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 Inescapable Issues Accountable in All Christians

 Integral Theology and Practice for Viable Faith in Everyday Life

 

 Chapter 4

  ISSUE 4:    The Issue of Highest Priority:

                                       Listening

 

Sections

 

Hear or Listen

Dissonance and Consonance

The Illusion of Consonance

Listening for Viable Faith

Listening’s Relational Outcome

Introduction

Chap.1

Chap.2

Chap.3

Chap.4

Chap.5

Chap.6

Chap.7

Chap.8

Printable pdf 

(Entire study)

Table of Contents

 

Scripture Index

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

“Listen and learn to trust the Lord your God and follow carefully

all the words of God’s relational terms.”

Deuteronomy 31:12, NIV

 

“So that the next generation, who have not known those terms, may also listen

and learn to trust the Lord your God as long as you live.”

Deuteronomy 31:13

 

“Therefore, consider carefully how you listen.”

Luke 8:18, NIV

 

 

            In the essential dynamics of human interaction, making connection with each other depends on two primary interrelated measures: (1) the level of involvement with each other, and (2) the degree of listening to each other, which are both predicated on how vulnerably a person listens to one’s own self down to the heart. The first measure is too often just assumed, and the second is mostly taken for granted, while listening to one’s own heart is typically avoided. Since these primary measures also apply to human interaction with God, Christians are alerted to be cautious about how they consider these measures in their daily life.

            After I became a Christian at the age of twenty, I went through different stages of my interaction with God. Initially, while in the U.S. Air Force, I didn’t have a regular church context or Christian fellowship. I turned to the Bible and listened to God speak, notably to me. In my naiveté I took God’s words at face value and believed literally what he said. For example, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13) was formative in my early Christian life, and I learned to trust him accordingly—that is, expecting God’s words to be fulfilled, even when situations appeared to the contrary. The key issue here was listening to God speak (communicate) instead of my speaking for God, and then trusting in the truth of his communication in our relationship. This deeply touched my heart in a way I had not previously experienced.

            Unfortunately, yet not surprisingly, my simple relational faith was increasingly distracted from this vital relational process of listening, thereby disrupting my intimate relational involvement with my God. This subtle shift happened as I became more involved in church and “learned” how a Christian should be. Furthermore, my relationally significant early faith became an established religious faith as I formally engaged in biblical and theological studies, not to mention my preoccupation with philosophy and apologetics. My reading of the Bible became more critical than essential, and its relational significance was commonly lost in translation as I subtly began speaking for God instead of listening. What resulted from this theology and practice was a doctrinally correct religious faith without the relational significance of the good news of God’s words communicating the full, complete, whole relational purpose and outcome of God’s nonnegotiable offer. Then what evolved was my priority focused on serving, which even with my good intentions made secondary my relationship with God and listening to his communication. Subtly, my serving and Christian reasoning developed at the expense of our relationship together. Sound familiar?

            During this time I also did clinical work with troubled teens as a psychiatric counselor. What was instrumental in making connection with them to make a difference in their lives was listening to their diverse situations and being able to grasp some of their deep-rooted feelings. Apparently, our director thought I was a good listener and commended me for making a difference with a mutual patient he worked with for years. My listening, however, was merely a situational work tool, so it didn’t reflect how I functioned in my interactions in general—particularly with God. This had to change if I were to advance in my journey of faith beyond the limits and constraints of theological education.

            The journey of all Christians is challenged by this inescapable issue of highest priority, and which also makes the degree of listening pivotal for the three issues already discussed and the three issues to be discussed. In other words, much rests on our listening and more is at stake in how carefully we listen. Make no mistake, the Word never assumes for us nor takes for granted from us that we listen. Therefore, the pivotal issue of listening must not be minimized to a minor issue low on the Christian priority list.

 

 

Hear or Listen

 

 

            The Shema opens with “Hear” to communicate first the defining whole-ly identity of God, and secondly the level of involvement determining God’s peoples’ relationship with God (Dt 6:4-5). The Shema’s definitive relational message communicated from whole-ly God cannot be understood by merely hearing the words but only by a sufficient degree of listening. This relational message often eluded God’s people throughout the OT because of their insufficient degree of listening. So, without assuming or taking for granted that they listened, God later communicated to them, “Hear, you deaf” (Isa 42:18, ESV), in order to critique their level of involvement with God and with each other. But, how do the deaf hear?

