It was a time when visions and words from the Lord were infrequent yet Samuel, still a child, was about to receive a word of great significance to Israel. This young apprentice was in full-time service but he did not yet know God because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. But Eli was teaching him to listen. It is tragic though that he did not teach this to his natural sons, Hophni and Phinehas; because the word God gave Samuel was a word of  final judgement against Eli for his failure in disciplining his own sons! What had gone wrong in the house of Eli? Are there any parallels for us?

Through our religious ceremonies and rituals most of us have been introduced to the comforting aspect of God’s voice. However, God’s voice can also be corrective. In it’s corrective tone His voice inevitably provokes tension as it exposes the differences between his agenda and our own – his thoughts and our thoughts.

Accordingly, a spiritual father’s words provoke tensions as well, because they contain corrections that cut across our existing agendas and our beliefs which we, in the formation of our religious sub-cultures, both deify and codify. Its critical to remember that the heart of the Father does not delight in seeing pain as His children process His discipline. He does however delight in the outcome. He rejoices when the discipline has had its perfect result, when the hearts of his beloved children are transformed from glory to glory, from old into new wineskins.

To deify an idea is to attribute a divine status to it. To codify an idea is to adopt it and build it into the set of ideas we live by (both individually and corporately). Deifying and codifying ideas that God has never spoken or is no longer speaking is how wineskins become hard.

Why was it that words of the Lord were infrequent in Israel during Eli’s time? In that season God was apparently quiet for His own reasons. I wonder though if the problem today has as much to do with with God speaking as it has to do with our listening. Could there be a connection to the impotency of western Christianity to leaders (in the vein of Eli) who have not taught the sons and daughters to listen for the full range of God’s voice? Perhaps God’s words are in fact being spoken but they are just not being received. Perhaps we do not have ears to hear.

Eli (and contemporary leaders) know that the cost of hearing and speaking corrective words are high. Perhaps Israel’s leaders had been conditioned to speak only softer words, having learned the hard way they would loose their jobs when they spoke the harder ones? Is it possible that in our religious subcultures, where we are more familiar with the comforting and agreeable tone of God’s voice that a similar trade off has occurred? That trade being; the pastor’s job security for the comforting weekly installments of words from the bible? I have often wondered about the unspoken contracts established between pastors and parishioners in light of 2 Timothy 4:3. Note: The formation of these unspoken contracts is an aspect of codification. The sum of them form the essence of the religious subcultures we create.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Words of discipline can initially impress our insecure hearts as judgements because we incorrectly think God is mad and disappointed with us, when in fact, His love is strong and consistent, always working in each moment to draw us deeper (individually and corporately) into the realities of His abundant LIfe. We must have the bedrock value in our hearts and in our communities that God is good. Discipline comes from the most fond and jealous parts of God’s heart.

His Word can be troubling as it shakes the foundations we have built from comfort-only words. True spiritual fathers do not withhold words of correction. Authentic fathers are secure enough to withstand the pushback and fallout of sharing a full gospel which includes the full-range of God’s voice. Because of their personal cycles of correction, brokenness and restoration, true spiritual fathers can speak with genuine authority regarding the love of God. Because they have endured seasons of discipline they have learned to hear the word of the Lord. In the process they received their identities in Christ – a foundation independent of man’s approval. The absence of this foundation is the source of so many of our woes.

Thank You Father for Your voice that it is being heard in Your written Word and in Your Spirit. May it be said of us, that we lived in a time when you were raising up spiritual fathers and Your voice was being heard more frequently throughout the earth. May we learn to recognize it when You speak. May we become consecrated to you; predisposed to obey when you speak. May it be said of us that we had ears to hear and that we learned to worship You both in Spirit and in Truth. Amen.

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