Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. Hebrews 5:11
A number of years ago, some of my family members became concerned that I might be losing some of my hearing. I wasn’t concerned, but, to humour them and alleviate their concerns, I booked an appointment with an audiologist to have my hearing tested. The testing went well, and the audiologist assured me that I had ‘robust’ hearing, which was no surprise me but was a surprise to my family. So if my hearing was fine, where did they get the idea that it might not be? They concluded that I must have been suffering from something called ‘selective hearing’. All that means is that I was hearing what I wanted to hear, and blocked out what I was not interested in hearing. If so, I put it down to working for so many years in busy radio newsrooms, where I had to focus on one source of sound while ignoring many others. It was something like the folks to whom the writer of the book of Hebrews was speaking. He accused them of being dull of hearing in the matters of which he was writing.
The problem with these folks is that their Jewish background was hindering them from appreciating some of the best aspects of Christianity. These folks had been saved, and had gone on well for a while, but were being drawn back toward their former religion. The ordinances, the commandments, and the observances such as circumcision and unleavened bread had been their way of life for a long time, and they had been comfortable in it. It was somewhat of a shock to that comfort to lay aside all of those traditions and take up the simplicity of living by faith in Jesus Christ. It was a struggle for some of them. Not coming from a Jewish tradition, you and I don’t struggle with the same things as they did. But there are other things that stumble us and cause us to lose out on the simplicities of what Christ offers in terms of serving and worshipping Him.
Much of Christendom seems to be mandated to have a leader who takes charge of the gatherings of the people. Whether called a priest or a minister or a pastor, this leader takes a position not found in the Scriptures, a position based on the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. This deprives others in the company of the privilege of functioning in the priesthood of all believers. It also makes the company lazy, relying on the priest/minister/pastor to do all of the studying and feeding them with what he has obtained. The New Testament describes rather a pattern of full functioning of all believers, led by a plurality of elders who guide and protect but do not restrict or dominate. Another of Christendom’s trappings is the seeming requirement that the primary focus of a meeting or service is to hear a sermon. Nothing against sermons, but preaching a sermon or listening to it is not what the Lord Jesus instructed His disciples to do. Referring to the Lord’s Supper, He told them,’This do, in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19). Neglecting the apostles’ practice of this observance on the first day of every week (Acts 20:7) causes the Lord’s people to become dull in their appreciation of the work of Christ on the cross.
We need to be careful that our hearing of what the Lord wants us to do is not drowned out by the noise of what we want to do. – Jim MacIntosh