In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia explains from the Bible God’s design for communication. After explaining two critical clarifications regarding communication, Pastor Dave then discusses five rules for godly communication to practice in every relationship.
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Summary
We are reminded that communication in marriage is not merely a skill to be improved, but a reflection of the heart. This lesson teaches that poor communication is a symptom of deeper heart issues, and that true transformation in how we speak requires first being transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Key Lessons:
- Our words reveal what is in our hearts — careless and unguarded speech exposes whether our hearts are filled with godly love or sinful idolatry.
- We are accountable to God for every word we speak, including eye rolls, tone of voice, and silence — our communication serves as evidence of whether we belong to Christ.
- Five rules govern godly communication: listen to understand, speak truth in love, keep current, attack the problem not the person, and act rather than react.
- Heart transformation through the means of grace — Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and habitual repentance — is the foundation for lasting change in how we communicate.
Application: We are called to examine our most unguarded moments of communication, address issues with our spouses within 48 hours, and proactively put off natural tendencies toward withdrawal or aggression in favor of the kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness modeled by Christ.
Discussion Questions:
- In what unguarded moments — tired, hungry, stressed — do your words reveal what is truly in your heart, and what do they show you?
- Which of the five rules of godly communication is most challenging for you personally, and why?
- Are you more naturally a ‘retreater’ or a ‘bulldozer’ in conflict, and what specific step can you take this week to act rather than react?
Scripture Focus: Matthew 12:33–37 teaches that words flow from the heart and will be judged by God. Ephesians 4:15–16, 25–32 provides the framework for speaking truth in love, keeping current, attacking problems not persons, and putting on the new man in Christ. James 1:19–20 calls us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Outline
- Introduction
- Homework Review: Adultery and the Heart
- Homework Assignment: Knowing Your Spouse
- Topic Overview: God’s Design for Communication
- Critical Clarification #1: Communication Reflects the Heart
- Critical Clarification #2: Accountability to God
- Rule 1: Listen to Understand
- Rule 2: Speak Truth in Love
- Rule 3: Keep Current
- Rule 4: Attack the Problem, Not the Person
- Rule 5: Act, Don’t React
- Discussion: Cultivating a Godly Heart
- Practical Resources and Homework Application
Introduction
Good morning, good morning. Welcome to Sunday school. It’s already 9:00, so find your seats. Let’s get started.
Allow me to open in a word of prayer. Pray to the Lord with me. Lord God, we want to hear more from your word so that we can put it into practice. We want to see who you are. We want to see your way, especially when it comes to this topic of communication. Help me to communicate this well. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Okay, this is lesson seven in our Sunday school series: Biblical Counseling for Marriage and Parenthood. Before we get to the main lesson today, as is our custom, let’s talk about the homework from last week.
Homework Review: Adultery and the Heart
Last week you were assigned to read the chapter from “Men Counseling Men: Rebuilding a Marriage After Adultery” by Wayne Mack and write down five observations or questions. What are some things that you wrote down?
That’s fine, Mark. The big emphasis was that the causes of adultery are not external but internal. You can’t say, “Well, my wife did this,” or “I was going through this.” Those can provoke you in a certain direction, but they never make you do anything.
In fact, you will not really have repented of adultery until you’ve repented of those heart idols. If you and your wife are going to proceed in an effective way on rebuilding the marriage, it has to be with an actual uprooting, a full uprooting of the sin of adultery, which means getting to the heart level. That’s a good observation. What else?
“You will not really have repented of adultery until you’ve repented of those heart idols.”
Stephanie is bringing out how important it is to get Godly counsel versus worldly counsel, because it makes a big difference. There is wisdom in counsel that is generally true, but you also want to get wisdom from good counselors—those who actually are mature, those who are wise, and especially those who are believers.
I did note one section there that maybe was surprising to you: when it’s talking about confessing the sin of adultery and to whom do you confess that? Well, certainly you confess it to the spouse who has been wronged, but it can include more than that. In fact, the principle is that whoever it substantively touches, that person needs confession from you and needs to see your expressed repentance.
You might say, “Well, I don’t really know who that is.” That’s a good opportunity to get some counsel, especially from elders. Say, “I want to do this the right way, but whom should I speak to?” It can be a little bit unclear sometimes, so that’s definitely a good place where you want Godly counsel.
Other questions or observations? Tony?
Absolutely. We can’t be unrealistic and say, “Oh, adultery is a sin just like any other sin.” Well, yes, that’s true in one sense, but it is a uniquely destructive sin in a marriage. It really breaks apart trust. Yet, just as you were saying, Tony, God’s forgiving grace and transforming grace is great enough that it is not necessarily the end of a marriage.
