It is that presence of “ears to hear” statements that would have attuned John’s hearers (and readers) to the need for greater attentiveness to the words of the speaker and to their own present situations, for that was its function. It is a regular theme of subversive activities, whether they are meant to be benign or deleterious. By its use, the speaker (or the writer) is asking for the audience to look beneath the surface of what is being said in order to grasp what is being communicated. This is often the case when it is simply not possible, for whatever reason, to come right out and make overt statements. We see and do this in our own day on a regular basis when we find ourselves speaking about a particular person, in the presence of that particular person, but we do so with veiled language so that the subject of our conversation is unaware of their subject status. We see this when parents, in the presence of their young children and in the course of conversation with another adult, take to spelling words.
An example of this would be the parent informing the listening adult, while clearly making reference to their child, that “it is almost time for his b-a-t-h.” When engaging in such action, the parent is communicating on multiple levels, and the listener would need to have “ears to hear” what is being said. One level is the communication that the child has not yet learned how to spell. Another level is the communication that the child does not like to take baths. An additional level is the communication that the child, quite possibly, becomes very difficult to deal with at bath time. Another possibility is that the parent is communicating that it is nearly time for the child to go to bed. The parent could also be indicating that he or she looks forward to time for baths, because that means bed time is near and the parent can now have some personal time. It is also a possibility that mention of the child’s bath is a way of letting the hearer know that it is time for them to leave. There are any number of possibilities, and the hearer is going to have to have ears to hear in order to know how to respond to what is being communicated. This, of course, would be an example of benign usage of asking somebody to have “ears to hear.”
Without going into too much detail, more deleterious examples of subversive language that demand ears to hear would be the use of coded language by those wishing to avoid scrutiny by government officials, as in the case of organized crime syndicates or terrorist groups. Communications by such groups often use language that sounds completely benign on the surface, whether in verbal of written communications, but for those with ears to hear, the words used take on entirely different and perhaps dangerous meanings.
It might also be the case that, rather than force an audience to a pre-determined conclusion that is in the mind of the presenter, the one speaking wants the audience to do the mental work of coming to a conclusion themselves. We do this all of the time, when we say things that sounds like questions but are actually declarative statements meant to imply that a particular conclusion should have been reached. Examples of this are the use of phrases such as “You know what I mean” and “You understand what I am saying.” At first glance these look and sound like questions, but in reality are statements meant to push the hearer to process information, to make mental adjustments and calculations, and to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion. This, of course, runs the risk of the audience coming to a conclusion that the presenter of the information may not have in mind, which makes it thoroughly incumbent upon the one making the presentation to build a case that basically forces the audience to see things in a certain way, without being told precisely how to think.
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