Mark 7:34 · World English Bible
Mark 7:34 Meaning Looking Up to Heaven
Looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!”
What does Mark 7:34 mean?
The single word spoken here is spoken to every closed mind: be opened. What had been shut was not an ear of flesh but a perception sealed against love, and the sigh is the recognition of how long a mind can hold itself deaf to what has been calling all along.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Mark 7:34 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The single word spoken here is spoken to every closed mind: be opened. What had been shut was not an ear of flesh but a perception sealed against love, and the sigh is the recognition of how long a mind can hold itself deaf to what has been calling all along.
Opening is not an achievement wrung from effort; it is a barrier laid down. When a mind consents to hear, the sound it had been refusing turns out to have been present the whole time, and the healing is simply that it stopped closing.
Heaven: the state of mind at one with love, the changeless source the healer turns toward before he speaks. Ear: the mind's capacity to receive truth, shut fast by fear until it consents to be opened.
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live Mark 7:34 today
- Give yourself ten quiet minutes today with the phone face down and nothing playing. You are not trying to achieve anything, just letting the room back in.
- Let someone finish a whole thought without planning your answer while they talk. Hearing them is not agreeing with them, it is just opening the door.
- When advice arrives that you do not want, hold off on the defense for one breath and ask if any part of it is true. You can still disagree afterward.
What have I been refusing to hear, and what would change if I let it in?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
The gate has no latch on the outside. Stop pushing and it turns out it was never locked, only held shut.
Tao Te Ching
Things get done by not forcing. Stop straining and what you were reaching for arrives on its own.
Sufism · Rumi
In the Masnavi a man grows weary of calling out because no answer comes, and he is told that his very calling was the answer. The voice he waited for was already speaking in him.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Mark 7 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store