It need not be. If a husband or wife has committed adultery, is truly repentant, and if the other spouse is cultivating a heart after God’s own, they can rebuild the marriage so that it can even be stronger than before. But that does take hard work, and that does take faith.
“If a husband or wife has truly repented, they can rebuild the marriage so that it can even be stronger than before.”
These are good observations. I hope that article was helpful to you. Thank you for reading it.
You may have noticed we’ve had several sobering reading assignments over the last few weeks, and that is important. But I thought with the next week’s assignment—oh, Sage, you want to say something?
I don’t think we should unsee the fact that it kind of focused on women also. I think we have to be careful as well.
That’s definitely true. Thank you for mentioning that, Sage. The article focused on men committing adultery, but that doesn’t mean that’s not a temptation for women or that women do not commit adultery. That is definitely something to keep in mind.
Now, the article was written in a book “Men Counseling Men,” so there’s a reason why it focused on men. But yes, the same things that the article talks about are applicable to the situation of women where they might say, “My husband is not caring for me,” or “Maybe my husband has committed adultery, so I’m going to commit adultery against him.” So there definitely—yes, we want to be aware of this for both sides.
But like I was saying, even the principles that were directed towards men in this particular article are relevant for both sides of the situation, though there are unique considerations for each. There might be some things that tempt men more into adultery that won’t tempt women as much into adultery, but it’s different for a woman. So that’s something we could explore another time.
Homework Assignment: Knowing Your Spouse
But definitely that’s valuable, Sage, to mention that it’s not just a problem for men. Like I was saying, we’ve had several sobering homework assignments, and I thought I’d give you a change of pace with the homework assignment for this upcoming week.
Maybe you saw it already if you are on the class list, but here’s what I’d like you to do for this next week. It’s not a reading assignment. Yes, it’s a little writing assignment.
We’re going to do a little “how well do” slash “getting to know your spouse” writing activity. If you’re married or you’re engaged or you’re dating someone, I’d like you and your significant other to write down two lists. So in total, four lists.
For the first list, I want you to write down ten specific ways that you would like your significant other to love and serve you. For the second list, write down ten specific ways that you believe your significant other would like to be loved and served.
These don’t have to be things that the other person is not doing right now. They can be, but they can also be things that the person is not currently doing or that you’re not currently doing. Do you make the items on the list specific?
Don’t write something general like “I want him to show that he cares for me” or “I want her to show me respect.” Be more specific. Write down how your spouse or you could do that. “I want him to take out the trash before I have to tell him,” or “I want her to bring me her concerns without judging me right off the bat.” Write things like that down.
Once you’ve completed your two lists and your significant other has as well, compare them. I think that will lead to some enlightening discussion, which is the point.
“Be specific. Write down how your spouse or you could show love — not something general like ‘I want him to show that he cares.’”
Once you have confirmed with your significant other specifically how you would like to love and serve one another, you should start doing those things for each other. Be ready to share how the activity goes for you at the beginning of the next class.
If God has not currently placed you in a significant other relationship, you can still do this activity with someone you live with: maybe a parent or a sibling or a roommate. Or you can do it with a friend with whom you don’t live, but you still have a relationship.
If you don’t have any friends, your homework assignment is to get to know other people in the church and start becoming a good friend to them so that they might become your good friends. That’s your assignment.
Questions about the homework?
Well, very good. Oh yes, it’s a pet. I don’t know if you can do this with a pet. The pet won’t be able to respond that much to it. So I’d recommend a human, at least.
Topic Overview: God’s Design for Communication
Okay, as I said, we’re talking about God’s design for communication today: his design for how you are to use the different aspects of communication—such as spoken words, written words, facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice—to bless others and glorify God.
We’re going to be focusing on what this design looks like in the marriage relationship specifically, but the principles we discuss will be relevant for all your relationships.
What is God’s design for communication? I’m going to give you five rules for godly communication. But before I do that, I need to give you two critical clarifications regarding communication.
As a side note, some of the material today—well, the whole class is based off the pastoral counseling class, the biblical counseling class that I went through in seminary from Dr. John Street. For this lesson, I’ve also supplemented it with some information from Dr. Greg Gifford, who is a professor at the Master’s University who teaches biblical counseling. He has a podcast called “Transformed” where he has several episodes on godly communication, and I’ve incorporated some of that information into this lesson. I do recommend that podcast to you.
Pretty much every couple coming in for marriage counseling reports poor communication in their relationship, leading to the worsening of marriage problems. Some couples even believe that poor communication is the source, the primary source of their problems. If we could just learn to communicate better, they say, all of our issues would get resolved.
