The listening skills that enable us to understand and apply the Scriptures
are by-and-large the same ones we need to get along with the people around us.
The skills can even function apart from our reading ability.
Use the following ten common-sense tools with your friends, your family, your boss, and your Bible.
1. Immediate Context: Stop interrupting me! Hear my whole thought! Oh, the communication blunders we could avoid by simply hearing each other's complete thoughts. Likewise, when reading the Bible or hearing it read, we must learn to listen to each part in the context of the whole thought.
a. First, get the big picture. Where does the thought begin and end? Why is the author writing or
the speaker speaking? Who is the audience? How would you summarize the thought?
b. Then look for important details.
c. Finally, identify any assumptions you may have made about unspoken or unwritten details.
2. Translations: Here's what I think you meant... Did I get that right?... No? I'm sorry. Tell me again, using different words... Oh, so what you really mean is this?... The process of feeding back what we thought someone meant and asking if we got it right is called active listening. Many of us could revolutionize our communication skills by learning how to do this better. We can actively listen to the Bible by looking at different translations of our passage. Hearing the same passage in different words will help us catch what we might otherwise miss.
3. Commentaries: Hey John, did you hear what my friend just said? Of all the crazy... What's that? You say that I'm taking it all wrong?... Hey Lisa, what do you think my friend meant?... Hmmm... OK. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Hearing commentaries from others can help us counter our natural bias and catch the speaker's intended meaning. Likewise, looking at footnotes and commentaries in a study Bible can keep us from jumping to false conclusions. By the way, are you looking for the "best" study Bible or commentary? A more fruitful approach is to look at several. This helps you avoid the bias of any one of them. If you don't like to read, try joining a Bible study group where others bring their Study Bibles and you ask probing questions.
4 & 5. Expanding levels of context: Shame on me for taking what you just said out of context. You hoped I'd remember what you told me earlier today. I didn't. You hoped I'd caught what you shared last week about your childhood. I forgot about that. If only I had paid attention earlier, I would have heard your heart just now. Likewise, when we hear a Bible passage in the light of the context of its biblical book (4) and the context of the whole Bible (5), we often surprise ourselves with new clarity that jumps out at us. Favorite tools for searching the whole Bible include cross-references, concordances, and subject indexes.
6. Setting: My friend, I said one little thing, and you exploded. It seemed so unfair. Then I started learning about your history and culture, where you lived, and what you suffered. I should have realized that you weren't exploding at me. So much of what you say makes sense, now that I know the setting of your life. Likewise, knowing the historical, cultural, and physical setting of a Bible passage can profoundly clarify its meaning.
7 & 8. Figurative language and communication genres: The way you talk enriches my life. It took me a while to catch the meaning of your humor, but it was well worth the effort. I've grown by learning to understand your word pictures and metaphors. The "color" in your language helps me understand you better. People use figurative language and various communication genres to express what's going on in their hearts. Some use all kinds of word pictures; others use humor, others poetry, song, etc. We'll miss the intended meaning of the people around us if we fail to interpret what they say in light of the kind of language they use. Likewise, the biblical authors used figurative language (7), such as metaphor, irony, and symbolism. We must interpret their figurative language figuratively and their literal language literally. They also use a variety of genres (8) such as parable, prophecy, proverb, and Hebrew poetry, each of which has special rules for interpretation.
9. Word study: You just used a word I thought I knew. But what you said didn't make any sense. Then I found the courage to ask you what that word meant. Suddenly I caught your meaning. How often we miss the very heart of what someone has said, simply because we are too embarrassed to ask them what they meant by using a certain word or too lazy to look it up in a dictionary. Likewise, it's sometimes helpful to know how the biblical authors used their Hebrew and Greek as they penned the books of the Bible. Few of us know Hebrew and Greek, but that's OK. We can still use resources that make it easier than ever before to explore how these words were used throughout the Bible.
Understanding the Bible is like fishing—If we're not paying attention, our catch will get away. When we fish the Bible, our quest is to "catch" the author's intended meaning and be transformed by it. The old saying goes, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." Like catching fish from oceans and lakes, catching the author's intended meaning from the pages of Scripture is a habit we can develop. In doing this, we find nourishment for the rest of our lives and increasingly experience the joy of helping others catch fish too!
10. Application: When you told me what you wanted me to do, I was confused and thought your plan was ridiculous. Later, I asked questions and realized that it was an excellent plan. Best of all, I saw how to make it work. Likewise, the Bible has things for us to do, plans to follow, and new insights to encourage us. When things are unclear, there are helpful questions we can ask. When we understand what Scripture is saying, it guides us in the right direction. The Bible was not meant just to increase our knowledge but to change our lives. Ask God what He wants you to do about what you've read.
If you are trying to master the ten tools and want to put them to increasingly good use, here's a suggested pathway: (1) Use the tools with the people around you, and your Bible listening skills will also improve. (2) Use the tools with the Bible, and your people skills will increase. (3) Pass on the principles to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2Timothy 2:2)
