What Voice to Listen to?

I just got back from our morning men's Bible study. We are on chapter 10 of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart that discusses man's relationship to women. A peculiar thing happened, instead of talking about what the text or the Bible said about the subject, everyone just started to talk about their own opinions and experiences as to what makes a marriage work.

There is one individual in our Bible study that I really respect. He is an older gentleman, with a lot of experience and a great deal of spiritual wisdom. Over the past few weeks I have learned some of the story of his life come to know him well. As he spoke I was absolutely focused on his words. When others spoke that might have points that are just as valid as my friend I had trouble concentrating. As I listened to them I actually wished that my friend would say something else. I also found myself digging through my mind for the scripture verses that would help illuminate the issue instead of listening to what the other members of the group had to say.

What I seemed to be dealing with during Bible study this morning is which voice I should listen too. I made the subconscious choice to pay more attention to my friend whose wisdom I was certain of than the others in the room. I also chose to listen to the voice of scripture over people that I didn't know well enough to be certain of their wisdom.

I thought about what scripture said about this and I know that we are to test the validity of the "voices" we hear before we listen to them. 1 John 4:1-6 says:

Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. This is the way to find out if they have the Spirit of God: If a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ became a human being, that person has the Spirit of God. If a prophet does not acknowledge Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist. You have heard that he is going to come into the world, and he is already here. But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won your fight with these false prophets, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. These people belong to this world, so they speak from the world's viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God; that is why those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.
(1 John 4:1-6 NLT)

The verses I looked at in Matthew a couple days back also have something to say:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'
(Matthew 7:15-23 NRSV)

These verses give us some idea of how to test which voices we should listen too. the 1 John passage says that the voices should always acknowledge God. This pretty much rules out everything on network TV and most of the advertising we see! The Matthew passage says that we should judge the quality of the voice by the fruit that the person produces in their life.

We have the idea of the reliability of the source in almost every other aspect of our life. For example, if the kid at the McDonald's drive through started giving you investment advice, you probably would not (or at least should not) give him must attention. However, if Warren Buffett started to give you the same advice I imagine that you would be furiously making notes and hanging on every work. Why is it that we will seem to listen to all sorts of crazy voices when it comes to spiritual things? We will listen to Tom Cruise tell us about how to find spiritual peace. Tom can act, but he has not more skill or ability in spiritual matters than the guy that works on your car. Why will we listen to him?

I think that the key to this is to come up with good standard for judging the quality of the voice. It has nothing to do with fame or notoriety. The volume or eloquence of the voice makes no difference. What is important is that the voice acknowledges the supremacy of the Lord and his word and that their life bears good fruit. This is the voice we should listen to and we shouldn't feel guilty about tuning out all the rest.

This article is also posted to Digitial Devotion.

My Responsibility to My Children

Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-9) NRSV

Today I went through a sermon by Dr. Bill Bennett called Don't Be a Dud - Be a Dad in my devotional time. One of the scriptures was Deuteronomy 6:4-9. I have read the Shema (verse 4) many many times. It is absolutely central to the Christian (and Jewish) faith. However, something grabbed me today about verse 7 where God commands me to "recite them to [my] children and talk about them when [we] are at home and when [we] are away, when [we] lie down and when [we] rise." What a responsibility! God has just placed the task of making sure that my sons know the scriptures on my plate.

When my first son was still in the womb we prayed nightly that he would love God, love to pray, and love to read the Bible. While this is certainly a very good idea, this is not enough. We are responsible for taking the active and practical steps to communicate the scriptures to our children. It is our responsibility as parents (and not God's) to transfer knowledge of the scriptures into our children.

We are pretty new to this parenting game (we have a 2 year old boy and another in the oven), but we have already started reading the Bible to our son. We read the Bible every night to Nathan (I recommend "The Children's Illustrated Bible" by DK Publishing), and have since he was born. I know that he doesn't understand much of it now, but I want to instill the habit...and he does absorb some. Now when he looks at the pages with the animals he starts saying "God made giraffe" or "God made ei-ei" ("ei-ei" is Nathan for monkey). Even with this encouragement, I have been getting discouraged that we are wasting our time reading the Bible to Nathan at this age because he understand so little. However, in light of Deuteronomy 6:7 I think that we need to crank it up a notch!

This article is also posted to Digitial Devotion.