Cities are noisy places. Delft is no exception. Automobiles, brommers, trams, trucks, motorcycles, motorboats, machinery of all kinds create a cacophonous city. I live down the road from the police and fire department and daily hear the wailing, screaming sirens.

No wonder so many people go about with “noise-cancellation” ear buds protruding from both sides of their heads.

Now if only we had noise-cancellation for the news and social media as well. Just signal. No noise.

I read a thought provoking article recently, The author suggested that if we wish to live aright we should take care of what we pay attention to. Listen to signal, not to noise advised the author writing from a secular perspective. In general I think this is sound advice (pun intended). Yet I immediately saw how much more this applies to a Christian worldview.

Listen to God’s Word. God’s Word is all signal and no noise.

And yet, there are places in the Bible that may sound strange or incongruous to us, analogous to “distortion” in recorded music. We may not cancel it out, but we pay little attention as though it were noise.

This Sunday’s sermon passage, Nehemiah chapter 3 may seem strange to us. It reads almost like a work report at a construction site, with long lists of names and construction details. Why in the world is this here in the Bible? This cannot just be noise. Where is the signal?

Join us this Sunday for worship. The signal is there and it is marvelous.

Bob Landon