Crystal Writes A Blog

Come Hear and Listen to Learn

If Today You Hear His Voice by Flickr User Sharon of Art4TheGlryOfGod, CC License = Attribution, No Derivative Works
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They say God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak. I’ve never really liked that saying because I often learn while speaking, especially when I speak something that needs to be corrected. Somehow, that stays with me better. But, that doesn’t mean listening isn’t a skill we should all learn to perfect, and it doesn’t matter how many ears we have. The skill of listening is about process and application far more than it is just the ability to sense sounds.

In today’s reading from Deuteronomy 31:10 through Deuteronomy 31:13, we will read about the importance of hearing the Torah (word) of God. Again, because the verses are short, I will paste them here from The Complete Jewish Bible…

Moshe gave them these orders: “At the end of every seven years, during the festival of Sukkot in the year of sh’mittah, when all Isra’el have come to appear in the presence of Adonai at the place he will choose, you are to read this Torah before all Isra’el, so that they can hear it. Assemble the people — the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners you have in your towns — so that they can hear, learn, fear Adonai your God and take care to obey all the words of this Torah; and so that their children, who have not known, can hear and learn to fear Adonai your God, for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Yarden to possess.”

Notes: Moshe = Moses, Festival of Sukkot = Feast of Tabernacles/Booths, Sh’mittah = Freedom (from debt), Torah = Word/Law, Adonai = The Lord/Yahveh, Yarden = Jordan River

So, every seventh “Feast of Tabernacles,” when the children of Israel would build temporary shelters (one is a tent or sukkah, and the plural for tents is “sukkot”) to remind them of their time of wandering without having the word and law of God, they will read the whole law to everyone. They will read to all the seed of Abraham of every age, and to all the foreigners. No one should go without hearing the word of God, so all can have the chance to hear, learn, fear, and obey Him. No one will be able to claim ignorance of God’s law.

What’s interesting is that the Feast of Sukkot is the last of the fall feasts. It comes after Trumpets and Atonement. That means, people don’t hear a full reading of the law until the new year has begun, they have gone through the days of self-examination that precede Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and they have experienced the sacrifice for their sins. Basically, for Christian believers, that means we apply the word of God to our lives after we have become new through repentance and through atonement in The Blood of Yeshua. This gives yet another understanding to not putting new wine into old bottles.

As God calls us to teach others, we need to remember that our best lessons will come directly from our own testimonies. Call people to you to hear what God has done for you, and they will be able to learn what He can do for them. In Revelation 12:11, we learn that the children of God defeat the enemy by the word of their testimony and the blood of The Lamb. While Bible verses are living and powerful, they have much greater effect on those who have become new in Christ. We must be careful to lift God up by sharing what He has done for us far more often than throwing Him at people by using His Word as a condemning sword.

In The Complete Jewish Bible, there are 1620 instances of the word “hear” and another 445 of the word “listen.” If there’s that many more times that people hear but do not listen, maybe it has something to do with who is hearing the word. The smaller portion of instances go to listening because it takes a certain kind of heart to listen, but anyone with ears should be able to hear. It’s time for those of us who know God and have His word hidden in our hearts to make our testimonies known. Our praise and our stand on God’s word in our own lives will work to resist the enemy far more than shouting the written word at people who do not even care. Just remember to take your “vitamins,” that is “Vite ’em in” to your life story to come hear and listen to learn.

My prayer of blessing. May God bless many more of my sisters and brothers with the desire to write their testimonies, either in nonfiction devotions and articles or given through the words of their fictional characters. When you have a story and are not able to write it yourself, may God send you a scribe as He sent to the unlearned men with great testimonies of walking with Yeshua. Amen!

September 16, 2014 - Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, Deuteronomy, hear, learn, listen, listen to learn, obey, Scripture, Sukkot, Torah commentary, Torah Portions