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MATTHEW 11:15 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 11:14Matt 11:16
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The call to spiritual hearing — he who has ears to hear, let him hear — appears at crucial junctures in Jesus' teaching as a summons to the deeper level of perception that the spiritual truth requires. The teaching about John's identity as Elijah is precisely the kind of claim that the spiritually attentive will receive and the spiritually dulled will miss. The invitation to hear is the invitation to the kind of receptive attention that opens the kingdom's reality.

Church Fathers on Matthew 11:15

That what He had last said should not lead any to suppose that John was an alien from the kingdom of heaven, He corrects this by adding, 'From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.'

Gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) · medieval compilation · non occ.

By the kingdom of heaven is meant the heavenly throne, wither when sinners defiled with any evil deed return in penitence, and amend themselves, they enter as sinners into the place of another, and take by violence the kingdom of heaven.

Gregory the Great · 6th century · Hom in Ev., xx. 14

Because John the Baptist was the first who preached repentance to the people, saying, 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;' rightly therefore from that day forth it may be said, that 'the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.' For great indeed is the violence, when we who are born of earth, seek an abode in heaven, and obtain by excellence what we have not by nature.

Jerome · 4th century
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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