I do acknowledge that poor and ungodly communication is a contributor to marriage problems, and that the Bible does make clear God’s design for effective and godly communication. I must assert to you that poor communication is actually a symptom and not the true cause of marriage problems.
“Poor communication is actually a symptom and not the true cause of marriage problems.”
In fact, if you do not deal with the true source of your communication difficulties, improving your communication skills may actually worsen the relationship. As you both get better at using righteous-sounding words to pursue sinful and idolatrous desires, how can this be?
Please take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 12:33-37. What we’re going to see are two critical clarifications regarding communication.
Jesus is in the middle of an exchange with the Pharisees. Jesus says this:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Critical Clarification #1: Communication Reflects the Heart
So here’s the first critical clarification from this passage: your communication reflects what is happening in your heart.
Notice the analogy from Jesus. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. That’s basic. No sane fruit tree owner asks himself, “Why is my good tree producing only rotten fruit?” No, he doesn’t ask that, because he knows that bad fruit is just an outward manifestation of a tree’s deeper problem.
The tree, if it’s got rotten fruit, is desperately sick. It’s corrupted. It’s a bad tree.
So it is, Jesus says, with your words, with your communication and your heart. The mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. Thus, those who are evil in heart, who are maintaining and nurturing evil in heart, cannot speak what is good.
Rather, the good man brings out good words from his heart like treasure to put on display, and the evil man brings out evil words from his heart like treasure to put on display.
“The mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”
The Danger of Careless Words
Notice, by the way, verse 36 says that this principle applies even to your careless words—the unguarded words you speak with the people with whom you are most comfortable, most familiar, or the communication that just seems to slip out when you’re under stress. Maybe you’re hungry, maybe you’re tired.
Difficult situations and difficult people do not cause you to sin. They do not cause you to speak evil words. Rather, situations and people—to borrow the analogy from Wayne Mack’s article—they function like a squeezing hand on the sponge of your heart. Whatever comes out, whatever words come out, is what was already there before you were squeezed.
So if you really want to get a sense of where your heart is before the Lord, even in your marriage, don’t look at what you communicate in your most careful moments—like when you’re in church or when you’re in front of other people whose respect you want to maintain. Don’t look at the words you say when everything is going well for you and is easy.
Instead, look at your most careless, your most private, your most unguarded, your most stressed moments—even when you’re just with family or you’re being mistreated. What kind of words come out then? Is it angry words, lying words, perverted words, judgmental words, curse words, insults, complaints, blasphemy, gossip, boasting, bitter sarcasm, the silent treatment? Or do you instead see righteous words, kind words, patient words, forgiving words, edifying communication?
“Look at your most careless, most unguarded, most stressed moments. What kind of words come out then?”
Truly, before your words can be transformed to conform to God’s design, your heart must be transformed. You must identify and remove, by repentance, any idolatrous desires. Or you’ll never say the right words.
If you try to transform your communication without transforming your heart, you either will not be successful, or you will only succeed in becoming more hypocritical. But if you humble yourself and allow the Lord to transform your heart by the wonderful truths of his gospel, then I submit you’re already 90% of the way there to effective and godly communication.
You can even make up for imperfect words if you have the right heart. Because now you’re speaking and acting from a heart that’s filled with God’s selfless love rather than a heart filled with pride and selfish idolatry.
“If you humble yourself and allow the Lord to transform your heart, you’re already 90% of the way to effective and godly communication.”
So this is the first key clarification. But we should realize also that the transformation of your heart and words is not a “take it or leave it” proposition.
Critical Clarification #2: Accountability to God
Second critical clarification: we also see from this passage that you are accountable to God for all your communication.
Notice verses 36 and 37 again. Jesus says every careless word, or by extension of the principle, every unguarded bit of communication will require an account to God on the day of judgment.
Does that include the tiny put-down you slipped in at the end of one of your arguments? It does. Does that include the way you rolled your eyes when your spouse made a request? It does. Does that include the way you shouted at him when he wouldn’t let you talk that one time? It does.
All communication that misses the mark of God’s own character and commandments deserves judgment. God loves what is good. He hates what is evil. You speak anything that doesn’t fit his perfection, he hates it and will call you to account for it.
“All communication that misses the mark of God’s own character and commandments deserves judgment.”
In fact, Jesus says your communication will either lead you to be justified or condemned in the last day. By your words you’ll be justified. By your words you’ll be condemned.
Does that mean that either on your own and with Jesus’ help you can speak words good enough to get you to heaven? No, because that would contradict the rest of scripture.
