What Does It Really Mean to Hear the Law?
You’ve just finished reading Proverbs 28:9 in your quiet time.
“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
With that nugget of truth in your pocket, you head to the temple to pray. The temple looks like an ER on a full moon—overflowing with both the desperate and the performative. Wanting a little inspiration for your own petitions, you bend your ear towards a couple fellow petitioners.
The first guy is there because, well, that’s what he does. He’d be like the chaplain at the ER. There because of other people—not himself. He’s confident, composed. Most of his life is given to picking up the pieces left by those who have turned their ear away from hearing the law. He deals with the consequence of those actions. Praying for God’s favor in spite of the vagabonds. Trying to muster prayers on behalf of the ragamuffins who can’t get their act together.
You listen in. “God, thank you for what you’ve done in my life. Thank you that I can be here to help these addicts, these repeat offenders, who only show up here when their life crashes and burns.” You notice that his eye glances over to Eric.
Let me tell you about Eric. He should be in prison. In fact, everybody in town is upset that Eric isn’t in prison. He is the reason that Molly, the former prom queen, will spend the rest of her days in a wheelchair. Strung out on things usually stored under the kitchen sink, Eric decided to drive home after another wild party. Unscathed or too high to know he was harmed; he pulled himself out of the wreckage and left the teen there to die. She survived, barely, her life forever marred by Eric’s bad decisions.
You can hear the hatred in the man’s voice. In fact, you share it. “God thanks for keeping me from throwing my life away like Eric. I’m sure he’s here just to get some more pills. But I’m here to help people like this. I’m a minister. Give me the strength to try one more time to set Eric on the straight and narrow.”
You’re close enough to Eric to hear his murmurings. He’s sitting there, looking straight ahead with eyes glazed over, knees bouncing like pistons. Suddenly, he buckles like a boxer hit in the gut. His head drops between his knees. With his signature hoodie covering him, you can barely see his reddening face. The frayed cords on his hoodie are waving wildly, like a desperate cry for help—wishing to be rescued from the certain to come sounds of violent purging.
You lean in a little closer, hoping to get a bit more kindling from Eric to fuel your self-worth. “Oh God, oh God, oh God, help me, help me, help me. Have mercy on me. I’ve done it again. I’ve done it again! Have mercy on me!”
Proverbs 28:9 in hand. “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
Poor Eric doesn’t know that God isn’t listening. If he’d pull himself out of the slums and start obeying God’s law, maybe he’d have a chance. Eric has lived his whole life turning away from God’s law. And this is the consequence. He can cry until his red-face turns blue, but God isn’t going to hear.
Had you not been reminded of this proverb you might have had a bit of sympathy for Eric. But proverbs like this help us to remember to view such scoundrels like the abominations that they are.
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I tell you this man, [pointing to Eric], rather than the other [pointing at the chaplain in the corner], went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. -Luke 18:14
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Jesus’ words in Luke 18 were so baffling because they had been under the assumption that “hearing the law” meant being like a Pharisee. But what does it actually mean to “hear the law”? Jesus seems to tell us that really hearing the law will have you desperate like Eric. To truly hear the law is to be undone by it.
If you come away from God’s law thinking, “I can do that,” then you haven’t really heard it—you’ve only heard the parts your pride could handle. The law crushes our self-reliance, it doesn’t fuel it. That’s why the prayer of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was really the abomination. He wasn’t hearing the law any more than Eric was when he was tweaking on meth.
To really hear the law will leave you desperate for Jesus. And God is thrilled to hear those prayers.