The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 110 - Ears: Adornment, Balance, and Divine Reception in Scripture
What if our ears were designed for more than just collecting sound? The human body reveals profound spiritual truths when examined through Scripture's lens, and our ears tell a particularly fascinating story.
The ear emerges as a multifaceted organ with significance far beyond its obvious biological function. Scripture affirms the ear's role in beauty and adornment, with God Himself metaphorically placing earrings on Israel in Ezekiel's vision. This divine endorsement challenges simplified notions about body modification while highlighting the aesthetic dimension of our Creator's design.
More surprising is the biblical connection between hearing and stability. The Hebrew words for "ear" and "balance" share linguistic roots—mirroring how our physical balance depends on proper ear function while our spiritual stability relies on what we choose to hear. When we fail to listen wisely to God's instruction, we stumble spiritually just as surely as we would physically with damaged ears.
Christ repeatedly emphasized the distinction between merely possessing ears and truly hearing, using parables to separate passive recipients from active listeners. "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear" wasn't just a catchy phrase but a profound challenge to move beyond sound reception to life transformation. In our modern world of constant auditory input—with earbuds delivering uninterrupted content—this challenge becomes increasingly vital.
Perhaps most comforting is the contrast between our imperfect listening and God's perfect attention. While we struggle with selective hearing, His ears remain perpetually attuned to our faintest cry. Even when others would silence us, as they attempted with blind Bartimaeus, God always hears. The One who designed the intricate human ear hears with perfect clarity and compassion.
Take a moment to consider—what fills your ears daily? The constant chatter of our age, or the life-giving words of divine wisdom? Your spiritual health may depend on the answer.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we're continuing to look at the human body as it is presented and analysed in the Scriptures, and we're going to consider the ears this time. Going to consider the ears this time. Now I want to begin, before I get into the about ears, just to mention how this whole topic of exploring parts of the body, and particularly the human head this was developed down in Swansea at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. Steve Levy and the team there worked on this concept and how to present it in an engaging way have these days called the human body days, when these different parts of the body are examined and explained from scripture, and if you're ever down there or when one of these are on, they're amazing to kind of give people an understanding of their own body from the perspective of Jesus Christ and the scriptures. So I mentioned that because it really is brilliant how these human body days are done down there in Swansea. Now, ears Ears have enormous importance in the Bible and it's staggering how often ears and hearing is referred to. It's ears and hearing, because, as we'll see, those things are quite separate in a way, and ears are not just for hearing and listening. Again, there's a difference between hearing and listening and we're going to see that as well. But ears actually are not even just for that purpose of hearing and listening. They're also used for ornamentation. And I want to begin with this the the just the fact of this like appendage that's on the side of our heads that we might say the purpose of it is to collect sound, and yet it's not totally. That's not the only purpose of it. It's also got a role in beauty and ornamentation. Now sometimes there are christian discussions body Is it okay to do piercings and yeah, I've sometimes got quite intense about those sort of discussions and for the purpose of affixing jewellery to different parts of the body, to different parts of the body. But as I investigated this and just looked carefully at what the Bible said, there's many examples of people wearing earrings in the Bible church people but the example of Ezekiel 16 is the one that really changed me on this subject years ago.
Speaker 1:In Ezekiel 16, there's that very powerful sort of parable about the Lord seeing Israel as a discarded baby kicking about in your blood. If you know that chapter, it's a very intense sort of extended parable. And then the Lord takes in baby girl Israel and brings her up and then dresses her in wonderful clothes, expensive clothes, embroidered clothes, and then in verse 12, the Lord adds body piercing jewellery to this woman. So Ezekiel 16, verse 12, says I'll put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So the Lord does this piercing for jewellery purposes in that parable. So it's very strongly affirmed.
Speaker 1:So we begin with this example because it displays that the Lord created us with ears for more than just hearing. He created ears partly for this purpose of beauty and as you read in the scriptures, song of Solomon, ears are beautiful, ears are beautiful and they have, without getting into awkward territory, ears and how sensitive they are to touch and intimacy. They have this role in romance and attraction and so on. So the external ear has a part to play in beauty. That's more than the mere function of hearing. Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 10, it just says you know, your cheeks are beautiful with earrings and the idea of the earrings hanging down from the ear and that the ears are attractive. But it's not just women. In both Exodus and Judges, men also have gold earrings. And there's that example where lots of money is collected. Gold is collected by gathering everyone's earrings, the men included.