Rather, what did Jesus show us in verses 33 to 35? That communication proves what? Say that, Mike.
It proves what’s in your heart. It proves where your heart is. Those who have Godly communication have what kind of hearts? They have new hearts, transformed hearts, good hearts, hearts made new by Jesus Christ in the New Covenant.
But those who have evil communication—of what kind of hearts do they have? Stony, evil hearts. They have hearts that are without Jesus Christ and that deserve hell.
So as the other scriptures declare, it will be in the last day: your words and your deeds will serve as incontrovertible evidence before the universe as to whether you really believe in and belong to Jesus Christ. And therefore it will be clear to everyone whether you deserve to be eternally justified or eternally condemned.
You see, your communication is no small issue. Your communication is a matter of your eternal soul. If you will not speak God’s way, you are showing you don’t belong to God. If you will speak God’s way, you testify, “I do belong to Jesus Christ. He has made me new. He has saved me by his life, death, and resurrection.”
“Your communication is no small issue. Your communication is a matter of your eternal soul.”
So you see how important it is that we clarify these things before we can talk about what is God’s design for communication. We must clarify that communication reflects what is happening in the heart, and you are accountable to God for all your communication.
But let’s say you have examined your heart according to God’s scripture as best you can, and you believe that you are truly seeking Christ, yet that you need to keep on improving in knowing Christ and walking with him. And you want to do that in your communication. You should do that with your communication.
What is God’s standard for communication to which you should keep on striving? Let me give you five rules for Godly communication.
Rule 1: Listen to Understand
Five rules for Godly communication. The first one is this: listen to understand.
If you want to communicate according to God’s design, you must not only purpose to listen to other people, but listen in a particular way: listen with the goal of understanding the other person.
To see this, please take your Bibles and turn to James 1:19-20.
Probably every guide for communication, both in the church and in the world, is going to tell you that before you can learn to be a good speaker, you’ve got to learn to be a good listener. Listen to how the Apostle James articulates this principle in James 1:19-20.
“This, 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.”
Now, you may be aware from the context before and after these verses that James is going to apply this wise exhortation to humbly receiving the preached word of God—that is, you are to be quick to listen to the preached word, slow to speak against it, slow to become angry about it. But the wisdom of these two verses does apply to communication generally and is backed up by the rest of scripture.
If you want to communicate God’s way with anyone, you must be quick to listen, slow to speak against what that person said, and slow to become angry about what that person said.
“If you want to communicate God’s way, you must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”
Yet what do we mean by “listen”? Are we simply to allow sound waves to come into our ears? Is that the command from James? No. The idea is that you are quick to listen so that you may fully, or at least adequately, understand what the person is trying to communicate to you.
Proverbs 18:13 says—we’ve talked about this verse before—”He who gives an answer before he hears it is folly and shame to him.”
I ask you: why is a quick answer folly and shame to a person?
Exactly. You don’t fully understand what the person is trying to say or the situation, which means how are you going to respond? In ignorance. In a way that is not helpful or a way that is not accurate. You will respond foolishly, even sinfully, likely making the situation worse.
In his podcast, Dr. Greg Gifford remarks that bad listeners are some of the angriest people. You can see how this works. Bad listeners don’t take time to understand. Meaning, they rely most of the time on proud and uncharitable assumptions about other people. That’s how they interpret other people’s words and actions.
The inevitable result is the bad listener ends up judging other people and becoming irritated by what they do. Obviously, that person was trying to insult me, or was disrespecting me, or was mistreating me. He doesn’t take the time to understand.
So if you find yourself quick to speak and not quick to listen to the point of understanding, know that you will become—if you are not already—an angry person. You will fail to follow God’s design for communication to your own judgment or chastening if you belong to Jesus Christ.
“Bad listeners don’t take time to understand — they rely on proud and uncharitable assumptions, and the inevitable result is anger.”
Wrong Ways to Listen
And by the way, listening to understand is not automatic. It’s something you must purpose to do. There are plenty of other ways that you might choose to listen to someone. Maybe you’ve even gotten into a habit of doing this.
For example, you may listen simply to give someone else a turn to speak, to be polite, to let someone vent or get something off his chest. You’re not really listening, though, to understand.
You may listen just to hide and hopefully prevent yourself from having to share anything in a conversation. You may listen just to calculate how you can segue your next story or next idea into the conversation. Where’s a good jumping-off point?
You may even listen just to find a slip-up in what the other person says so that, like a defense attorney, you can use it to counterattack the other person and win the argument. This last style of listening particularly trips up married couples and inflames conflicts.
“Listening just to find a slip-up so you can counterattack particularly trips up married couples and inflames conflicts.”
