Communication

by Jeffrey W. Hamilton

A profound shift has occurred in the way we communicate.

At one time, a speaker had something to say and would relay it to a listener. Basic communication, I know. “Teaching, in its simplest sense, is the communication of knowledge.”(1) There has to be a source (the speaker), a target (the listener), and a means of transmission (the language). This communication of ideas hinges on the listener understanding the intent of the speaker. It is the speaker who has the information he is trying to convey. Confirmation of what was understood is often relayed back to allow the speaker to clarify or adjust his communication.

However, the trend is for the listener to be more important. It is not about what you say, but how I understood it, and how it makes me feel. When someone says, “When you say that, it makes me feel ...,” there is a subtle shift. The speaker is made responsible for the listener’s emotional state.

• “He made me feel terrible.”
• “She makes me so frustrated.”
• “You’re making me really unhappy.”

It is essential to understand the emotional state of another person, but there is an error in the cause of the feeling: you are saying the speaker made the feeling. You are saying he is responsible for your emotional state.

In communication, the listener determines which portions of the speaker’s statements and behaviors to focus on. In other words, the listener filters the information he receives to make the quantity manageable. Our personal biases strongly influence this filtering.

From the filtered information that we gathered, we interpret the speaker’s communication and fit it into our mental model of the world. We then develop theories regarding the speaker’s motives and intentions that allow the message to fit our view and our memories of past interactions with the speaker and other people.

Finally, we react to the conclusions we drew, which includes our emotional response. However, notice who is responsible for the conclusions. We are! “Clearly, we're responsible in any number of ways when we have an emotional response to another person, and when we say, ‘You make me feel...’ we're shirking our responsibility and foisting it onto the other person. At that moment, we're acting like a victim.”(2) A victim sees himself as disconnected from the situation. Circumstances happen to the victim, and he believes there is nothing he can do to affect the situation.

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist who worked in the late 1800s to early 1900s in the field of semiotics. Saussure argued that language was not fixed. Instead, words and symbols were social and cultural constructs. A speaker may communicate in words that the listener understands differently from the speaker’s intent. This observation was hijacked and used in a way that Saussure never intended (ironically). Truth has become subjective in modern society, so people feel justified in interpreting messages subjectively. They claim that the true meaning is in what the listener feels when he heard the speaker.

Today, people often feel entitled to reinterpret the words communicated to them, based solely on their emotions, experiences, and biases, regardless of what the speaker actually said or intended to convey. Communication becomes self-centered. It is focused on the listener’s ego. The speaker merely becomes a canvas for the listener’s ideas to be projected upon.

The meaning of words in language is not arbitrary. “If I say, ‘I love rainy days,' intending to express the joy in cozy introspection, but you interpret it as a metaphor for depression based on your feelings, you’ve not ‘discovered’ a new meaning – you’ve invented one.”(3) Without understanding the speaker’s intent, communication breaks down and chaos reigns. Meaning comes from use and context, not the feelings of the listener. To deny that language has meaning is to deny that relevant communication could ever take place. “For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air” (I Corinthians 14:8-9).

When feelings reign supreme, why bother trying to understand other people? Our feelings absolve us from being sympathetic to others. Friendships devolve as connection and trust are broken. There is no love for your fellow man. Love assumes the best intentions in the speaker (I Corinthians 13:4-7). Love believes the speaker is rational and truthful until proven otherwise. However, since it is about my feelings, I assume the speaker is purposely making me feel bad. We tend to interpret the speaker’s statements in the worst possible light and twist them into offenses that suit our agenda. Instead, God teaches that “A man's discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression” (Proverbs 19:11).

In his book, Love and Respect, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs discusses how men and women inherently think differently. This difference between genders is a major source of strife in couples. He says something that she perceives as being unloving, even though that may have been the furthest thing from his intent. She says something, and he interprets it as disrespectful, though that was not her intent. They see the world differently, and they don’t intuitively understand the other person. One of Dr. Emerson’s key points is that the couple has to approach communication from the premise that their spouse has good intentions and seek to learn how to see matters from their point of view. Accurately seeking the other person’s intention is far more important than your own feelings and interpretation. “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

In truth, looking at communication only from my own viewpoint is intellectual laziness disguised as intelligence. People stop learning because personal feelings overlay diverse views. It is the speaker who is transmitting information; thus, it is not for the listener to decide what that information ought to be. “A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind” (Proverbs 18:2). “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly” (Proverbs 14:29).

This isn’t a call for blind acceptance, which is also lazy thinking. It is a call to put in the effort to understand the meaning of a speaker’s words through the knowledge of his intent before drawing conclusions and making judgments. “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20). Notice the point: Don’t be quick to judge what someone has said and have an emotional response to it. We need charitable listening, asking clarifying questions (not veiled accusations), considering the context of what is being said, and resisting the urge to impose our feelings on what someone else says. “Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:9).

When you understand what other people are trying to say, you can approach the conversation calmly (Proverbs 17:27-28). “The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (II Timothy 2:24-25).

Words have meaning. We should strive to communicate in a manner that is easily understood by those listening. However, we should also listen intently to understand the speaker’s intended message. Failure to do so results in strife, broken relationships, and a distorted view of everything around us.

Footnotes:

1. Gregory, John Milton. The Seven Laws of Teaching, p. 2.
2. Ed Batista, “You Make Me Feel... (On Language and Responsibility),” 29 December 2016.
3. Brandon Edwards, Facebook post, read on 26 July 2025.