Dull

 July 12, 2021

“And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’” —Matthew 13:14-15 

What makes a heart grow dull? Read these verses carefully and you will find that a dull heart is the root of blind eyes and deaf ears and the soul-sickness they bring. 

I once had a history teacher who had retired from the army, having been in WWII, fighting his way up Italy’s boot. All the artillery and noise of battle destroyed much of his hearing, which made it hard to be a high school teacher of boys in the back of the room who were more interested in goofing off than learning history from a man who helped make it. I’ve worn hearing aids for nearly twenty years; it wasn’t exposure to constant factory noise or the noise of battle, but bad genetics that took my hearing. 

Some lose their ability to hear God’s voice from the constant clamor of this world’s noise; others lose it because their spiritual genetics descend from Adam instead of Christ. Unless they remove themselves from the world’s noise or are born anew in Christ, the ears of the soul slowly cease to function. And eyes are deliberately closed to the brightness of Christ’s light just as we squint when staring at the sun. But these are only symptoms of a deeper issue.

Iron sharpens iron, the Bible teaches us, and we get dull when we cease meeting, rubbing shoulders with other believers, encouraging, challenging, and correcting one another. A knife is dulled by use, but a mind is dulled by indolence. As the billboards used to say, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

“O God whose Word is a two-edged sword, create in me a clean heart, and renew in me a right understanding. Cut through all this world’s noise; by the touch of Jesus’ finger, open these blind eyes and deaf ears, that my soul may hear, and see, and live, by the power of your Holy Spirit and in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, the Lord.”