Listening to Understand vs. Listening to Counterattack
Let me illustrate it with an example and then contrast it with listening to understand.
Suppose a wife says to her husband, “You never help me with the kids.” The husband listening to counterattack might say, “See, that’s not true. I helped feed the kids a week ago and watch them while you took a nap. You’re slandering me.”
That husband may feel like he has spoken the truth and has righteously vindicated himself, but he scores a zero on the “listening to understand” scale. Not to mention, he does nothing to address his wife’s concern or show love to her, which is only going to hurt his relationship with her.
But contrast this with the husband listening to understand, who realizes that more important than the eloquence or strict accuracy of his wife’s words is the intended meaning behind them. Thus, he understands “you never helped me with the kids” to mean, “Really, I feel like you do not help me enough with the kids,” or “I’d like more help with the kids.”
Now, maybe this is something the husband already knows and can readily admit. “Yeah, I should help more.” Or maybe this is a surprise to the husband. “I thought I was already helping enough. I didn’t realize this bothered her.”
But rather than pouncing on the strict inaccuracy or the ungraciousness of the word “never” that his wife used, the godly husband can, in love, ask his wife further questions about her perspective and her expectations in order to serve her like Christ served the church.
Now, maybe as a result of this conversation, the wife will realize she needs to adjust her expectations and acknowledge how her husband is already helping with the kids. But the husband and wife will never get there if one or the other is listening to battle rather than listening to understand.
“More important than the strict accuracy of your spouse’s words is the intended meaning behind them.”
“Listen to understand” is the first rule of godly communication.
Rule 2: Speak Truth in Love
The second is: speak truth in love.
Speak truth in love. As you take time to listen and understand, you will then become equipped—just as Eric was talking about—you will then become equipped to respond rightly, to speak the truth in love as you must.
And to see this and the rest of our principles, let’s go to Ephesians 4:15-16.
In Ephesians 4:15-16, Paul is speaking about God’s design for mutual ministry in the church—everyone ministering to everyone else. And look at how he describes it, starting in verse 15.
“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. From whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in life and love.”
You will notice from these verses that Paul declares one of the main ways that people build up one another in the church is simply by communicating in a certain way: speaking the truth in love.
Now, as a marriage unit is part of the church, so husbands and wives must resolve, for the sake of building up one another in obedience to Christ, to speak the truth in love to one another.
“One of the main ways people build up one another in the church is by speaking the truth in love.”
Another: Ephesians 4:29 teaches similarly. If you’ll just glance down there.
“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”
Now, we can break down this phrase “speak truth in love” into its component parts to emphasize different aspects of this responsibility.
Resolve to Speak
Believers, especially in marriage, must first resolve to speak. Some people are more reserved and prefer not to talk much. Many, if recently sinned against by their spouses, may feel inclined to stop talking to their spouses, to give minimal conversation, to functionally withdraw, give the cold shoulder, give the silent treatment.
These persons may even cite scripture as justification. Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he’s considered prudent.”
“I’m just trying not to be a fool. I’m just trying to be wise.”
I’m sorry, that will not do. You are commanded by your Lord to minister by speaking the truth in love and to pursue the edification of your spouse that he or she needs according to each moment.
Therefore, if you don’t feel like speaking, you must die to yourself and to your own desire and speak as God commanded you, for Christ’s sake. Your spouse is not a mind reader. Many times, your spouse will not understand that there is a problem or how they can serve you best until you speak.
“Your spouse is not a mind reader. Many times, your spouse will not understand there is a problem until you speak.”
Don’t say, “Well, if he really loves me, then he’ll know without me even telling him,” or “If she really loves me, she’ll know.” No, sometimes you just need to speak.
Resolve to Speak Truth
Second: Believers must resolve to speak truth.
Speak truth. Now, to speak truth is sometimes taken to mean that believers should speak the Bible or speak the truths of the Bible, or they should confront sin. And believers certainly should be doing both of those things. But more basically, to speak truth means to speak what is true, to speak truthfully.
Look down at Ephesians 4:25, where we see this concept repeated.
“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”
Paul’s argument in that verse is that it does not make sense for Christ members to lie to one another, to deceive one another. Deceiving the other or holding back the truth from the other only hurts the relationship and therefore hurts the body, including the person who is doing the lying and deceiving. You hurt yourself when you don’t speak the truth.
“Deceiving the other or holding back the truth only hurts the relationship — including the person who is doing the lying.”
Believers, therefore, should resolve not just to speak but to speak the truth.
Now, obviously, this means that Christians should not outright lie to each other, to hurt each other, or to cover up their own sins and failures. But this also means that believers should not speak white lies—lies that seem kind or inconsequential.
