In this Sunday’s gospel (Mark 7:31-37), we read about the story of Jesus healing a man who was deaf and who had a speech impediment. With God’s healing power, the man began to hear and to speak plainly. While it is natural for us to think that surely, God, who is all-powerful, can easily do this, it is worth reflecting why he may have chosen to heal these disabilities after all. Or, for the greater majority of us who were born with normal hearing and speech, it is also worth pondering why God has given us the ability to hear and speak.
God gave us the gift of hearing so that we may listen to him. In many places in the Bible, the Lord says, “He who has ears to hear, let him ear” (see for example: (Matthew 11:15; 13:9; Mark 4:9,23; Luke 8:8; Revelation 2:7, Revelation 3:13). In Isaiah 55:2b-3a, he tells us, “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”
Why does God want us to listen? Because, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Romans 10:17). Our faith in Jesus saves us and brings us to eternal life, and this can only happen if we hear the good news of our salvation.
Being thus saved, we must continue to listen and obey God’s word, reading the Bible regularly, and applying its teachings to our lives. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We must also listen to our neighbors and be Christ’s representative to them, for we cannot love God whom we have not seen if we cannot love our brothers and sisters whom we have seen (1 John 4:20).
How about our gift of speech? First and foremost, God gave us our voices so we can tell others about him. Before he ascended back to heaven, he instructed his disciples, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). As Christians of today, this great commission extends to us as well.
In the same vein, we must use our tongues to glorify God everyday. We must be like the psalmist who said, “I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High” (Psalm 7:17); and “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds” (Psalm 9:1).
We are not to use our tongues for evil ends. Among the ten commandments, God instructed us, ““You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). A few verses later, we read, “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness” (Exodus 23:1).
We are called to be truthful. The Bible reminds us to put away falsehood and to “speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25). Likewise, we are told, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:9-10). Jesus warned us, “For every idle word that men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36), while Paul reminded us that slanderers will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10). We must then thus use our gift of speech for good. No evil talk should come out of our mouths, but only what is useful in building up, as needed, so that our words may give grace to our hearers (Ephesians 4:29).
Finally, proper advice is given not only on what we say but also on how we say it. We must speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), remembering that “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24). The same tongue that we use to praise God should not be used to curse our fellowmen (James 3:9-10). Paul instructed Timothy and us, “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:22-26). This aligns very well with the admonition to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:31).
May this gospel remind us to use our ears and tongues for their intended purposes, for “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).