Speaker 1:But moving on from this idea of jewellery and the beauty aspect of the ear, the overwhelming feature of ears is hearing. But a remarkable thing about the ear is that it's not only the place where we hear, it's the place of balance. It's how we have balance and you will know if you've ever had a severe ear infection, or even if it's just blocked ears, or if you spin around many, the fluid in the ear becomes agitated and you lose your balance. What's going on with your ear determines your stability, your balance, and you will fall over if your ears are injured or ill. The Hebrew word for ear is ozen, ozen, and the Hebrew word for balance is mozen Balance and ear the Hebrew words are very similar.
Speaker 1:Okay, the Lord wants to show that what we hear is connected to our balance. So if we don't listen carefully, or if we listen or hear things in an unbalanced way, if we take in words or wisdom without proper balance, then we lose our stability. We slip Our foot will slip. Proverbs, chapter 1,. It's all about losing our balance, falling into debt, slipping into foolishness, if we do not listen properly with wisdom. We need wisdom to have balance, stability. If we do not listen properly, we will fall over, we experience. If our ears are not functioning properly, we cannot have balance, we cannot have stability, we are prone to fall, we are prone to fall.
Speaker 1:And so it's not enough to simply hear, it's not enough to simply hear or take in sound. It's that distinction between sound, the sound, there's noise, there's words, music, and they're not all the same thing. So there's first of all the input of a variety of audio inputs, and then that can come in, but we are not necessarily listening to it. And there's that distinction between audio input and then listening. And what is the evidence of listening? Well, in the Bible, the evidence of listening is, for example, obedience. So a person might say they're listening, but we only know that they've listened if they've acted upon the words that have been spoken.
Speaker 1:So Isaiah 6, verse 9, and Isaiah 6 has this kind of deep meditation that Isaiah will be speaking to people who do not listen, cannot listen, not listen, cannot listen, unbelieving people. They are always hearing, but never understanding, never listening, they're never grasping what is said to them, because it's this idea that the sounds come in and even if there is a level of attention paid to the sounds. There isn't understanding, which is shown in obedience and this idea that we can have ears. Sound goes in, but is there listening? Is there understanding? And listening is something active. So our ears passively receive lots of audio, but we need to make a kind of decision to listen. That's a choice. It's active. To listen is then you turn your attention to the audio.
Speaker 1:So Proverbs 2, verse 2, talks about turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding. So, and we may actually turn our heads if there's something we want to pay attention to that and we're in a room and there are different people speaking, but we want to like pay attention to one particular person and what they are saying. We turn our ear towards them. We may even cup around our ear to collect more of the sound. As that, that now we're active, we've made a decision, we are actively listening, and it's not just sound. And so that Jesus makes this point about whoever has ears to hear, let them hear. And this distinction between people may hear his words, but do they listen and do they understand? Do they grasp? And that whole Matthew 13,.
Speaker 1:Why does he teach in parables? He teaches in parables so that it strongly emphasizes these different kinds of hearing, emphasizes these different kinds of hearing that a person could hear this parable and for them they just heard a story. But if they apply themselves to that story, listen. So there's listen to it to take in the words that are said, and then there's this sort of additional kind of thing that you hear and then it's like more than you're listening, paying attention, and now you're processing what you've heard and that's what a parable forces a person to do that they cannot passively receive a parable.
Speaker 1:A parable requires active listening and understanding. It requires much more engagement from the listener. And so Matthew 13 is an exploration of that and many examples. And then Jesus gives the example of the parable of the sower, where it's a story. And then Jesus gives the example of the parable of the sower where it's a story. And then he himself says this is what you should have heard from that story. What should you have as you listen to it? Actively understanding this is how you're to understand that this is what the listening ear will have grasped, that this is what the listening ear will have grasped.
Speaker 1:And then there's a whole bunch of little parables in that in Matthew 13, as if like lots of training exercises for us to try that. Psalm 78 describes how he would. Jesus would come telling parables and in these parables give the mysteries that have been hidden, that are kind of things that are written into the foundation of the world. And so this idea, then, that there's things that we can hear and we can have. But the question is are our ears? Do we have ears to hear, to pay attention? So Jesus declared we have to make sure that our hearing leads to obedience.
Speaker 1:So Luke 11, verse 28, blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and obey it. Luke 11, 28, hearing. So the evidence of hearing is obedience. A person may claim that they've listened and paid attention, but if they haven't, when it comes to the word of God, the only real evidence of that is obedience. Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 3, hear Israel and be careful to obey. Again, do you see that the evidence of hearing is obedience? Or Deuteronomy 5, verse 27, go near and listen to all that the Lord, our God, says. Listen to all that the Lord, our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord, our God tells you, we will listen and obey. In that example, I'm not convinced they really did want to hear his voice, but that's another subject. I think they were trying to stay at a distance away from the Lord. So they're like they're saying look, yeah, yeah, we will listen and we will obey, but we don't want to ourselves hear his voice. So that's a complicated example. But again, there is, though, that idea that the evidence of listening will be obedience obedience.