This means that believers should not withhold information that the other person should know. You don’t have to share everything, but if it’s something that the other person really should know, you are being deceptive if you do not share it with the other person.
This means that believers should not imply or insinuate something and then deny doing so. “Oh, I didn’t say that.”
This means that believers should not exaggerate to make a situation seem different than it was. And that believers should not recount stories while unknowingly omitting certain details that make the speaker look better and make another person or people look worse.
Speaking the truth is going to be an act of faith, and it may result in trouble for you in the short term. But this is what God has called you to do. This is what honors God, and it will bless you and your relationship in the long term.
Speak the Truth in Love
Well, third: Believers must speak the truth in love.
Have you ever heard someone say something really unkind and then follow up by saying, “I’m just being honest”? Unfortunately, Christians can do this too. We can use truthfulness and boldness as an excuse to be harsh.
But the truth is, if you speak the truth in an unloving way, you have sinned against God and the other person. And furthermore, just because something is true doesn’t mean that you should say it.
Consider Ephesians 4:29 again. You are not allowed to say anything that is unwholesome, that is corrupting, that tears down another person, even if what you say is true or you think it’s true. You’re only allowed to speak—and indeed, you must speak, no matter how you feel or how you’ve been sinned against—that which nourishes, that which builds up, that which shows grace, that which shows love.
Indeed, everything you say—every communication with your body language or your eyes or your tone of voice, your words—it must be with the intent to do others good in the name of God. That’s what love is. It’s seeking another person’s good. That’s what love does.
“Everything you communicate must be with the intent to do others good in the name of God. That’s what love is.”
All that together, you see the second rule of Godly communication: speak truth in love.
Rule 3: Keep Current
A third rule for Godly communication is number three: keep current.
Keep current. To conform to God’s design, you must keep current in your communication, speaking to your spouse about important matters in a regular and timely fashion.
Look at Ephesians 4:26-27 to see this illustrated.
Paul writes: “Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.”
Scripture is realistic. Trouble, anger, conflict—they are an inevitable part of relationships, including the marriage relationship, including the Christian marriage relationship. But something that should mark Christian marriages and Christian relationships in general is that Christians deal with anger quickly and do not let issues that could provoke anger remain unaddressed in the marriage.
“Something that should mark Christian marriages is that Christians deal with anger quickly and do not let issues remain unaddressed.”
To do so, verse 27 indicates, would be to give the devil an opportunity. Opportunity to do what, Rich? You’re going to say something?
Yeah, to further increase sin, to further increase division, to sow bitterness, to ultimately sow the destruction of the relationship. You’re giving the devil a foothold. You’re giving him an opportunity.
Addressing Anger Quickly
Now, how does a Christian deal with anger? Well, he must first confess his anger to God and repent of any idols that are fueling that anger. He must then, if he has acted or spoken in anger towards another person, seek forgiveness and reconciliation with that person by confessing his sin, by confessing his idols, and showing that he’s turned from it.
Then, and only then, if there’s something that the other person said or did that he thinks needs to be addressed as sin or as unhealthy to the relationship, he must bring it up.
Plenty of professing Christians are not willing to follow these steps, especially the last one. They don’t want to bring it up, though there’s definitely an important issue bothering one person. He chooses not to bring it up with his spouse. He perhaps tells himself—or she perhaps tells herself—”I’m just going to take the high road and overlook it.”
But this is a serious issue. You cannot, you should not overlook it. Or the conversation is just going to be awkward and painful, so the person chooses not to bring it up. Stay safe and comfortable. Or, “I doubt the conversation is going to be productive,” so he’s not even willing to try. Just stuff that bothersome issue away.
But what happens as a result? It will eventually explode, or it will fester. It will cultivate bitterness. It will lead to distance in the relationship. The issue that you ignore will keep on coming up, and it will do more and more damage.
Yeah, Mark. When God is angry, he gets angry, but he doesn’t stay angry. So for me, that’s kind of a litmus test. Our anger might be telling us something that we need to act on, but if I remain in a state of anger for a sustained period of time, that’s simply not right.
Yeah, interesting point, Mark. Looking at God and his pattern in the scriptures where we see God get angry but then he does something about it—he doesn’t just stay angry and stew—most of the time there’s a sense where God is being patient with all sinners, and maybe not acting on his anger in that way. But anger was originally designed as a Godly emotion to respond to injustice for the Lord’s sake and for others’ sake.
