Barriers to Hearing the Word

It turns out that I was off the track a bit in saying what we would discuss in Sunday School this morning. I think it’s one of the problems of teaching from a book I wrote. Everything is familiar and I can’t remember precisely what we’ve discussed and haven’t. I should perhaps take better notes, but this is a fairly free-form class. In addition, I guest taught another class one Sunday in the a couple of weeks ago on a closely related topic.

In any case, today we were discussing more about how we (and preachers) shape our expressions to the audience and how we should recognize that and still test everything, especially the things we are inclined to hear. As an editor, I’m well acquainted with the tendency we often have to be more tolerant of data presented by someone who is agreeing with us. We need to test everything and not just accept it because someone said it.

We will also not get to the material I mentioned on the history of receiving the word this coming week. That will wait for three weeks from today (we won’t have class on Consecration Sunday). This coming week the topic will be barriers to hearing the word. The section in my book is derived from a pamphlet I prepared several years ago. I do intend to re-edit and reformat that pamphlet, but I haven’t managed to find the time. The current edition can be read at Seven Barriers to Hearing the Word. I suspect we can take some serious time discussing those seven barriers and maybe a few more.