Heard שׁמע shâma‛ to hear, listen to, obey (verb) and see ראה râ’âh to see, look at,
inspect, perceive, consider
In our media soaked society, we hear much that we do not listen to and we see much that we do not consider. We are on overload, with too much input and too little time.
This was not so in the times recorded in Scripture. Hearing and seeing were the basis of life, and decisions that would effect lives and generations were made based on these senses. This is Hebraic life – what you can see and touch is as important as the unseen behind the scenes and when the seen and the unseen come together, life is found.
“And you said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live.’” Deut. 5:24 ESV
The response from the LORD their God sums up what the result should be:
“Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” Deut. 5:29 ESV
For Peter and John it was just another day, heading up to the Temple grounds in Jerusalem. How often they had entered these courts through the Beautiful Gate we do not know. Yet, this day which started like any other would be life changing for more than themselves. For us, this is recorded in Acts Chapters 3 and 4.
That special morning, a man lame from birth would be healed at the word of Peter, and without having to learn how to walk by going from crawling to standing like the rest of us, he would stand up immediately and leaping about evidenced the healing that had occurred.
Not everyone was happy with this though. While Peter was speaking to the people the leadership in Jerusalem who had killed Yeshua came, arrested Peter and John and held them in custody overnight. The next day they were questioned about this miracle. The rulers could not answer because the man who had spent his days at the entrance to the Temple was there. So they ordered Peter and John to keep quiet and not speak. Their answer sums up the Hebraic life view.
“But answering them Peter and John said, ‘Whether it is right before God to listen to you rather than God, you judge. For we are not able not to speak what we saw and heard.’” Acts 4:19-20. LITV
Have you ever been not able not to speak? For them, this was about their personal lives.
John picks up this essential of life in his first epistle.
“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and what our hands touched, as regards the Word of Life. And the Life was revealed, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you the everlasting Life which was with the Father, and was revealed to us. We announce to you
what we have seen, and what we have heard, that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:1-3 LITV
What we have heard…what we have seen…what our hands touched…we have seen. . .what we have seen…what we have heard. This is about real life in a real world and the Creator of that real life in a real world coming and living with us.
John, focusing on the seen and heard says this about Yeshua (aka Jesus) in his gospel account:
“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John 21:25 ESV
Yeshua also acknowledged this when speaking with Nicodemus saying “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
We speak of what we know “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt 12:34 ESV) but we bear witness to what we have seen.
How much of our faith is faith that is seen, either to ourselves or to others? Read the list in Hebrews 11 and write down all the real hands on experiences from this list of heroes of faith. Others saw Abraham come down from the mountain with Isaac. Others saw Daniel walk out of the lions den. Their faith was a verb and not a noun, it was an experience and
not a concept. How much have we experienced our faith and made it visible to ourselves and to others?
This is really where our faith touches the earth. As Yeshua said in the Disciples Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10 ESV)
Yes, Paul said that we look to the things that are unseen and not the things that are seen in 2 Corinthians 4:18. But Paul is talking about where our faith comes from. Our faith is not in the seen things, for the seen things are only temporary.
Our faith comes from the realm of the unseen, but it is precisely because that is the realm of our faith that we need to make that faith visible through the seen. Then we too cannot help but speak about what we have heard and what we have seen.