Alistair Begg was preaching about the resurrection. He explained how the disciples and the women did not expect the resurrection even though Jesus had been telling them repeatedly what would happen. That reminded me of the students in my class who need things repeated again and again and still say, “You never told me that.” A variation is “I wasn’t here when you gave out that paper.”
This is another way in which Jesus demonstrates that He knows what it is like for us. If the eternal Son could not communicate with a small group that He spent three years trying to disciple, why should I feel like a failure if I can’t get inattentive children to listen? Are you a parent or any kind of leader? The problem in communication and training may not be in you but in the target audience. Why are veteran soldiers such an asset to a battle? It isn’t necessarily that they have learned from experience. It may well be that they are the ones who listened and learned enough to survive. It is a form of short term natural selection.
Learn to listen. It makes a difference.
homo unius libri
You could always try signed affidavits.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of that. I wonder if Jesus ever gave a quiz. What was considered a passing grade?
DeleteGrace and peace
You said: "Learn to listen. It makes a difference."
ReplyDeletePossibly this directive is a main missing link for us, the Crowd... No! I think it definitely is, not just 'possibly'.
Most of us can show examples in our individual life of miscommunication, often with negative result/s - not listening was
was the culprit.
lol - I remember as a child hearing an adult (Ha) say, "One these days, I'm going to knock some sense into that youngin'; he doesn't listen!"
See? Here we are all grown up and still not listening.
A large part of the battle is learning when to listen. If you stop and just concentrate on hearing everything for a few moments you will become aware of a lot of noises that you have filtered out. When the house creaks at night it is okay to ignore it. When you hear a drip in the living room it is time to get up and check it out.
DeleteGrace and peace.