“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realise what you heard is not what I meant.” Confused? Such a statement is an example of poor communication. 

Communication – how integral it is to our very survival. Without being able to communicate with one another, life would be impossible. 

Sadly, poor communication is one of the greatest causes of marital breakups, church conflict, and all-round human strife.  People everywhere are talking to each other, but often, little communication is taking place. For the Christian, this should not be the case. The Bible has given us precise and detailed instructions on how to improve communication. God has devoted large sections of His Word toward the tongue, speech and the use of our words. 

We really have no excuse in Christian marriages for a breakdown of communication. We have no excuse for huge misunderstandings and crossed lines in our churches. We have no excuse for being the source of conflict in other social situations due to poor communication. The Bible has given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness, and communication is one of them. 

However, very few people, and few Christians, enter into marriage or other relationships adequately prepared to be Biblical, God-pleasing communicators.  What is the Bible’s perspective on communication? The place to start is to realise that God Himself is a communicator. The only reason we have salvation and reconciliation with Him, is because He chose to communicate with us. 

God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds. 

Hebrews 1:1-2

Indeed, the name given to His Son in the Gospel of John is the Word. A word is the verbal means of communication. It carries an idea – a message – that is to be understood. God’s primary means of communicating Himself to us has been in His Son Jesus Christ. Those who repent of sin and receive Him as Lord and Saviour become acquainted with God – and a life of communication with Him begins. 

God wants to communicate. He wanted to walk with Adam each day in the cool of the day. He wanted to speak to us, even when we burnt the bridge through our sin. God wants us, firstly, to communicate with Him, and then communicate with our fellow men in a way which pleases Him. Poor, faulty, untruthful, harsh communication is not fitting for a believer. We must communicate like the Great Communicator – our Father in Heaven.

What is communication? We might define it is as sharing with another, so as to enable them to understand your intended meaning. Communication is where we want another person to take in and understand what we mean, and then reverse the process as they share their meaning and we seek to understand. However, already, with this simple definition, we need to have two pre-requisites for good Biblical communication.

1. Firstly, the two people who want to communicate in a God-pleasing way, must want to please God more than self in their communication. 

See, if all you have is two selfish people committed to having their own desires met, then all good communication will do is make the selfish intentions of those two hearts abundantly clear. We do not want to simply be accurate; we want to be God-fearing. 

That means that two people who want God-honouring communications must have come to a point where they are willing to surrender their own desires, seek to please God first, sacrificially love the other person second, and leave their own desires for last. We’ve talked about this before. James 4 tells us the root of conflict comes from the strong desires we have within. 

As our selfish pride takes up its place as ruler of our lives, it regards its desires as dependencies – needs. It then demands that others meet them, and then experiences frustration and disappointment when they are not met. Them it punishes and hurts the other person for denying them their desire. The answer here will not be good communication, but a humble surrender of my wants and wishes – to a greater principle – pleasing God in the situation. 

It means the lust I was pursuing is no longer an idol that controls me, instead what is controlling me is the desire to please and love God in my reaction to this other person. 2 Corinthians 5:9 says, “Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.” We must want to please God first. We have to include the third party of God in all human situations, otherwise they degenerate into a war of selfish desires.

• The second thing we need for good communication, flowing logically out of the last one, is humility. 

Humility is difficult to define. It’s someone embracing the reality that they are actually a sinner with limitations, sins and faults in need of outside help, power and accountability. It is a creature acknowledging the fact that they are not capable of living life apart from the sustaining hand and wisdom of God. 

Humility is all the reactions that flow out of a heart that sees it is truly not a god, but a redeemed sinner, a helpless creature, needing God’s power, provision, direction, fellowship. Humility submits to God, listens to God, depends on God, desires God, wants God to be praised and exalted, and lives in thanksgiving toward God. 

Why is humility a pre-requisite toward good communication? Because pride makes true communication impossible. Since communication is the sharing of my soul with another, pride makes this impossible with its self-protectiveness, aloofness, boasting, attacking, scoring points, hiding behind masks and other such things. A proud person is not interested in the give and take of communication, only in the take. 

Pride cannot forgive, pride cannot prefer another, pride cannot praise. In short, pride cannot love, except itself. The proud wish to protect themselves, benefit themselves and stop themselves from being too exposed. Humility has dropped the mask. It wants to help the other person, wants to understand and be understood.  It does not have to win arguments, come out looking smarter or better, maintain a good image, or defend its name. 

