Listen to you

Guerrier said:

As in 1 John 4:6 (We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.), have you had or have experience with this, where people, even people you know don't listen and don't acknowledge what you say? And what do you do, how do you react?

Click to expand...

Richie from Boston says on his videos (youtube channel): like, share, subscribe... or don't!

I'm starting to adopt that mindset with evangelism. When speaking about the things of God with others, we only speak that which we've read, seen, and heard: the truth about Jesus Christ and salvation through him. If they choose not to listen, you cannot argue them into listening, nor can we do well to convince them. The most powerful testimony in the world won't cause an apathetic heart to receive Christ, it's just not going to happen.

When speaking about doctrine with other Christians, we tend to receive the essential truth and then hold onto that for dear life, lest any should deceive us. It's interesting because, trying to heed the plethora of warnings in the scriptures about false prophets and false doctrines, we tend to become a little close-minded after we receive Christ and learn the basic doctrines. This is both advantageous and disadvantageous; on the one hand, if we become that way (and most often we do), we are very good at not giving into false ideas that are perpetrated by false prophets (which is usually possible only through deep meditation and knowledge of the scriptures); however, on the other, when presented with something that is evidenced in the Bible, but not something that we presuppositionally believed, we tend to disregard it, even though it very well could be a complementary truth.

I suppose that's just the way of things. As far as reacting to these types of situations, discernment is needed. We must determine how important the topic is in of itself, how important or necessary it is for that other person to understand and believe that topic/doctrine/idea, and how much effort it would take on our part to give a good case for it. Honestly, some truths or doctrines are just not worth the time and effort, seeing as how they create needless arguments that inhibit the testimony of another truth. We must always allow the non-essentials to give way to the essentials. As I was told the other day, "The plain things are the main things."

I hope that helps, at least somewhat. God bless, friend.

We cant assume that we are from God just because others dont listen to us.....

Guerrier said:

As in 1 John 4:6 (We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.), have you had or have experience with this, where people, even people you know don't listen and don't acknowledge what you say? And what do you do, how do you react?

Click to expand...

Yes but.... there is discernment that is required here. For example, if you began your journey with the Lord 10 years ago, and just this year came to a new understanding about a certain thing...... then if you try to share that same thing with somebody NEW to the faith and they don't understand it, it is very easy to assume they are not paying attention or not listening. But the truth is... if it took 10 years of life experience and learning to get to the point where YOU understand that thing, then it will be no different for them. We can't be 10 steps into this walk and expect somebody only 1 or 2 steps in to have the understanding we do. In fact... when Paul said be a gentile to a gentile and a Jew to a Jew... he meant we need to speak to people and reach out to people on a level they understand, on the level they are currently on. If we don't... we'll often assume they are not listening.

Guerrier said:

have you had or have experience with this, where people, even people you know don't listen and don't acknowledge what you say? And what do you do, how do you react?

Click to expand...

Of course there are people who know me and do not listen to me.

There are ones who don't believe in God and Jesus, and others are my Christian brothers and sisters who either do not accept certain things I say or they simply want to talk about other things.

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)

Be an example of what God means through what He has me say.

Notice how Christian ladies can win a disobedient man, by their example > "without a word" (1 Peter 3:4).

"swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (in James 1:19-20).

Even if others do not listen to me or stay with a spiritual conversation, I need to make sure I myself am hearing God, staying prayerful and submissive to Him, and not off-track myself by trying to make others believe or listen to what I say. Trust God to manage how conversations go.

Guerrier said:

As in 1 John 4:6 (We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.), have you had or have experience with this, where people, even people you know don't listen and don't acknowledge what you say? And what do you do, how do you react?

Click to expand...

I was taught that John was responding to heresy among the anticipated readers called Docetism—that because Jesus was divine, his body wasn't real; it was akin to an illusion. You can see evidence that he was doing this in 1 John 1:1:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1984 NIV)

And also a few verses before the one you reference:

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, (1 John 4:2, 1984 NIV)

(For Jesus to be able to redeem us, he needed to be fully man, which Scripture clearly teaches. Also, to qualify as our kinsman-redeemer, he had to be a [human] blood relative [Leviticus 25:25, 49; Jeremiah 32:7-8; Hebrews 2:11-14,17].)

So, the meaning of the original verse in question (1 John 4:6) is a little more down to earth than it appears without that context.

I have noticed that if we "share" with others coming across as a know-it-all, or as judgmental, or pushy, or if we act jerky, ect. that people will not want to listen to us.
But if we are humble, gentle of heart and truly care about the other person, they will not soon shun us.

That's just my personal experience.