So there are times when we may have righteous anger, but we do need to act on it. That was the intent. But a lot of times we have unrighteous anger, and that anger needs to be dealt with first by confessing the anger in our own persons. But if there was an issue that we yielded to and became angry about, that is bothersome to the relationship, that is unhealthy, which is ungodly before the Lord, we need to deal with that too.
Quickly, Jesus tells us that if we have something against a brother or a brother has something against us, we need to seek peace quickly, even before coming to worship in the church assembly. Matthew 5. God wants you, if there is an issue in a relationship you have with somebody else, to address it before it worsens.
“Jesus tells us that if we have something against a brother, we need to seek peace quickly, even before coming to worship.”
How do you address it? By speaking the truth in love. When do you address it? Verse 26 says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
Now, we are not to take this statement overly literally. If there’s only five minutes to sundown, you don’t say, “Oh, I’ve only got five minutes to have this conversation and resolve it with my spouse.” No, reconciliation by the end of the day is a good rule of thumb. But the main idea is you take care of any anger issues or you take care of conflicts quickly. Don’t let an important issue slide for days, weeks, months.
Not only so that you can prevent bitterness, but also so that you prevent you and anyone else who’s involved from forgetting what actually happened.
“Oh, you did this thing.”
“I don’t even remember doing that thing.”
Timing and the 48-Hour Guideline
Now, that being said, we must balance what I just shared with you with the general principle of verse 29. Verse 29 says that you are to speak the truth in love according to the needs of the moment with the intent to show grace to the other person.
One application of that in terms of keeping current is that you shouldn’t necessarily bring up an issue with another person as soon as possible, because maybe that’s not the best time to bring it up. That’s not the need of the moment.
For example, if your spouse is about to go somewhere or has just returned from somewhere, or is tired, or is hungry, or is sleepy, you should probably bring up your important issue another time. You do well in not wanting to let the sun go down on your anger, to want to seek peace in relationship. But you need to be considerate, and when you have the conversation, it will often go much better.
You can’t go too far the other way and wait for the perfect time. Why not? There’s never a perfect time, especially when you’re trying to confront a thorny issue in your relationship. So you must keep current about important issues in your relationship. But realize this doesn’t just apply to negative developments.
Do you ever have a friend, a close friend, fail to disclose to you some important good news in his life? “Oh, you got engaged when? Three months ago? Why didn’t you tell me?”
When someone fails to tell you important good news, what does that do to your relationship? It hurts it, right? It erodes it. You think, “I thought we were closer than that.” It causes communication to break down.
As we’ve already seen in previous lessons, God made the marriage relationship the most intimate companionship relationship on Earth. Companions speak to each other about important matters, both good and bad, positive and negative.
If you don’t keep current about important developments with your spouse, then when your spouse finally finds out about the information that you’ve been keeping from him, it will erode trust and it will weaken your ability to communicate. He’ll say, “Why are you keeping this from me? Why didn’t you share this with me and let me think that things were different than they were?”
Therefore, you should feel an internal pressure to keep current with your spouse.
As a practical guideline, Dr. Gifford recommends that if something important comes up that is either bothersome or exciting to you, give yourself a 48-hour deadline to share it with your significant other. Within 48 hours, look for a good time and talk about it. If you don’t have an inner deadline set of some kind, you will delay and delay and delay, and it will hurt your relationship.
“Give yourself a 48-hour deadline to share something important with your significant other — delay will hurt your relationship.”
Keep your communication thriving by speaking regularly and in a timely way what is important with your spouse.
Rule 4: Attack the Problem, Not the Person
A fourth rule for Godly communication is: attack the problem, not the person.
To communicate according to God’s design, speak in such a way that helpfully moves towards a solution rather than unhelpfully calls into question another person’s character or worth.
Consider Ephesians 4:29 again. We Christians are only allowed to speak with one another what builds up, what nourishes, what is helpful to that person’s walk with Christ. It is almost never helpful or edifying simply to denounce the other person.
Consider the difference between two statements: “I don’t see how you were telling the truth in what you just said” versus “I think you are a liar.”
The first statement—if you think about what kind of responses it might generate—is a little bit confrontational, but it invites explanation and perhaps confession. The second statement is very confrontational. What does it invite?
It invites condemnation. And it does invite condemnation in return. “How dare you speak to me like that?” It invites anger, defensiveness, or the other person even to just exit the conversation, because that’s an attack. That is an attack on a person, on his self, as a strong provocation to him to defend his character, defend his honor, defend his worth.
He or she will probably feel like you are unjustly slandering him or her with that kind of statement.
If we’re honest, we have to admit that statements like “You are a liar,” or “You’re a tyrant,” or “You’re so ungrateful”—they generally don’t come from a heart of love that seeks to do the other person good with the truth. But from where do these statements come? Anger, hatred, a desire to hurt and punish the other person.
