I’ve reached the stage of life where my hearing is not as sharp as it was in my youth. More frequently than I’d like, I find I’m asking people to repeat themselves, and I sometimes have to turn up the volume on my TV to not miss passages of dialog. So, audiology is on my mind.
God designed us with two ears strategically located on opposite sides of our heads. This array provides our brains with a staggering amount of auditory information. It places us in a 360° sound stage within which our sense of hearing facilitates our interaction with the world around us. It also allows us to pinpoint the physical origin of noises in our environment through what’s known as sound localization and makes it possible for us to determine if an object is moving away from or coming toward us and how quickly. But if illness, injury, or aging causes a person to suffer single-sided deafness where hearing is lost in one ear, their brain can't receive the full spectrum of data required to assemble this complete picture.
There’s also something called selective hearing that can create a similar problem. This is when a person consciously or unconsciously chooses to only listen to what they think is relevant to them and ignore what isn’t. We’ve all experienced times when we’ve chosen to process only a select part of what we’ve heard. But when we do, we can miss important details and end up with an incomplete understanding.
We see this play out in John 14:28-29. While continuing the pre-crucifixion preparation of his disciples, Jesus reminded them of two things they’d previously heard him say. He’d told them he would be both departing from and returning to them. But it’s clear they chose to listen with only one ear, so to speak. They fixated on the part about him leaving, and their concerns about that deafened them to the hope-filled news that he’d be coming back.
As a result, they didn’t experience the benefit of these twin promises that were intended to provide them with both the emotional security they would need for their own souls and to make it possible for them to appreciate the joy a return to the Father meant for Jesus. Instead, all he could do was confront their lack of empathy and assure them that eventually their faith would benefit from what was about to happen.
But sadly, practicing selective hearing when it comes to the Word of God can not only cause us to miss out on intended benefits, it’s spiritually dangerous. In his farewell address to the Ephesian elders recorded in Acts 20, the Apostle Paul pointed to his practice of declaring “the whole counsel of God” as an example they should follow in caring for the church. That’s because when we pick and choose from God’s declared principles and precepts as though they were merely an assortment to select from, we can end up assembling an image of the will and ways of God that’s not only warped but contains nooks and crannies of error from which the devil can ensnare us.
As an example, the passage before us contains a controversial quote from Jesus. In verse 28, while attempting to describe the indescribable – the anticipated joy of the Son’s return to the Father – he made the comment, “My Father is greater than I.”
There are those who insist, based on this, that Jesus meant for us to understand he was either not divine at all or lower down a hierarchy within the Trinity. And these false interpretations have formed the foundations for cults that have led many away from a saving relationship with Christ. But these positions can only be supported if you hear his statement with one ear and discount everything Jesus had previously said about his being equal with the Father.
So, let’s determine to always listen with both ears when it comes to what God has said. Let’s contend for an approach to the Scriptures that places a high value on embracing input from its entire sound stage.