            Obviously, God was critiquing the degree of their listening, which is inseparably interrelated to their level of involvement. With the highest priority, the Word illuminates a critical difference between hearing and listening. Can the deaf hear? No, but can a hearing-impaired person listen? Not surprisingly, the hearing impaired likely listen better than most who hear. How so? Because their qualitative sensitivity lacking the distraction of quantitative sound from others deepens their level of involvement to have a relational awareness that the hearing typically assume or take for granted. When Christians examine this difference between hearing and listening, they may be surprised with what they find about how well they listen. Starting with oneself, many persons may hear their own hearts at times, but most persons don’t listen to their heart.

            Hear the Word and listen: “your ears are open but you hear nothing”—that is, “you hear sounds but do not listen” (Isa 42:20, cf. Jer 5:21). The Word further illuminates: “hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand…. For this people’s heart has grown distant…so that they might not…listen with their ears” (Mt 13:13-15). “Therefore, consider carefully how you listen—and don’t confuse it with hearing” (Lk 8:18). The Word makes it imperative for us: “Pay attention to what you hear” (Mk 4:24) in your interaction with the Bible. Why imperative? Because what we hear from the Bible are not the mere words of God composing a book. So, the Word is axiomatic that “if the degree of listening we use is merely to hear, then all we will get are mere words.” However, the only way to “Hear” the communication by the relational words from God is to “listen carefully” in order to have connection at the depth level of relational involvement vulnerably embodied by the Word.

            This degree of listening and level of relational involvement can only be embodied by our person from inner out, whose heart is consciously vulnerable in our interactions both with God and others in their respective contexts. And we must not settle for what we only hear in those contexts because that will maintain our relational distance either with God or others. It was not surprising to me, then, that I kept relational distance from the Word during my theological studies and serving; and my listening regression was the norm in theological education, which still pervades in the academy today. In my hearing bias, I thought that I understood the Word: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also” (Jn 12:26). Needless to say, listening to the Word communicate took me to the depth level of involvement necessary to experience intimate relational connection once again—the connection and involvement the Word just distinguished for his true followers.

            Given the critical difference between hearing and listening, how do you interpret the Word in John 12:26 for your existential practice? This calculation is critical for the outcome experienced.

            Listening is the irreplaceable interaction that is essential to fulfill the hermeneutic challenge of our interpretations in order to understand the Bible. Yet, merely implementing the mechanics of listening is insufficient and often results in misinterpretation, which is indicative of putting ‘the interpretive-cart before the listening-horse’ and thereby end up speaking for God. “Hear” and hearing are not synonymous, and thus hearing is never interchangeable with listening in our interaction with the Word—no matter how clear our hearing is. Of course, many with a “hearing bias” will assume that what they have heard was listened to. But the Word makes no such assumption in his communication. Therefore, listen before we speak, and then speak on the basis of what we have carefully listened to the Word communicate.

            Moreover, listening to the Word is the key to our identity formation according to the Word’s whole-ly terms, apart from which Christians need to ask what they listened to for their identity. Accordingly, the same question also applies to our everyday beliefs and operating values in our surrounding contexts. What’s at stake for all Christians keeps pivoting on listening.

 

 

Dissonance and Consonance

 

 

            When you think about your everyday beliefs and operating values, how did they originate? And where do you think you heard about them such that you embraced them for yourself? What you heard must not have been dissonant or it’s unlikely you would have embraced them. Consider further the identity you’ve taken on associated with them and on what basis your identity is consonant or becomes dissonant with those beliefs and values.

            The issue of dissonance and consonance is a direct result of what we listen to in our surrounding contexts, human contexts and relationships; and the results are directly correlated to what we value. For example, take music. I’m sure that most everyone can identify what music has consonance or dissonance for them, and perhaps even explain why so. Yet, what music we like or dislike to hear doesn’t necessarily involve our listening.

            Listening to any particular music creates dissonance for some listeners and consonance for others. Assuming the music is in tune, it’s not the music itself that produces dissonance or consonance but the ear of the listener. That is, our partiality to our likes predisposes our ear to hear consonance in that music while hearing dissonance in music disliked. The strength of this predisposition determines the extent of the bias we have and thereby impose favor or disfavor on other distinctions.

