JESUS SAYS
Explaining the Gospel message
DEPOSIT PHOTOS
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Let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak” (Jas 1:19)
By Father Brady Williams, SOLT Contributor
t. James wrote his exhortation around 60–80 A.D. at about the same time that a Greek philosopher, Epictetus, was quoted as saying: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” It’s safe to say, St. James has the same basic principle in mind. If God formed the body this way, He must be trying to tell us something. Indeed, Jesus said on a number of occasions: “He who has ears to hear, ought to hear.” All of us can relate to how difficult it is to listen well. Through our upbringing, our education, our own personal experiences and life choices (and we could add in our media
inlet/outlet), we tend to filter what we hear in such a way that by the time someone has finished speaking (and even beforehand) we already have our response or even ‘labeled’ someone as being conservative or liberal, traditional or progressive, etc., and we hear only what we want to hear. Our contemporary culture emphasizes dialogue (defined as taking part in a conversation or discussion to resolve a problem), but we sometimes wonder where all the talking really gets us except more entrenched in our own opinions and preferences. And then it is ultimately the largest and/ or the loudest group that prevails. Someone surmised that the only thing that ever came out of a committee was a
WE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST
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FALL 2021
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