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

Ephesians 4:1-3

Here Paul, speaking in the context of church unity, tells believers that unity is not something they must create – but something they must maintain. The unity is there – it is God-given through our relationship with one another. 

Paul says the maintenance of unity is done through humility. You do not need to build unity – humility is simply the maintenance of what is supernaturally existing in the Spirit. What destroys unity is pride. As self rises up to prefer itself over another, strife, envying, unforgiveness and bitterness will result.

• Thirdly, our communication with God must be effective for communication with others to thrive. 

A relationship between two believers is like a triangle. God is at the top point. The two believers are like the bottom two points. If the two believers are individually heading up to that top point, then they are necessarily drawing closer to each other as well. However, if either one of them has a breakdown in communication with God – it will stifle the communication with the other believer. 

1 John 4:11 says “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” Verse 19 tells us “We love Him, because He first loved us.” See, our relationship with God will always be the power and motive behind our relationship with others. Without a healthy relationship with God – how can we ever love the unlovable, or even love another person when it seems difficult – in a time of conflict? 

It is only through a walk with God – who loves those who are unthankful, who blesses billions with food who never even thank Him for it – that we gain the kind of grace necessary to be sacrificial people who can communicate even to those who are poor at reciprocating.

Well, if we are seeking to please God more than self, humbling ourselves before each other, and growing in our communication with God, we are in the right state to be good communicators. Jesus summed it up when He said the following: 

Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

Matthew 12:33-35

See, out of the heart of man – the mouth speaketh. So we want to change the heart before we speak, otherwise we will simply speak things that are evil, destructive and harmful. However, let us assume that those three pre-requisites are in place. What, then, according to the Bible, is biblical communication? It is made up of three things: active listening, godly speaking, and common understanding.

Active listening

Listening is not something we do naturally. We are far more prone to want our opinions broadcast, heard and understood. We want to be understood more than we want to understand another. We are impatient to speak and to be heard, and have often little time to listen to another. 

Indeed, many people do not listen – they simply wait to talk. Their listening is actually being patient enough to allow the other person’s verbal time to end so that they may begin to say what they want to say. Someone correctly pointed out that God gave us two ears and one mouth – God wants us to be listeners. Another pointed out that God gave us a mouth that closes, and ears that don’t. God expects us to be good listeners.

James 1:19, speaking in the context of listening to the Word, gives us a good definition of listening: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” Swift to hear. Often in Scripture the idea of ‘hear’ or ‘listen’ has the idea in the Greek of ‘pricking up the ears,’ like an animal that hears a sound. It speaks of attention, concentration and diligent thought being applied. 

Listening is not passive. That is our problem. We tend to think of communication as talking, and listening as the sort of neutral gear that you are in when you are not communicating. No – listening is an active part of communicating. If one of you is not listening, then communication is not taking place. James says we must be quick to hear. Active listening is eager to take in what is being said, eager to hear something to the end – it rushes to the opportunity of hearing the one it loves speak. 

Slow to speak – that means we cull and resist the urge to interrupt, formulate our own answers or monopolise the conversation. There is almost a reluctance to begin speaking, versus an eagerness to listen. Slow to wrath speaks of the hearts control over anger. So often conflict and anger boil up due to poor communication – a good communicator does not react, but acts. They seek to act on what needs to be said, having listened, rather than react in anger to what they think they heard.

Listening to someone means considering and weighing up what they are saying. It means that you take in what is being said, as it is being said. Think and concentrate while they are speaking. This is an active process. Proverbs 18:13 tells us how not to listen: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” To answer a matter – that is, to have an opinion, or to interrupt, or to make conclusions – before the other person is finished, is not listening – and that is a folly and a shame. 

The poorest listeners make a habit of three things: they regularly interrupt people; they repeat the same answer to numerous statements; and they tell you what you meant, i.e., their interpretation of what you said, even if that is not what you meant. With such a person, true communication is never really occurring, because they are never really listening. Listening means to take in what someone is saying. 

Here are some guidelines for biblical communication:

1. Never interrupt. 

Interrupting is the fastest way to destroy communication. It means you regard another person’s communication as excessive and wasteful, you feel you have the right to cut them off and speak. That is not only behaving unseemly – which is a violation of 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love, but also extremely arrogant. 

There may be rare exceptions to this rule – such as dealing with a person that is out of control, or someone who literally does not stop talking for 20 minutes at a time. But listening means allowing a person to finish. Interrupting destroys communication because you are saying you do not want that person to go on sharing – you only want to hear what you want. That means it is not a give and take – rather, the one interrupting is trying to control the whole conversation, by cutting off what they do not want to hear. 