            My wife and I like many different genres of music. We also enjoy diverse styles of how different music is expressed. What is challenging in listening to diverse styles of different genres is this ongoing issue: Discerning between what commonly reverberates from what deeply resonates. It is common, for example, for diverse styles of pop music to quantitatively reverberate but not have the qualitative depth to resonate in the hearts of listeners; the same can be said of contemporary Christian music. Human brains are certainly wired to get stirred up by reverberating music. Nevertheless, this must not be confused with resonating in the heart. If you want to be satisfied or deeply moved by the latter, then you have to scrutinize the diverse styles and different genres in order to distinguish their qualitative integrity and the significance they have.

            My wife and I have learned that without being able to distinguish the qualitative integrity and significance in music, people readily default to what they are partial to in terms of styles and genres. Their partiality then forms biases that impose favor and disfavor on the existing diversity—biases that become generalized in beliefs and values. While there is some tolerance of diversity, a real consequence evolving from this diversity is varying degrees of tension, with conflict and divisiveness most likely to evolve between the distinctions, especially when dissonant with our beliefs and values. An example of this consequence was experienced in church gatherings, where conflicts and divisions had descended over what genre and style of worship music to use. The residue from what precipitated a worship battle still remains today, even under a veil of tolerance and perhaps in the compromise of blended worship.

            The diversity equation for music is a microcosm of what evolves on the macro level of global diversity. The conflict and divisive consequences of human diversity have evolved most in the democratic context of the U.S. In a recent Pew Research Center survey of people in seventeen countries in Europe, Asia and North America, the U.S. reported the most division along partisan, racial, ethnic and religious lines—notably with their high levels of conflict combining to render democracy’s integrity without significance and threaten its future. What overlaps with the current condition of the U.S. is the condition of the church; and included in what underlies the U.S.’s conflict and divisiveness is the diverse participation of its unscrutinized Christian diversity, which is reflected in the consequences evolved and still evolving in the church. Like music, the consonance of likes and the dissonance of dislikes expose beliefs and values that Christians must be held accountable for in their theology and practice.

            Whether on the local, national, regional or global level, diversity needs to be scrutinized to determine the qualitative integrity and significance each different composition has. The diversity of Christians and churches need to account for this, or they will be responsible for the consequences of their partiality and biases. Further consequential for diversity at any human and church level is the inevitable inequality among distinctions that evolve from our partiality (prejudices) and biases, which create unavoidable inequity between distinctions as a favored one disfavors the other.

            Therefore, as many Christians diverge and more churches diversify, it is imperative that Christian diversity be scrutinized, because “God, who knows the human heart…has made no distinction between them and us" (Acts 15:8-9). Hence, what Christians consider dissonant or consonant in the differences they see or hear about is a direct result of how they listen based on what they listen to and value. And converging in this process is the core issue: (4a) the nature of relationship and persons either as created by God or as evolved in human development.

            In the existing reality of human diversity, how we see (perhaps even hear) human distinctions is shaped more by our eye and revolves less around the distinction. The eye of the beholder is the basic perceptual-interpretive lens that is not an objective instrument—that many presume it to be—which is free from bias and thus objective about what it sees. Therefore, the distinctions composing human diversity are always seen through a biased lens—a lens, of course, whose unavoidable bias inevitably imposes dissonance or consonance on those distinctions.

            This is the existential reality of global diversity, which is propagated overtly or covertly by some distinctions and is experienced explicitly or implicitly by many other distinctions. The favored distinctions are consonant for and among them, while the disfavored distinctions are dissonant in relation to them. So, what distinctions have dissonance for you? And have you ever experienced dissonance about your own distinction, personal or collective?

            Human diversity is composed with distinctions that are either created by God or human constructions. Race, for example, is a prominent distinction not of God’s creation but of human construction; God didn’t create race, humans did. Gender is a created distinction, whose value is measured also by human construction. The critical issue for diversity that needs scrutiny centers on the human constructs biasing the perceptual-interpretive lens for seeing, assessing, and stereotyping distinctions. Christians and churches have been and continue to be susceptible to and/or complicit in human constructs, the prevalent influence of which biases their perceptual-interpretive lens accordingly. The distinctions composing Christian diversity that evolve from such lenses are problematic and consequential; and they will continue to be the default condition without scrutiny.

