GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:3
Listen Up
It is not unusual to listen but not hear. While the two words sound similar, they involve two different activities. Teachers know the experience of students sitting with the correct posture, eyes focused straightforward, pencil in hand, scribbling on the paper. They are listening, but are they digesting what they are listening to—are they hearing?
Parents have said, “Listen to me.” What they might mean is, “Hear me.” Don’t let this just vibrate the eardrum; digest this—hear it.
St. Mark said that when Jesus began his lesson beside the sea, he said, “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow.” (Mark 4:3) According to Mark, the word Jesus used in this unique one-word sentence is “akouo”—“hear, listen, comprehend by hearing.” Mark put the word in the imperative, a command: “Hear!”
It’s possible that the crowd was milling about on the seashore; maybe there was a low rumble of conversation among the crowd, whispering and talking among themselves, so Jesus commanded, “Hear!” In fact, Jesus began this lesson with two imperatives: “Hear! Behold…” He commanded attention to the “sowing one who went out to sow.”
“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts that I do understand,” Mark Twain reportedly said. Whatever his intention, Twain’s remark captures the importance of Jesus’ timeless imperative: “Hear!”
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