• Don’t form answers to what people are saying while they are speaking. 

That’s also answering a matter before you hear it. Some people think conversations are supposed to be like a draw in the Wild West – who can be first off the mark with clever replies, sharp comebacks and intelligent responses. To do this, they do not truly listen, but think about how to reply while the other person is speaking. 

However, Proverbs 15:28 says: “The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things.” The righteous study to answer – they ponder what has been said. It is the foolish and the wicked who are rash and brash with their replies. Conversation is not a competition. You can take your time to digest what has been said. That will probably speed the whole process up, instead of needless repetition because of misunderstanding caused by poor listening.

• Don’t interpret a person’s words beyond their stated meaning. 

For instance, a wife may say, “Boy, the housework is really tiring.” Now the husband can assign a meaning to that which it does not have. He may think, “She’s upset with me because I’m not helping her all the time.” That is not listening. As we will see, if that is in fact how she feels, it is part of clear and truthful communication to state that, without trying to use hints and subtle statements. But poor listening means to try and read hidden meanings or emotions into the words.  

For a perceptive person, this can create endless conflict, as they try to play pet-psychologist and always read behind the words. The solution is for the wife in this example to be clear and give up on hinting and manipulating, and for the husband to give up analysing the meaning behind the meaning. She said, “The housework is tiring.”  That’s all she said – it’s a statement of fact. 

Now the husband may ask if she would like anything to help her relax, if he can help in any way, or just ask her about it all – perhaps all she wants to do is communicate about her day. Instead of pretending to be wise in your own eyes, humble yourself by asking questions. Ask for clarification. Ask things like, “Could you explain a bit more?” “Is this what you are saying?” “Could you say that again?” 

Asking questions helps clarify a meaning. Assigning a meaning to something simply because you think you ‘know’ someone is a one-way street to conflict. When your assigned meaning is not the intended meaning, you will end up fighting over what you said and didn’t say. Listen and clarify. If the person is not that direct, then ask questions that will lead to the heart of what they are saying. 

• Limit how much you speak when you talk. 

Although this might not seem like a part of listening, it really is. If you try to monopolise a conversation, and leave no breaks in it, you will create a kind of desperation in each other – each trying to throw in their opinion, because they know the other person is busy loading their 5-minute speech. Allow for breaks, allow for silences for the other person to process what you have said, to formulate what they want to say, and then say it to you.

• Comment appropriately when someone is speaking. 

Give little comments or gestures to show that you are actively listening. The stereotypical male grunt or ‘mmm’ mumbled from behind a screen is all too often a reality. The bored or indifferent responses to a person’s communication kills it from the start. Yes, a talkative person can try or test your patience in this regard. Sometimes a polite request to slow down or to be still for a while can be well received.  

A poor listener will sometimes use the tactic of simply saying nothing. By being absolutely quiet, they hope to starve the one talking of the necessary approval to go on speaking. When a person you are speaking to shows no response at all, it really cuts the legs off your desire to keep speaking to them. 

• Watch your body language when listening.  

Too often, you may be quiet, but your body language reflects, or at least suggests the idea that you are not listening. Sighing while the other person says something, shaking the head, rolling the eyes, folding the arms – such actions will only antagonise the person speaking. It will make them try to force their point home with aggression, for your body language shows you are answering a matter before you hear it. 

Once again, being slow to speak and quick to listen must be reflected even in body language. Look at the person speaking, listen intently, allow them to finish. Nod, or comment appropriately to show you are listening, not just waiting for them to finish. Avoid looking away, or being easily distracted by other people, conversations, noises or events. Show the person that what they are saying is what you are concentrating on, to the exclusion of all else.  

Again, it devalues a person’s sense of the importance of their own communication when the slightest thing causes you to avert your eyes and look at other things. So active listening is something we can all work on. It goes beyond waiting for another to finish speaking. It means concentrating intently on what they are saying; refusing to interrupt; refusing to formulate answers while they are speaking; refusing to assign meanings to what they are saying. 

Instead, it means asking appropriate questions for clarification, to find out the intended meaning. It means refusing to monopolise a conversation, but allowing for time for both of you to digest, formulate answers and reply in a God-pleasing way. It means commenting appropriately and responsively. It means making sure your body language reflect the fact that you are not answering a matter before you have heard it.

Active listening is just the first part of biblical communication. We are still to look at the issues of godly speaking and common understanding. Join me next week as we continue to look at the topic of biblical communication.