“Take care what you hear... "

On March 3, 2011 I made an entry to this blog titled, “Be careful then how you listen..” It was based on a quote in Luke 8 where Jesus presents the parable of the sower and the lamp stand, which we find in this weeks reading from Mark 4. The entry I made then is still well worth reading.

In both Luke and Mark he says,  “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear,” but he explains that he speaks in parables so that,  “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you [his disciples]. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” [ there are other biblical passages like this Is 6:9; Jn 12:40; Acts 28:26; Rom 11:8 ] Dr. Sabin in her Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark (2005, p.46) states that Mark was quoting Isaiah 6:9 in this passage, and in Isaiah the passage was “clearly ironic.”  But John 12:40 clearly doesn't consider this passage in Isaiah to be ironic, nor do most commentaries.   Even Wikipedia provides a better explanation of this passage. Dr. Sabin doesn't appreciate the revelation of God  expressed in Luke 10:21 and Matthew 11:25 which needs to be taken into account by all scholars of the sacred texts. While the gospels of Matthew and Luke were not written until after Mark the truths of the gospel that they express were present in the oral tradition of the early Christian community at the time of Mark because they were primarily based on the real Jesus event which preceded the written gospels. It is frequently hard for scholars to fully appreciate that they are not privileged interpreters of the revelation of God. They are just as likely as anyone to have hearts impaired by those elements Jesus describes in the parable of the sower.