The Divine Voice - Part 2

Stephen Webb in The Divine Voice notes that “Free speech in our age means that people have the right to express themselves, no matter what they have to say, and that without such expression there is no freedom. Christianity teaches just the opposite – that freedom begins in the ear before it reaches the mouth.” It is my hope that people will understand what Webb is driving at here when it comes to blogging. There are different reasons for blogging, one of which is keeping up with a host of friends simultaneously. That has its place, but let’s be sure that we don’t take so much time exercising our “freedom” to say what we want (even if it isn’t inherently wrong) that we fail to exercise our true freedom by listening. It is likely that our times of face to face fellowship will be more meaningful and substantial if we have devoted more time to listening to the word of God or other good books in between our visits.

On another topic, Webb goes on to say that one of the easiest ways for unbelievers to shun Christian proclamation is to tell Christians that they do not practice what they preach. Sometimes this reality also causes us to be silent when we should speak for Christ. But that charge fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the word that we are to be proclaiming. We as Christians who are still being sanctified know that we will never be able to live up to our words on our own. All the more reason for us to keep on speaking them because they tell of someone else who has lived up to those words himself!

This trend appears in worship as well, where the status of the sermon in Christian worship is declining in America. He writes “The soothing rhythm of praise music now sets the tone for worship services more than the sermon does. As a result, the spoken word seems to accompany the music rather than the other way around.” He notices that the ministers often respond to the situation not by making their sermons more meaningful but by supplementing them with visual aids, electronic presentation programs and the like. As a result, the pulpit may not be empty, but the words spoken have a more and more hollow sound to them. How true it is! That God has spoken rather than given us images of himself gives us a pattern to show where our emphasis should be. Sound is more powerful than sight. Consider a storm, what causes us dismay, the lightning or the thunder? The lightning can be scary, but the thunder can send shivers down our spine and shake us to the core. Sounds and words in particular have the power to penetrate our inmost being in ways that pictures never can.