Speaker 1:But there are many verses in the bible that make a clear distinction between having ears and hearing, and and in a way that we've already seen that with the idea of your ears kind of being used for ornamentation, and, and the concept there is that the ear, the thing on the side of our head, that is not exclusively about hearing, a clear distinction. Very often this happens in the Bible, a clear distinction between people may have ears, but they just don't hear, they're deaf, and sometimes that's literal and physical. Really, people are physically deaf and their ears are healed so that they are able to physically hear. But mostly that language is not just at the literal level of hearing, but at this other level of like listening. We have ears, but are we listening? So in Isaiah 43, verse 8,. So in Isaiah 43, verse 8, lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf. And then Isaiah 42, verse 20, you have seen many things, but you pay no attention. Your ears are open but you don't listen. Isaiah 32, verse 3, the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed and the ears of those who hear will listen.
Speaker 1:Again, all this idea, that and the emphasis that I want to bring out in this, is just, and it is how important it is for what we actively do with our ears. What do we pay attention to, what are we listening to and how do we hear? How do we listen? Because, particularly nowadays, it's possible and actually quite common that all our waking time is filled with auditory input. Were, but most people on public transport in London have ear pods in and are listening to things all the time, not to one another, but to songs, podcasts, whatever films, anything.
Speaker 1:The idea, then, is it's almost as if we cannot be silent, we cannot sit in silence, and I know I find that difficult too, sometimes just to sit in silence. I want to hear, I want there to be audio input, but that in one sense there, and even sometimes going to sleep with audio input. That, and even sometimes going to sleep with audio input. So it's telling us something that we like our ears to be constantly fed sound input. Words, very often words. We want that, and yet the Bible's constantly saying but what are you choosing to listen to? What do you turn your ear towards? And this way in which merely hearing lots and lots of sounds can be, in the Bible, described as being deaf.
Speaker 1:Now, the fact that we have two ears emphasizes this need for careful listening. This is this constantly, you know, every day, when we see the fact that we have two ears, it should be a constant reminder for us to listen and then listen again, listen, listen again. Two ears, we must not only hear the world. So we hear the world's voice in many, many forms. The world and just constant sound of radio, television, podcasts, our phone people, our phone people, all the constant input of just the general world's wisdom, world's voices. But then it's as if.
Speaker 1:But do we also have an ear? So we have one ear that listens to the world, and that's important to hear what those around us are saying, to hear the voices of the world, but do we also have an ear for God's voice? So Isaiah 55, verse 3, is interesting. It's that idea of give ear and come to me, listen that you may live. So again, I love Isaiah 55, you know, come all you are thirsty, come to the waters. If you have no money, come buy and eat. And then, in verse 2, listen, listen to me, listen to me, eat what's good. Give ear, come to me, listen that you may live. There's this like urgent in Isaiah 55, verses 2 and 3, this urgent focus on listen, listen, listen to me, give your ear to me. So we have these two ears and there's something being told to us about listen, listen again, or have one ear. On that.
Speaker 1:We talk about having one ear on one thing and one ear on something else, and maybe that's that's the idea there that we have. There is one ear that's tuned into the world, but do we have another ear that's tuned into the voice of god? And this idea that the ear is testing should be discerning it. It's important to discern, not just listen to everything. There's lots of sound going into our ears, but what do we pay attention to? What do we turn our ears to? And as we turn our head from one side to another, it gives emphasis to certain sounds and voices rather than others. So, job 12, verse 11, does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food? There's something in that, isn't there? The idea that the ear is testing and that we test what we're hearing with our ears.
Speaker 1:Again, in Exodus 21, verses 1 to 6, if a slave had a good master he could have one ear pierced pierced. And the idea that one ear is pierced in service to this master that they want to continue to serve and belong to. And I think the idea there is that they want an ear that is dedicated to hearing the master's voice, whatever else was heard. Again that idea of they have one ear open for general people but they've dedicated one ear to listening to this master that they want to serve. That is good. And then in Leviticus 14, verse 28,. The ear, it has to be atoned for or cleansed with blood. Blood has to be applied to ears. Again that idea. There's a distinction between like the ear can be unclean and dirty in its hearing, and then this idea of cleansing through blood, making atonement so that the ear can hear properly. It's cleaned in the right way. So our two ears again that stereophonic hearing.
