The Bib­le be­gins with the story in which God cre­a­tes the world by his word. Right in the be­gin­ning God spoke to the first hu­man pair, Adam and Eve. The third chap­ter of the Bib­le tel­ls us how man fell in­to the temp­ta­ti­on of not he­a­ring the word of God: ”Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of eve­ry tree of the gar­den?” (Gen 3:1) As a con­se­qu­en­ce of the fall in­to sin, man doubts if the word of God is true.

It is God who opens a per­son’s ears to hear (Job 36:10). The Old Tes­ta­ment desc­ri­bes di­ver­se di­a­logs bet­ween the pe­op­le of Is­ra­el and God. For examp­le, the pat­ri­archs–our fo­re­fat­hers–wan­ted to be obe­dient to the word of God in the va­ri­ous si­tu­a­ti­ons in their life

The Old Tes­ta­ment al­so con­tains many sto­ries of how the mem­bers of the cho­sen pe­op­le did not want to be obe­dient to the word of God. At such ti­mes the prop­hets had the task of being mes­sen­gers of God. Je­re­mi­ah, for examp­le, cle­ar­ly re­ve­als whose mis­si­on he is on: ”Thus saith the Lord” (Jer 18:11).

The prop­hets re­min­ded the pe­op­le of Is­ra­el about the co­ve­nant bet­ween God and the pe­op­le and the way of life it en­tai­led. Even the let­ter to the Heb­rews in the New Tes­ta­ment re­fers to God’s speech to the pe­op­le of the Old Co­ve­nant: ”God, who at sund­ry ti­mes and in di­vers man­ners spake in time past un­to the fat­hers by the prop­hets” (Heb 1:1).

If any man has ears to hear, let him hear

In the New Tes­ta­ment Christ him­self – who was the word made flesh – te­ac­hes that any man who has ears to hear should hear Him (Mark 7:14, 16). The gos­pels stri­king­ly de­pict many si­tu­a­ti­ons where the pe­op­le wan­ted to hear the word of God. Luke re­la­tes: ”And it came to pass, that, as the pe­op­le pres­sed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gen­ne­sa­ret” (Luk 5:1).

In the pa­rab­le of the so­wer Je­sus spe­aks about dif­fe­rent kinds of he­a­rers of the word. One he­ars the word of God but be­cau­se he does not un­ders­tand it, the De­vil snatc­hes away the sown word. Anot­her jo­yous­ly re­cei­ves the word but re­jects it when he en­coun­ters dif­fi­cul­ties. The third he­a­rer re­cei­ves the word but tem­po­ral ca­res, ric­hes, and ple­a­su­res pre­vent its growth. Some of the he­a­rers comp­ri­se good ground: they hear the word of God, un­ders­tand it, and bring forth fruit (Luk 8:4–15).

In the ori­gi­nal lan­gu­a­ge of the New Tes­ta­ment – Greek – the words he­a­ring and being obe­dient are de­ri­ved from the same root: to hear. In­deed, he­a­ring and being obe­dient to the word of God go hand in hand. In the gos­pel ac­cor­ding to St. Luke Je­sus says: ”Yea rat­her, bles­sed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” (Luk 11:28)

Be­au­ti­ful are the feet of them that bring ti­dings of joy

An es­sen­ti­al place in the Bib­le con­cer­ning he­a­ring the word of God is found in the let­ter to the Ro­mans: ”For the scrip­tu­re saith, for who­so­e­ver shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be sa­ved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not be­lie­ved? and how shall they be­lie­ve in him of whom they have not he­ard? and how shall they hear wit­hout a pre­ac­her? And how shall they pre­ach, ex­cept they be sent? as it is writ­ten, How be­au­ti­ful are the feet of them that pre­ach the gos­pel of pe­a­ce, and bring glad ti­dings of good things! But they have not all obey­ed the gos­pel. For Esai­as saith, Lord who hath be­lie­ved our re­port? So then faith co­meth by he­a­ring, and he­a­ring by the word of God.” (Rom 10:13–17)

Li­ving faith is born by he­a­ring the words of Christ. The words of the Scrip­tu­res come ali­ve when they are pre­ac­hed by child­ren of God through the Holy Spi­rit. This does not exc­lu­de the im­por­tan­ce of re­a­ding the Bib­le. The word of God con­tains po­wer that builds up a be­lie­ving per­son (Act 20:32). The word of God is the wis­dom of God, not wis­dom of man. The word of God is to be pre­ac­hed as it is writ­ten (1 Cor 2:6–9).

The first Chris­ti­ans re­joi­ced over what they had he­ard. Paul and Ti­mot­hy sha­red this joy with the Co­los­si­ans, among ot­hers, when a group of pe­op­le had ac­cep­ted the gos­pel and the­re­by re­cei­ved the hope of eter­nal life in­to their life (Col 1:4–6). Faith in Christ made pe­op­le act for the good of their neigh­bors and bon­ded be­lie­vers to each ot­her. The new­born child­ren of God wan­ted to pre­ach to ot­hers and make wi­de­ly known the gos­pel they had re­cei­ved as a gift (1 The 1:6, 8).

The Acts of the Apost­les desc­ri­bes to us the simp­le life of the ear­ly cong­re­ga­ti­on: “And they con­ti­nu­ed sted­fast­ly in the apost­les’ doct­ri­ne and fel­lows­hip, and in bre­a­king of bread, and in pra­yers.” (Act 2:42) We re­cei­ve the care of the word of God for our he­art in the uni­ty of the cong­re­ga­ti­on of Christ.

Text: Noo­ra Tala-Kop­pe­roi­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: KK

Sour­ce: Siu­naus, Ajan­koh­tais­ta 2013

Jul­kais­tu eng­lan­nin­kie­li­ses­sä kie­li­liit­tees­sä 24.11.2015.