            Yet, Christians and churches make assumptions about their lenses, most notably presuming that they’re biblical, and thus not requiring scrutiny in spite of related problematic situations and consequential circumstances. The assumption of being biblical—thereby to be acceptable, right or even ordained—is a prevalent position in Christian diversity that is based on this antecedent assumption: The interpretive lens used to read the Bible is without bias, therefore whatever views unfold from this lens are deemed biblical. The diversity of interpretations (e.g. of the gospel and discipleship), however, unfolding from presumed unbiased lenses makes evident a predisposition in their perceptual-interpretive mindset. Their scrutiny counters such an assumption and critiques those interpretations with the qualitative relational framework of the whole-ly Word (as in 1 Cor 4:6)[1]—a nonnegotiable framework signified in “nothing beyond what is written.”

            In the diversity presumed to be biblical by the early church, Paul confronted this problem and the consequences for making distinctions in their theology and using them in their practice. Paul raised the penetrating question that serves as the wake-up call to Christian diversity: “Who sees anything different in you?” (1 Cor 4:7) The construction of distinctions was clearly evident in the church at Corinth, and their diversity was divisive (1 Cor 1:11-12; 3:3-4). On the one hand, by asking “who sees,” Paul exposes the bias in their perceptual-interpretive lens. On the other hand, however, Paul illuminates the fundamental lens lacking among them, which is fundamental for Christian theology and practice. “See” (diakrino) for the fundamental lens is to recognize, discern and distinguish what intrinsically really underlies the existing reality of distinctions. With the fundamental lens all such distinctions have no essential significance and are only secondary at best, which Paul illuminated by applying it to Apollos and himself in their favored distinctions “so that you may learn.”

            When human constructs prevail, however, those distinctions evolve to become primary over “what is written in the Word” (as Paul made primary, 1 Cor 1:19,31; 3:19-20)—making them biblically contrary to the Word. This shift often goes beyond the awareness of a biased perceptual-interpretive lens, especially when the assumption of being biblical prevails. In the above account of the early church, who would have thought that identifying with and belonging to Christ, Peter, Apollos or Paul was unbiblical (1 Cor 1:12)? Yet, even with the likely prevalence of good intentions, these distinctions went “beyond what is written in the Word,” and thereby became dissonant for the church (i.e. the church constituted by the embodied Word). Human constructs create inevitable dissonance with others’ distinctions, because these differences fall unavoidably into a comparative process that generates competition (as Paul exposed, 2 Cor 11:12-13). Under the guise of diversity, the existential dissonance would result inescapably in “divisions among you” (1 Cor 1:10-11).

            Is this the state of diversity in the global church today? And does the dissonance about distinctions you’ve experienced locally and regionally apply to global Christianity?

 

The Illusion of Consonance

 

            Unless your ear is fine-tuned melodically, you can be listening to your favored music and not notice when there is dissonance. Your ear just assumes the music’s consonance, just as it presumes dissonance for your disfavored music. Here again, it’s not your ear that’s the real problem but your bias predisposing you one way or the other. Thus, there is an illusion of consonance that makes us comfortable even when we should feel uneasy or discomfort in the presence of dissonance. Unfortunately, Christian beliefs and values are consistently unable to dispel this illusion since they typically reflect such bias.

            The interaction between consonance and dissonance is an either-or dynamic that distinguishes one from the other. Yet, the two distinctions get conflated when a biased lens assumes consonance for what is really dissonance. This illusion of consonance is maintained in the presence of dissonance by the formation of a hybrid distinction: A distinction claiming to be correct, right or significant on the basis of diffusing a dissonant distinction, so that some elements of that distinction could be absorbed into what can now be identified as consonance. Whenever a favored distinction is composed with any disfavored elements, the either-or dynamic is breached to make the two different distinctions ambiguous. Many evangelical Christians in the U.S., for example, demonstrate such a hybrid by embracing populism, which is the practice of allegiance to the majority’s concerns and actions even if dissonant (such as white supremacy) to the Word.

            This hybrid distinction creates illusions about what is consonant that in effect promote a new normal for consonance. Therefore, such consonance evolves from biased perceptual-interpretive lenses, whereby presumed consonance is confirmed (as in confirmation bias) to enable and sustain the illusion of a favored distinction as consonant. This is the underlying dynamic for all human distinctions that needs to be scrutinized.