Speaker 1:We're able to hear things and the fact that we have two ears means we can locate where the noise comes from, doesn't it? We can hear, ah, that sound's coming from my left or my right, or in front of me or behind me, and then, if we turn our head left and right, it helps us to locate better the direction of a sound. So it's important. The Lord has designed us in such a way that it's important that we can tell where a sound comes from and we can train ourselves to hear that better. And so John 10, verse 27,. Jesus says my sheep listen to my voice. Jesus says my sheep listen to my voice. So that ability to discern where a sound is coming from, that's important. That we know. We don't just hear the sound indiscriminately, but we want to locate. Where is it coming from, who's saying it, where are they? And it is critical that we listen to him. And it is critical that we listen to him. We know his voice and we can identify where that is coming from. We must listen to him.
Speaker 1:Deuteronomy 30, verse 20,. Listen to his voice. And that means hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, isn't that fascinating him? For the Lord is your life, isn't that fascinating? This idea of hearing his voice, paying attention to him, is so important because doing that is your life, is your life Words, hearing, paying attention hugely important.
Speaker 1:As I've been preparing this, it's impacted me on a whole new level. So this selective hearing, what do we tune into and what do we tune out? We can eat, we can learn to tune out sounds so that we don't even hear them anymore and then we don't even be. You know, it's funny when I've often lived in a city environment and there's a constant level of background noise and you kind of tune it all out, and then when you go out into a country place where there is no background noise, it can be quite disorientating at first, because you're used to a certain level of background noise that you tune out. And this ability then to tune out sounds but also to tune into a voice, and the Bible then has this constant warning that we must tune in to the voice of the Lord, the words of the Lord, and tune out the voice of the world, the voice of the foolish, the voice of the mockers.
Speaker 1:And that is something maybe, as we draw this to a conclusion, it's this idea of whose voice do we most listen to? Who do we most listen to? Who do we most listen to? How much time do we spend absorbing the kind of constant empty chatter of this present age? How much attention do we give to that? And then, in comparison, how much time do we spend listening to truth and wisdom? How do we balance all of that?
Speaker 1:Jesus had ears and he listened for his father's voice, but he was also listening to his people's cry and I love it. When blind Bartimaeus cried out for Jesus, the Lord Jesus heard his cry, even when everyone else wanted to silence Bartimaeus. They're like shut up and there's like why would he listen to you? But he does listen to him, and this is what I want to end with this idea that we have ears that don't always pay attention to Christ for help or don't listen to what we should listen to. But the Lord is always listening for our cries and our prayers.
Speaker 1:1 Peter, 3, verse 12, is lovely on that, how he listens. I'll just read that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So the Lord turns away from those who do evil, but to those who trust him his ears are attentive, inclined, turned towards, and I take that very seriously. He listens for our calls for mercy and our weeping. There's loads of that in the Psalms Psalm 6, verses 8 and 9, and things like that. And then there was a verse I was learning this week 2 Samuel 22, verse 7. In my distress, I called to the Lord. I called out to my God from his temple. He heard my voice. My call came to his ear. Wow, I love that.
Speaker 1:We may have trouble hearing and paying attention, we may listen and refuse to obey, or we may ignore the cries for help, but the Lord, god, is not like us. His ears are always open to our cry and he always saves those who call on him. Psalm 94, verse 9, does he who implanted the ear not hear? Of course he hears. He invented the ear and hearing and I did come across someone who was quite agitated to tell us that he believed the Lord does not actually really have ears, that his faculty of hearing has nothing to do with ears, even though the Bible quite frequently speaks about the Lord, the Father and the Son anyway having ears.
Speaker 1:I suppose this person maybe he felt that the head of the Father and the head of the Son may be completely smooth on either side without ears. But I found that incredibly weird idea that the Lord doesn't actually have ears. I couldn't understand why a person felt that it was so important to think for them. The idea that the Lord has ears they felt was ridiculous, whereas I thought the idea that he doesn't is quite ridiculous. Whatever is the case, it seems to me just strange speculation. It's better, I think, to stick to these straightforward descriptions that the Bible suggests and let's end with just that lovely image that the Lord's ears are always attentive to our cry, and I like it when Jesus says he hears the young raven when it cries and the young raven is the most unattractive cry of any animal, it's just like a croak. And yet Jesus says even such a cry is heard, he pays attention. So therefore, if we his own children made in his image, we cry to him with even the weakest and feeblest cry that we can barely gasp out, he hears.