How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119:103
The pious listener learns then not so much to try to learn something new about God in the sermon, but to see himself as the object of the Law’s accusations and of the Gospel’s forgiving grace. He is not so interested in hearing new information or so many facts as he is in being cut open and stitched back up again, or, even more pointedly, slain and raised. He wants to interact with God, to be the object of God’s scrutiny according to the Law and then of God’s doting affection in the Gospel. God enters into the hearer and bestows faith through the ear. His Word has its way with the hearer and loves the hearer. It never changes and yet is ever new. Thus what the hearer hears he has always known, believed, and hoped.… Still it is ever new, for this Word of God is ever opening, revealing Himself and His grace to men, and making those blessed to hear His Word new.
David Petersen, "How to Listen to a Sermon," Around the Word 1.1, p. 15-16.
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