            The above either-or dynamic operating in human distinctions is scrutinized by the Word for the existential reality of illusions in everyday life, notably evolving subtly in hybrid distinctions. In Jesus’ definitive manifesto for his followers (outlined in the Sermon on the Mount), he continues to put into juxtaposition the either-or condition engaged in everyday life. This either-or process should not be confused with a Hegelian dialectic because the two conditions cannot be synthesized for a whole outcome.

            A critical either-or is between a good tree and a bad tree, which will determine the outcome in everyday life (Mt 7:15-20). This critical disjunction is the basic either-or of good-bad, a distinction which became ambiguous in the primordial garden with the illusion of “good and evil” and the deluded hope of “knowing good and evil to be like God” (Gen 3:5). From this basic good-bad disjunction are the either-or extensions of right-wrong, fair-unfair, just-unjust, each of which may have variable definitions relative to their root source or authority base. Jesus’ metaphor of a tree makes unequivocal that a tree’s fruit depends on its roots. Bad roots yield only bad fruit and cannot be expected to yield good fruit, though good fruit is not always distinguished from bad fruit. The current issue in the U.S., for example, of Christian nationalism creates a fog for many Christians. This is where the disjunction with a good tree becomes unclear, because it could be made ambiguous with variable alternatives from a bad tree constructing illusions and cultivating delusions of good fruit.

            Jesus clarified and corrected the disjunction between the trees and the outcomes their roots determine. Critical to the outcome are those “trees” who augment or hybridize the “fruit” to create illusions about reality, such as false prophets who whitewash the reality of peace (as in Eze 13:10) and promote false hopes for justice (as in Jer 23:16-17). These false narratives (or ones lacking justice) continue to be advocated today by Christians operating under illusions, a condition which grieved Jesus about God’s people in the past and still today (Lk 19:41-42). After over two millennia since the Word embodied the gospel of peace (as in Jn 14:27, cf. Eph 6:15), here we are still apparently lacking his gospel’s relational-language composition for our theology and practice—even when the gospel appears referentially right in our theology or practice. This faces us with the uneasy reality of Jesus’ “hard road” and his gospel’s “narrow gate,” which too many Christians make assumptions about or simply take for granted.

            Whenever we live explicitly or implicitly with subtle illusions, we are in a critical condition needing urgent care. Unknowingly living in and promoting such illusions could be shocking feedback for those working diligently for peace and justice. Hopefully it is uprooting feedback, since the issue here goes down to the roots and the potential delusion of either evolving from bad (false, variable or incomplete) roots under the assumption of being good, or thinking a hybrid of roots is a good basis to work from. How can we know the specific roots of the tree from which we are working in our distinction in particular and in Christian diversity in general?

            If we are willing to suspend our assumptions and biases, we can exercise a hermeneutic of suspicion (an honest examination of our views and actions) about the so-called fruits of our discipleship with peace and justice in order to get to the roots of their tree. Namely, does our discipleship embody the whole-ly peace given by Jesus, and thereby integrally enact the justice that the embodied Word was sent to “proclaim justice to human diversity…until he brings justice to victory” (Mt 12:18-21? And given the Word’s essential purpose of justice, how do his followers address the inequality and inequity in Christian diversity that evolve from the distinctions in the global church (cf. Jer 9:23-24)?

            This is the indispensable purpose and outcome for Jesus putting into juxtaposition the either-or disjunction composing the reality of everyday life and related illusions and delusions. Central to his relational process to distinguish his whole-ly followers, Jesus dispels such illusions and exposes any delusion composing a new normal by getting to the heart of our identity and function. And those who listen carefully to the Word will have the depth of relational involvement necessary to “follow me, and where I am there will my whole-ly followers be” (Jn 12:26).

 

 

Listening for Viable Faith

 

 

           The inescapable challenge of listening keeps narrowing the path of Christian faith in existential practice. Following Jesus to be where he is, Paul was at the forefront of narrowing this path for Christian faith to be viable. Paul’s theological engagement cannot be described in conventional terms (thankfully) but is better defined in function as a process of living theology—in which theology was never separated from function and the priority was always function over theology for Paul. (This would make Paul an unlikely candidate for a teaching position in today’s academy.) Thus, Paul was involved in communicating God’s story of thematic relational response to the human condition, a narrative with which Paul earlier had had only historical association. Theological engagement, then, involved implicitly a relational “methodology” for Paul. His readers need to understand that this theological process is a function of relationship, not a quantified theological task without that qualitative involvement even if it included biblical exegesis.

