality is that most of us are immersed in an incredibly noisy world. In the midst of all this sound, how are we to hear the voice of God?
One of the primary ways God speaks to us is through the Scriptures. But here again, the cultural forces at work in the church have made us deaf to his voice. Reading Scripture was originally an oral and aural event. Someone would read the words aloud and the community would listen. Deuteronomy, for instance, is a record of Moses' final sermon to the people of Israel. Every one of Paul's letters was read aloud in the communities to which he sent them. The people of God listened to the words and heard in them the voice of God. They literally heard God speaking to them, resulting in the famous cry of the Old Testament prophets, "thus saith the Lord." Jesus himself, in the Sermon on the Mount, references this oral/aural understanding of Scripture when he says, "You have heard that it was said, now I say to you..." Notice he didn't say, "You have seen what you have read, now take a look at this..."
This is not simply a matter of semantics, it is critical to our self-understanding as God's people. I remember leading an elder retreat for a church several years ago, where we studied several of the great stories of God's interactions with God's people throughout Scripture. We looked at how God spoke to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Joshua, to David, to the prophets, and, of course, to His Son Jesus. I then asked these elders, the spiritual leaders of that particular church, if God had ever spoken to them. Not one of them raised their hands. Unfortunately, I don't think this is all that uncommon an experience. Now, let me hasten to add that these were godly people. They were committed, mature Christians who love Jesus and the church and had sacrificed much in order to serve. They knew their Scriptures. They had spent years studying God's Word. But they had been conditioned and trained to treat the Bible as a textbook. At best, it was a record of how God spoke and interacted with his people "back then"; at worst, it was a book of interesting, historical, (even hopeful!), facts about God. It was not a living Word. It was not an active Word. It was a Word bound in history and not fresh or relevant in the 21st century.
What is the difference between reading Scripture and listening to Scripture? (Besides the obvious involvement of different senses?) First of all, listening is more emotionally demanding. It is interpersonal. It requires us to be attentive and puts us at the mercy of the speaker. Listening is a dynamic process in which we allow the other to initate conversation in ways we cannot control or manage. Reading, on the other hand, is more static. We initate at our whim. We control what we read and how much we read in a given setting. We get to decide whether or not to pay attention. We can close the book or skip the parts we don't like.
Second, listening opens us up to deeper intimacy. Peterson cites the stereotypical example of the husband and wife reading the paper at the breakfast table. This couple could choose to engage in conversation. They could explore all kinds of topics ranging from the deeply personal to current events in the news. In so doing, they would discover and explore a rich history of emotions, feelings, and passions that add spice and color and intimacy to life and their relationship. Instead, however, they choose the paper, be it the New York Times, Wisconsin Journal, or USA Today. They read about scandals in the lives of people they will never meet, become engrossed in the scoreboard from yesterday's football games, or read the latest headlines about crises taking place around the world. Nothing wrong with this except that it is purely information. Most lay down the paper and promptly forget what they just read because it doesn't have much relevance or provide much depth to their daily life.
Finally, listening forces us into a more submissive position. When we listen to Scripture, we are not in control. We don't get to choose the pace or cadence. We don't get to choose the content or material. Listening to Scripture forces us to deal with God on his terms, not our own. This is why the pulpits in churches used to be raised above the level of the pews. It was a stark reminder that we sit under God's Word, not the other way around. Reading, however, makes us the master...which is why we like it so much! We choose the time and place. We choose the cadence and pace. We choose the tone and pitch. Even the physical act of reading is revealing...we sit above the book which puts us in charge.
Missional Christians re-learn how to engage Scripture with our ears rather than just our eyes. We learn to listen to the voice of God even as we read our Bibles. We hear Scripture as God's Word to us today. We discover that his Word is fresh and powerful and living and active and just as relevant to us in the 21st century as it was in the 1st century. We learn that God has something to say about the situations we face in our daily lives, if only we would heed his voice.
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