2636AFC090426 – Hear, See, Speak, Do

Read it online using the ↑ above ↑ link ↑ please. We now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

Ezekiel 33:8-9 – (GNT) [1] ⁸ If I announce that an evil person is going to die but you do not warn him to change his ways so that he can save his life, then he will die, still a sinner, and I will hold you responsible for his death. ⁹ If you do warn an evil person and he doesn't stop sinning, he will die, still a sinner, but your life will be spared.

Psalm 95:8 (GNT) –
⁸ “Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
    as they were that day in the desert at Massah.

Romans 13:10 – (GNT) ¹⁰ If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law.

Matthew 18:15-17 – ¹⁵ “If another member* of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. ¹⁶ But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. * ἀδελφός adelphos ah-del-FOS brother ἀδελφοί (Plural of adelphos) = Brethren – fellow Disciples in Christ, adopted members of the Family of God.

Aloha nui loa, Adelphoi! (Much love to you, Brothers and Sisters.) May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Wowie, friends! We have some powerful Key Verses today! This Sunday is the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary (Time Lectionary: 127) September 6, 2026. Ten more Sundays, and we’ll be starting Advent! Lots to do, lots to think about, lots to learn. On with it then!

Today I think we’ll take these Key Verses in the given order, beginning with the rather remarkable quote from the Prophet Ezekiel. The Lord has just told him his new job description: God will speak to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel will have to tell the World what God says. As we can see, this job comes with some pretty stringent rules. First, Ezekiel is to tell them basically, “repent or die!” If they don’t, they will meet death as a sinner, and we all know what that means about an instant change of address. Ezekiel seems to sense a “but” coming, and he is right for God says, “BUT if you don’t warn the sinner, and he dies in his sins, then you will be held accountable. On the other hand, if the people do not repent, but you have done the work I gave you, and you will be delivered from all guilt.”

We recall that old campfire song, “Ezekiel connected dem dry bones,” (← Music Link) and the admonition that went something like “Now hear ye the Word of the Lord.” That’s what Prophets do – they speak the word of the Lord. We can listen and obey, or we can stuff our fingers in our ears and shout LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!” We otter listen! God would see that as our stubbornness to hear and obey just like Israel’s behavior during their Exodus:
Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

as in the day of Massah in the desert. We always have a choice: Trust and obey God, or trust in ourselves and disobey the Lord. We choose and are rewarded with the consequences of our choices. Trust and obedience is always rewarded with Life. Distrust and disobedience is always rewarded with Death – UNLESS we repent – metanoia – and return to Trust and Obedience.

Repent and believe the Gospel!

Too often we behave as if there are only two things we can choose: Life, or Death. Thanks to the Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ of God, we have a highly-effective third choice: Repent and believe the Gospel! The choice to repent has been present to us since the days in Eden, and throughout the entire history of earthlings, we have forgotten that we can choose that option and reclaim our lives because they have been Redeemed! Each of us knows that we can be so very stubborn at times – remember? – “God, I know what you want, but I don’t wanna do that. I wanna do this myself my own way.” When we can remember that redemption comes to us through repentance, we “hear the Word of the Lord,” and we are delivered from our guilt and Death. Once we are delivered in that way, we feel such a joy down in our hearts (← Music Link) – and we know that comes from the Love that God gives us whenever we Love and Obey him. That’s a really important aspect of knowing God.

God is Love

God is Love. When we share God, we share his Love. When we share our Love from God, we share God with others. The Apostle Paul gives us something valuable to remember when he says, If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole  Law. If we look for that idea in the passage from Ezekiel, we see that the prophetic warning God commands to be delivered is in reality a Love Note from God to his people (which nowadays also includes those of us who have been grafted in). When we make the effort to remember that in Baptism we are anointed as Priest, Prophet, and King, there are some specific thins we can do.

Priest, Prophet, and King in Daily Life

When we are anointed as Priest, Prophet, and King, there are some things we can do to make those roles visible in our lives. In our Christian Priestly role, we can start or end each day by offering to Lord all that we do, or think, or say – an offering of our very selves as our ”reasonable service of worship.” (See Romans 12:1-2 again) Part of that includes “offering up” our own pains, or troubles, or storms with the intent of enduring it all for the sake of the Kingdom. A very important part of that role is the main purpose of the Moon Beam Network – intercessory prayer. We pray for, about, and with each other. (← Check it out!) We are intercessors, helpers, Prayer Warriors.