           In his theological process, Paul made a further claim to “have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). If his claim is understood in only epistemological terms, then what Paul possessed was further knowledge (albeit inside) about God—a quantity of information lacking its qualitative-relational significance. For Paul, however, having the mind of Christ was the relational outcome of reciprocal relationship with the Spirit (1 Cor 2:9-10; cf. Jesus’ claim, Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:12-15). To have the mind of Christ from the Spirit signifies the new thinking and mindset with the Spirit (Rom 8:5-6), which are necessary for the whole knowledge and understanding (synesis) to engage unequivocally in factual theological communication of God’s story and definitive theological dialogue of the whole-ly God’s thematic relational action. This theological engagement for Paul further implies a qualitative “methodology” of having the mind of Christ for the needed interpretive framework and lens, which provide the relational awareness and qualitative sensitivity to fully learn the relational extent and qualitative depth of God’s vulnerable revelation (cf. Paul’s imperative, Rom 12:2). This qualitative methodology emerges in function entirely from reciprocal relationship with the Spirit, the outcome of which is by its nature a relational outcome and not from a subjective self-consciousness of even spirituality. Therefore, Paul’s qualitative methodology is inseparable from and in ongoing interaction with his relational methodology, whereby the Word’s qualitative-relational significance unfolds.

           Paul never engaged in theological discourse beyond God’s self-disclosure (as he demonstrated, 1 Cor 4:6) in order to construct any fictional parts of God’s story or to speculate about God’s thematic relational response to the human condition. He did not need to be engaged in such theology in effect from bottom up speaking for God, because he was relationally involved with the mind of Christ ongoingly with the Spirit to extend the theological dialogue of the Word from top down. The relational outcome of Paul’s reciprocal relational response was from “him who…within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can do or imagine by our own theological reflection” (Eph 3:20, my paraphrase): “‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’—those things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:9-10).

           Listening to God became a relational function for Paul and no longer just a pronouncement of moral obligation from the tradition of Jewish Scripture (as in “Hear,” “Listen and learn”). Relational connection and involvement with the whole-ly God was nonnegotiable for Paul and the relational imperative for both his function and his theology. Therefore, Paul was able to make complete the communicative word from God and to illuminate whole (not fragments) theology only on the basis and to the extent of his relational and qualitative methodology; this compatible process clearly signified his reciprocal relational response to God’s vulnerable revelation and Paul’s ongoing relational involvement with the whole-ly God. And by his reciprocal relational involvement in the whole-ly God’s relational context and process, Paul’s theological engagement is paradigmatic for all his readers (notably in Pauline studies) by which to listen to the Word.

           The nature of God’s revelation defined the nature of and determined the terms for the response to the words from God. Since the nature of God’s words is relational communication, the nature of the response can only be relational and must function in the reciprocal relational terms of God to be compatible. The consequence of this faith response becomes equivocal when determined merely by the notion of obedience. That is, obedience is insufficient response by itself and becomes incompatible when this response is only to disembodied words, laws or propositional truths. The consequence of this type of obedience essentially shifts the nature of the response from God’s relational terms to human terms, even with good intentions or unintentionally, and thus focuses the response more on what we do rather than how to be relationally involved with God. Such obedience’s focus is quantitative from outer in and the response becomes measured, for example, in accordance with a code of behavior or doctrinal purity to create the illusion of consonance. The response of God’s relational terms is qualitative from inner out and is increasingly vulnerable to the vulnerable presence and relational involvement of God.

           Obedience alone, at best, is an ambiguous response to God’s revelation and can be, at worst, an incompatible response in conflict with God’s words—an issue raised even in a response for justification by faith. Moreover, disobedience can even have the appearance of obedience in settings of the normative character and collective nature of the sin of reductionism, which emerged from the primordial garden and continues to evolve among Christians today.

