Do Not Listen
Jeremiah 23:16-17
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the
Lord, “It shall be well with you”; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, “No calamity shall come upon you.”
Jesus Listening
Luke 2:46-49
Joseph and Jesus’ mother, after three days, found him in the Temple, sitting in the middle of the teachers and listening to them
and asking them questions; everyone listening to him was astounded at his understanding and his answers. Seeing him, [Joseph and Mary] were amazed, but he said to them, “Why did you search for me? Didn’t you know that I have to see to my Father’s business?”
The Function of the Ears
Secrets of Heaven 5017 - Emanuel Swedenborg
The ear’s function is to receive another’s words and relay them to the overall seat of sensation, which can then perceive what the
speaker is thinking. That is why hearing means perceiving.
Its nature, as a consequence, is to take the words expressing one person’s thoughts and transfer them into a second person’s thoughts, from there into the person’s will, and from there into act. That is why hearing means obeying.
These two tasks are assigned
to the sense of hearing. Various languages distinguish between them by using hear for “perceive,” and listen to or heed for “obey.”
These two tasks are assigned to hearing because we have no other way to convey what we are thinking and what we want, or to use reason in persuading and convincing another to do and obey what we want.
These remarks illustrate the circular path of communication, from the
will into the thought and then into speech, and from speech by way of the ear into another’s thought and will.