In our role as Prophet, we speak Truth with integrity and champion justice with compassion for the poor, the marginalized, and the innocent unborn. We stand for God and country. We quash gossip by remembering not to join in. Most importantly, as The Apostle Paul has reminded us, we Love one another as Jesus has Loved us. And no matter how many times we fail at these things, we always, always, come back to the Lord.

In our role as Anointed Leaders, we serve and defend our families and our communities. It is the role of the King to fight the enemies of the Peoples, and to establish and further Justice. We are to be Servant Leaders by first mastering our own deficiencies before trying to patch up others. In all of this it is of supreme important TO REMEMBER that “the least among all of you is the greatest” (See Luke 9:48) and that we are to be the servant of all (See Matthew 20:26-28). To the World, that is backwards, inside-out, and upside-down. To God, that’s Life at its fullest. It is what sets us apart from Worldly ways and people.

Because we are anointed, because we are consecrated and set apart, because we are the ekklesia – the Church – we have a responsibility to our adelphoi in addition to and above our responsibility to Prophesy to the World. Take care in reading our Key Verse from Matthew. Some translations say, “If a brother sins against you …” and here again we see in the Greek our word Adelphos – brethren, or, in the Church – fellow Disciple, a fellow Church member – a fellow Christian. Jesus is already establishing the basic rules for the Church, and it is as old as the call of Abram. It might sound a little like this: “We are us. They are them. We are The Chosen. They are The Others.” In the Old Testament we can see this distinction in passages like 1 Chronicles 16:41 (the rest of them) and 1 Samuel 14:47 (fought against all his enemies on every side OR and against the others (τοὺς λοιπούς) whomever he encountered.") Jesus is telling the Disciples that they are to lead – serve to manage – the Church, not to serve to manage the World. The Disciples are told later to evangelize the world, but here Jesus is speaking explicitly about managing conflict among the adelphoi, the members of the Church. Because why?

Because this is important. The ekklesia is called to be separate from the World. We are to become, and behave as, The Redeemed of the Lord. This is why The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:3 ^b (GNT) […] In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger. But, we have the CHOICE to remember that we are saved by Grace, and through Grace, we set ourselves apart through our certainty in the promise of Christ and the joyful effects of repentance. Of course, our need for repentance could be lessened if we could lessen the cause behind that need – the sins we commit. We all recognize these guys. They are usually billed as the “Three Wise Monkeys” who “See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.” When I received the title for this post it was based on the readings and how they relate to this photo. But there was that other word, “Do.” Hear, See, Speak, Do No Evil. That would take Four Wise Monkeys to convey that sort of adage, so I started looking for 4 Wise Monkeys in that pose. It was then that the Lord led me to The Five Wise Monkeys: (Stop here and read this.) A Fresh Take on Ancient Wisdom – an essay by Bill Conley (← Click Link)

The 5 Wise Monkeys by Bill Conley

Boy howdy! That smacked me right in the forehead like a timpani mallet! BOOM! Of course! Instantly I was reminded of how The Four Wise Monkeys would be fortified by Think No Evil because in Genesis 6:5 it says ⁵ And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Who remembers what went down in Genesis chapter 6-8? There ya go, Ace! It’s the story of Noah and the Ark. We cite that story often because we have read in Genesis 7:16 ^C – and the Lord shut him in. Yeppers. God closed the door after Noah went in. Noah was the last of God's creatures to enter the Ark. Only Noah, his family, and the creatures they collected survived. Everything and everyone outside the Ark died. The earthlings who lived so wickedly in that time died in their sins.

There we have it, adelphoi. See, Hear, Speak, Do, and THINK NO EVIL. Come to think of it, perhaps if we, started with THINK NO EVIL, the other four admonishments would be easier to keep. Additionally, taking Jesus' admonition to keep interpersonal conflicts between members of the Church would be another way to utilize these five forms of wisdom. I also encourage you to go back and look at the link to Bill Conley Unleashed where you can find additional links to 34 books on Amazon by searching for Bill Conley, and more than 2,100 posts on his blog at bcunleashed.blogspot.com. Lotsa good stuff there. It’s time to wake up! We gotta stop monkeying around and get busy with building The Kingdom of God. (← Music Link) We have the Light to do the job Right, to See, Hear, Speak, Do, and THINK NO EVIL.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Managed by Kukui-IT on Cloudflare ^® , Inc. “Cloudflare, the Cloudflare logo, and Cloudflare Workers are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Cloudflare, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.”