Listening To Us

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Acts 16:25

It began when Jesus was but 12 years old in Luke 2, this thing of people listening in to the Good News that He brought. Or, you might say it began with Sarah listening in as the angel told Abram she would bear him a son way back in Genesis. People will keep their ears open for news that concerns themselves and their future. In our verse for today, some prisoners had a new thing show up in the midst of their tedium and they listened. How we talk and what we speak of will be heard by the world, and we must be careful of what we say. If we sound much like the world does, then they will quickly tune us out as more irrelevant noise. And in our age, this ability to tune out excess noise grows with each passing moment and generation. So, if we gripe and moan over things like everyone else, why would they listen to us? If our speech is rife with those worldly words and phrases, why hear us? But if we sound different from the other prisoners as Paul and Silas did, then we have a good news message going out to the world.

Therefore, rejoice in the Lord always!

Bucky