1 Corinthians 13:4-5 English Standard Version

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

Becoming dull of hearing leads to being loud and proud and that affects how we love others. One sign is the insistence that comes with this spiritual affliction. We stop listening to sound counsel. There may be times when it feels like a shouting match.

Proverbs 15:4 English Standard Version (ESV) A gentle^[healing] tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

Note the secondary meaning of gentle here. It is in gentleness that speech brings healing to the soul whereas the loud and proud can only do harm.

1 Peter 3:4 English Standard Version (ESV) but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

We understand it is difficult to remain gentle and quiet in the spirit when someone is yelling at us but let us remember it is how we look to God that counts and not what others thinks of us. This may be an attitude which is created by the loud and proud, but it is illusionary. Pretentious can only be seen for what it is if it stands alone at the center of attention.

True humility will not be drawn into this battle of wills because God calls us to be humble not proud or arrogant. Being shouted down is unpleasant but it does not mean we are wrong.

Jesus Christ is not only the author and finisher of our faith, He is the defender of our faith also.

We do not have to be defensive. In the spirit that only shows weakness.

“But Jesus remained silent” Mat. 26:63a

Hebrews 5:11-12 English Standard Version

Warning Against Apostasy

¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

Avoid becoming dull of hearing.

This is worth repeating because as we age naturally, we have a tendency to go hard of hearing. In some ways our spiritual hearing can suffer the same ill-effect as our natural ears. So this warning about apostasy applies to all of us and if we refuse to acknowledge that possibility, perhaps that is the first sign of a dull ear.

We must agree with the writer of Hebrews in this one aspect, it is hard to explain. Most of us by this time of life have lived by faith for some time. Having had some measure of success in hearing by faith we become spiritually tone deaf to any voice but His. In doing this we can begin to tune out the voices of others. Doing this will cause us to stop hearing from Christ through others, we will find ourselves losing trust in what others have to say.

One of the hidden meanings within this warning is that we begin to sound to others as if we are deaf and become loud. Deaf people do not know they are loud when they speak, they cannot hear themselves as others do. Nor do we hear ourselves when we begin to be dull of ear.

All of us, no matter how long we have walked with the Lord need sound counsel, accountability partners that know you well enough to recognize when and why we get loud. Even more important is the issue of continued fellowship with the saints. It is in fellowship that these issues of becoming loud are first seen.

The words loud and proud sound alike for a reason.