           By the definitive nature of God’s words, listening to God is solely a relational function from inner out for Paul, whose response is distinguished by its nature from all reductionist alternatives and thus predicated on vulnerably listening to his own heart. Both the nature of God’s relational action and of human relational response are irreducible and nonnegotiable. In the relational language of Paul’s communicative letters, his shorthand term for this reciprocal relational response is faith. Yet, faith in practice is often the notion of what we have and/or do, the possession or act of which is perceived as necessary and also sufficient in itself. James certainly refuted such a redefined view of faith (Jas 1:22; 2:17-20) and Paul’s practice did also. While the object of such faith is God, God becomes only an Object in the relationship who happens to intervene and support as necessary. Paul’s theological communication is centered on God as the Subject in whole ontology and function for reciprocal relationship together (cf. 2 Cor 4:6); and compatible response to this Subject (not Object) in Paul’s theology is with the whole ontology and function of the human person as subject also in Subject-to-subject relational connection (cf. Eph 3:12).

           In Paul’s own experience, his faith shifted from the tradition of what he had and did back to the nature of God’s revelation and terms. His transforming shift was to the faith constituted by Abraham, which often was not the faith practiced in Judaism throughout the OT narrative. Even further and deeper than Abraham’s experience, Paul’s faith-response to God’s vulnerable revelation signified the relational response of being vulnerable with his whole person. Yet, just as Abraham was in tamiym (whole, Gen 17:1) this vulnerable involvement was constituted by the ongoing relational trust of his person from inner out to the whole-ly God for reciprocal relationship together, not unilateral relationship or measured involvement. Nothing less and no substitutes of relational trust make a person vulnerable for compatible response to the communicative words from God, significantly and vulnerably embodied by the Word. Paul did not define a new faith-response but extended the original relational response further and deeper into God’s relational context and process in order to intimately participate in the whole of God’s uncommon life in whole relationship together—just as Jesus embodied, promised and prayed for (Jn 14:6,23; 17:26), and Paul illuminated theologically (Eph 2:8,18,22) and prayed functionally (Eph 3:14-19).

            Christian faith is viable only when constituted by the vulnerable relational involvement of trust in the whole-ly God. And this relational outcome ongoingly unfolds from listening to God communicate in the relational context of connection in intimate reciprocal relationship together.

 

 

Listening’s Relational Outcome

 

 

            I recently saw a statement by someone trying to help a friend listen: “God gave you two ears and one mouth. Do you know why he gave you one mouth?” The implication, of course, was so that we can listen more than talk, which a Jewish saying adds to “God gave…. So listen more and talk less.” While this certainly gives priority to listening over speaking, this quantitative focus doesn’t get to the qualitative depth of listening that brings the vital significance to its relational outcome. In other words, persons can use their ears more than their mouth, but that doesn’t guarantee the results that God designed for humans or embodied and enacted for their inherent human condition.

            The viable faith of relational trust carefully listens to whole-ly God and thereby embodies the Word’s whole-ly terms for the primacy of relationship together with the relational outcome to know and understand God. This relational outcome emerges, however, only when the competing sounds of referential language are silenced—though the noise could still be heard—by listening to God’s relational language of communication. When our degree of listening cannot clearly discern what is consonant and dissonant with God’s relational terms, referential language will reverberate in our theology and practice.

            The urgent challenge for us to listen carefully in order to reciprocate with the Word in this communication process begs the question: Do we simply have some contact with God—as faith practice in prayer or time in the Bible could indicate—or do we indeed experience a depth of relational connection with the Word? The latter is the relational outcome only from vulnerably listening to the Word with the depth of relational involvement that reciprocates with the vulnerable presence and intimate involvement of whole-ly God.

            If we have yet to “carefully listen and fully learn to relationally trust the Lord your God and follow vulnerably all the words of God’s relational terms” (Dt 31:12), how can we expect younger generations also to “listen and learn to relationally trust the whole-ly God for a viable faith” (Dt 31:13)? Is this why younger generations have left the church or no longer identify as affiliated with faith?

            Until we fully learn to listen carefully in unmistakable contrast with hearing, we will simply have such relational consequences pervade our faith. Therefore, we cannot escape the relational consequences and are accountable for listening’s relational outcome. And this learning and growing process is predicated on how vulnerable we will be with listening closely to our own heart and not keep our distance.

            Take heed: The primacy of much is resting on our depth of listening, and more is at stake in the integration of our listening with our deep relational involvement—both in the primacy of relationship with God and with all others.

 


 


[1] For a full discussion on the issues of biblical interpretation, see my study Interpretation Integrated in ‘the Whole-ly Way’: The Integral Education and Learning of Knowing and Understanding God (Bible Hermeneutics Study, 2019). Online at http://www.4X12.org.

 

 

 

© 2022 T. Dave Matsuo

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