“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:19, 20). This command to be swift to hear is often neglected today. We are far too often concerned with telling someone else something rather than listening. Men are often bent on venting their opinions and frustrations to the neglect of truly hearing or receiving instruction. Like a cup that is overflowing, their minds and dispositions have no room to receive that which would benefit them. In the context of this passage, James speaks of how we receive God’s word. The very next verse tells one to lay aside all rampant, overflowing wickedness and receive with meekness God’s implanted word which is able to save our souls (James 1:21).
In Luke 8:18, Jesus told us to take heed how we hear. This was on the heels of His explanation of the parable of the sower and soils, which encourages us to be good ground that receives the seed, (God’s word) with an honest and good heart (Luke 8:11-15). Also, just before this command to take heed to how we hear, Jesus described the light that makes known God’s truths (Luke 8:16-17). Our eyes and ears must be open to receive God’s light and hear His instruction. Following this command to take heed how we hear, Jesus makes this statement, “My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it” (Luke 8:21). Not only must we take care in the manner in which we hear, but the content of what we hear must be heeded in the sense of obedience (Mark 4:24; Hebrews 2:1). This takes us back to our passage in James which continues with:
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. (James 1:22-25).
The Bible’s instruction to “take heed” includes more than merely listening to the words. Heeding them means obeying them, “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Romans 2:13). The Hebrew nation was blessed to have entrusted to them the written oracles of God—the law of Moses (Romans 3:1); however, merely reading the law and the prophets would not save them if they did the very things that were condemned in those writings (Romans 2:17-23). Paul made the point that those who read what the prophets wrote about God’s suffering Messiah that was to come actually fulfilled the wicked deeds described in the prophets because they did not know Jesus as the Christ even when He was right in front of them (Acts 13:26-28). Religious people who would not listen and were quick to wrath worked to put Jesus on the cross. These kinds of hearers are the ones described by Stephen as “uncircumcised in heart and ears” always resisting what God is revealing (Acts 7:51). When Stephen said this, they “stopped their ears” and went to kill him (Acts 7:57). Let us be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
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