Curious Christian

In my reflections today I came across this amazing quote from Ignatius in his letter to the Ephesians:

A man who has truly mastered the utterances of Jesus will also be able to apprehend his silence, and thus reach full spiritual maturity, so that his own words have the force of actions and his silences the significance of speech.

I was particularly grabbed by the last two phrases. While the evangelical emphasis of the word can be a strength, the shadow side is that it can lead to an unreflective wordiness if not balanced by an understanding that Jesus was the Word even when he was not speaking. Yet that understanding also needs to be counterbalanced – there is a time to speak.