One of my pet dislikes, is people who are thinking of the next
question they are going to ask you before you stop speaking. A leader
called Dave from a church i was once in did this all the time. In
deep discussion he did not listen to your question but was more
concern with what he was going to say, to press home his point. It
was like talking to a brick wall and no matter how hard i tried it
always ended up a one way conversation. It taught me grace, but it's
still something that i dislike.

I bring this up as today i received this from John Pipers freshwords
on the art of listening;

Meditation on Proverbs 18:13
"If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and
shame."

It is arrogant to answer before you hear. Humility does not presume
that it knows precisely what a person is asking until the questioner
has finished asking the question. How many times have I jumped to a
wrong conclusion by starting to formulate my answer before I heard
the whole question! Often it is the last word in the question that
turns the whole thing around and makes you realize that they are not
asking what you thought they were.

It is rude to answer a half-asked question. "Rude" is a
useful word
for Christians. It means "ill-mannered, discourteous." The
New
Testament word for it is aschçmonei. It is used in 1 Corinthians
13:5
where modern versions translate it, "Love is not rude," but
the old
King James Version has "Love doth not behave itself
unseemly." This
means that love not only follows absolute moral standards, but also
takes cultural mores and habits and customs into account. What is
polite? What is courteous? What are good manners? What is proper?
What is good taste? What is suitable? Love is not indifferent to
these. It uses them to express its humble desire for people's
good.
One such politeness is listening well to a question before you
answer.

Not answering a question before you hear it all honors and respects
the person asking the question. It treats the person as though their
words really matter. It is belittling to another to presume to be
able to finish their question before they do.

Careful listening to a question often reveals that the question has
several layers and is really more than one question. Several
questions are all mixed into one. When you see this, you can break
the question down into parts and answer them one at a time. You will
not see such subtleties if you are hasty with your answer and not
careful in your listening.

A question sometimes reveals assumptions that you do not share. If
you try to answer the question on the basis of your assumptions
without understanding the questioner's assumptions, you will
probably
speak right past him. If you listen carefully and let the person
finish, you may discern what he is assuming that you do not. Then you
can probe these assumptions before you answer. Often, when dealing at
this level, the question answers itself. It was really about these
deeper differences.

Questions usually have attitudes as well as content. The attitude
sometimes tells you as much as the content about what is really being
asked. In fact, the attitude may tell you that the words being used
in this question are not all what the issue is. When that is
discerned, we should not make light of the words, but seriously ask
questions to see if the attitude and the words are really asking the
same question. If not, which is the one the questioner really wants
answered?

Questions have context that you need to know. So many thoughts and
circumstances and feelings may be feeding into this question that we
don't know about or understand. Careful listening may help you
pick
up those things. It may be that there is just a small clue that some
crucial circumstance is behind the question. If you catch the clue,
because you are listening carefully, you may be able to draw that out
and be able to answer the question so much more helpfully.

Questions are made up of words. Words have meanings that are formed
by a person's experience and education. These words may not carry
the
same meaning for both you and the questioner. If you want to answer
what they are really asking, you must listen very carefully. When the
possibility exists that their question is rooted in a different
understanding of a word, we will be wise to talk about the meaning of
our words before we talk about the answer to the question. I find
that talking about the definitions of words in questions usually
produces the answer to the questions.

Proverbs 8:13 says it is our "folly" to answer before we
hear. That
is, it will make us a fool. One reason for this is that almost all
premature answers are based on thinking we know all we need to know.
But that is "foolish." Our attitude should be: What can I
learn from
this question? The fool thinks he knows all he needs to know.

And finally Proverbs 8:13 says that it is our "shame" to
answer
before we hear. What if you are asked publicly, "My wife and I
have
had serious problems and we were wondering . . ." and you cut the
questioner off by giving your answer about the value of counseling
and what counselors might be helpful. But then they say, "Well,
actually, what I was going to say was, "My wife and I have had
serious problems and we were wondering, now that our counseling is
over and things are better than ever, how you would suggest that we
celebrate?" Then you will be shamed for not listening.

Still learning to listen with you,
Pastor John

It is a lesson well learnt to be a better listener than speaker!