Do We Listen

When trying to understand an idea, I always like to start with a definition of the main thought. Here is Webster’s definition of listen.

“Listen” means to give attention to sounds or what someone is saying, involving an active effort to hear and understand.

When searching Google for the Biblical definition of listen I found this.

“Listen” (often from the Hebrew shama) means more than just hearing; it’s active, attentive, and implies obedience, requiring focus and a heart ready to understand and act on God’s word, not just passively receive sound. It signifies paying attention, heeding counsel, and responding with action, reflecting respect for the speaker, whether God or another person.

Listening is an “active effort to understand” and “requires focus and a heart ready to understand”. It signifies paying attention. If we are not actively trying to understand someone, are we actually listening? Listening happens in one of five levels-

1. Ignoring

2. Pretending

3. Selective Listening

4. Attentive Listening

5. Empathetic Listening

Ignoring is obviously not listening. The person ignoring has no interest in what the speaker is saying.

Pretending to listen is less obvious. The hearer is actually distracted by something else but is acting like they are listening. A classic example is a husband sitting at the breakfast table scrolling through the morning news and his wife is talking while he is reading. He might make comments to her like, “Yes dear” or “That’s interesting dear”, but he really has no idea what she said.

Selective listening is listening for what you want to hear believing you already know. The goal of a selective listener is to hear what they want and ignore the rest. It is self-focused listening.

Attentive listening is wanting to hear what the speaker is saying but only focusing on what words the speaker is using. Individual definition of words can differ. You may miss the actual meaning by only hearing the words if your definition of the words differs from the speaker.

Empathetic listening focuses not only on words, but also body language and emotion. The listener listens with the intent to understand what the speaker is communicating, not what they think they are saying about the topic. It is listening with your ears, your eyes and your heart. It is listening for feelings, meaning and behavior. We cannot truly communicate with others if we aren’t empathetic listeners.

Adding our opinion comes after we clearly understand what was being communicated. In Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the 7 Habits is “Seek to understand before you seek to be understood”. Asking questions for clarification is a good way to ensure you hear what they are saying. Statements like “Did you mean…” or “I think you said…” can be very helpful in understanding what they meant.

There is a scene in the video series The Chosen that has embedded in my mind. Jesus is seated with all the ladies at a meal with Mary Magdalene setting next to Him. The scene takes place only days before His crucifixion. He is talking directly to Mary and looking deeply into her eyes. He says, “You understand what must happen, but the others don’t”. She says, “Yes Lord, I do”. Jesus says, “You understand because you listen”. The truth made her very sad, but she listened for the truth and understood it.

Why did the rest of His followers not understand. He told them multiple times that He must die. Why did they not know? They were either “selective listeners” listening to what they wanted to hear or “active listeners” that heard the words but didn’t understand what Jesus was saying. A good example of this is Jesus’ conversation with Peter in Matthew 16:21-23.

²¹ From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

²² Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!”

²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

How many times could Jesus have said to us, “Get behind me Satan”? When we read His Word do we take the truth as actual fact or do we strain it with our own “filter” of truth matching it with what we currently believe? When we read what is often call a “hard teaching” do we recognize it as truth even if we don’t understand it or do we create our own definition of truth?

For example, multiple times Scripture says, “don’t worry”. What does that mean to us? Are there times when it is alright to worry? Are there some things that are big enough problems that we need to worry about? I believe the answer to not worrying is “childlike faith”. A good example of that kind of faith is a father throwing a toddler up in the air and catching them. The child laughs with joy. There was no “worry” about the father dropping them. Do we think there might be problems so big that our Lord might drop us?

There seems often to be a disconnect between the theory Scripture teaches and how we bring the truth into our lives. If we worry instead of following Scripture that says, “don’t worry”, what type of listener are we? Are we being a Selective listener to hear what we want to hear or are we an Attentive listener hearing the words but not believing it fits our particular situation.

Our challenge is to become empathetic listeners. We must decide if we want our conversations to help us understand each other at a deeper level. Do we really want to know what the other person thinks about something, or do we just want to convince them that our opinion is the correct opinion?

When we are in a conversation with an unbeliever, do we want to know what they actually believe and why they believe it, or do we want to tell them what we believe. Are we trying to help them take the wall down between the Lord and themselves or is our approach giving them another reason to build the wall higher?

The thing I have come to realize is that our Lord knows the hearts of everyone. He knows when His Spirit has softened a hard heart and they are ready to hear His truth. We need to let the Holy Spirit show us when others are ready for us to take the opportunity to share the Truth with them. I had an evangelist that was holding a revival in our church years ago tell me, “It doesn’t do any good to try to pick green fruit. If the Holy Spirit isn’t there first, we are not working in harmony with Him”. We cannot “will” someone into heaven. That is the work of our Lord. Our job is to listen, look for opportunities to share Biblical truth and leave to rest to our Lord.

That takes me back to the Biblical definition. “Listen” (often from the Hebrew shama) means more than just hearing; it’s active, attentive, and implies obedience, requiring focus and a heart ready to understand and act on God’s word, not just passively receive sound. It signifies paying attention, heeding counsel, and responding with action, reflecting respect for the speaker, whether God or another person.

May our Lord help us be empathetic listeners