It’s not going to edify him to denounce him or to denounce her. But it feels good to you. It feels like you’re meeting out a little bit of justice. But this is foolish, hateful, insulting, condemnatory, demeaning, condescending communication. It is indeed hurtful and very effective at shutting down communication and exacerbating conflicts.
This is part of the corrupting talk that Ephesians 4:29 forbids to believers.
You don’t want to shut down communication with your spouse. Maybe there’s a false teacher out there who deserves words of condemnation. But you have to live with your spouse. You need to speak in a way that’s going to be constructive, not dismissive.
Ephesians 4:30 says that unedifying talk actually grieves God’s very Spirit—the very Spirit who has mercifully sealed all believers for the day of redemption. That is a merciful act. When you speak in an unmerciful way, you grieve the Spirit.
Though we believers must keep current and confront important issues—yes, even uncomfortable issues—we cannot do so by angrily attacking the other person. We instead attack the problem. We focus specifically on what a person has said and done rather than on his character. And we give the other person a chance to explain himself and to work with us toward a solution.
“We attack the problem, not the person — focusing on what was said and done rather than questioning another’s character.”
For example, instead of dismissing the other by saying, “You never care what I have to say,” you might say, “Whenever you interrupt me when I’m talking, it comes across as you not caring what I have to say.”
Or instead of accusing another by saying, “You are a narcissist,” you might say, “Honey, I noticed that you seem to get upset and stop talking to me after I disagreed with your opinion at dinner. Could you please tell me why?”
The tone of voice and how you say something is important in either escalating or de-escalating a conflict.
Even if you speak in a good tone and good words, the other person may still respond in an ungodly way. But you can only do your part. Remember that God made the marriage unit a team.
Speak in such a way that shows your partner that you want to work with him or her towards a mutually agreeable solution, even if it involves confronting and repenting of sin. “I’m not your enemy. I’m your companion. I want to help you, even if it means confronting your sin.”
“Speak in a way that shows your partner you want to work with him or her toward a solution. ‘I’m not your enemy. I’m your companion.’”
Speak in a way that you communicate that.
Rule 5: Act, Don’t React
Finally, a fifth rule for Godly communication is: act, don’t react.
To communicate according to God’s design, you must proactively choose to engage God’s way and actively put off your natural selfish tendencies.
One idea that runs through most of Ephesians 4, and certainly verses 25-32, is the idea of putting off the old natural man and putting on the new supernatural man created in Jesus Christ.
In fact, look at Ephesians 4:31.
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”
Now, does anyone need to teach you how to be bitter or angry or slanderous? No. Why not? It comes naturally in the flesh.
If you are passive in your communication, if you just allow your natural inclinations to reign and your feelings to move you along when it comes to how you respond to people who cross you, guess how you’re going to react? In angry and evil ways.
But you were called not to let your natural old ways dominate anymore. Instead, you must, in Christ, purposefully put on a new mode of thinking and a new style of engagement.
According to verse 32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.”
Now, are the responses of verse 32 natural toward those who would mistreat you or who get in the way of your fleshly desires? Absolutely not.
So what must you do? Before you are crossed and mistreated, and when you are crossed and mistreated, you must purpose by faith in God’s power to act Godly. You must go against your flesh. You won’t feel like doing this, but you must choose to do this.
“Before you are crossed and mistreated, and when you are crossed, you must purpose by faith to act godly and go against your flesh.”
You can’t just react the way you always did before in your flesh. You must choose to act in accordance with God’s commands.
Retreaters and Bulldozers
It’s worth taking time, even with your spouse’s help, to know what your natural tendencies are in communication and conflict.
For example—and I feel like I’ve seen this in every marriage counseling situation I’ve encountered—when some people are mistreated, their natural tendency is not to address and work through the issue, but just to stop talking, withdraw, and nurse wounds in isolation, saying to themselves, “Woe is me, to live with such an ungodly, unappreciative spouse.”
When other people are mistreated, their natural tendency is to confront immediately and aggressively, acting like a bulldozer, or even a pitbull, for Jesus. “I will not let this go. I will not have peace until we settle this, even if it takes all night.”
While there may be a godly seed in part of these responses, they ultimately do not conform to the new man made in the image of Christ.
Now, I don’t know if it’s the husband or the wife who might be one or the other. In all the marriage counseling situations I’ve seen, it is either the husband or wife who is either a natural retreater or a natural bulldozer. But whatever your natural tendencies are, you cannot just allow yourselves to react that way.
You must act according to God’s design, even purposefully going against your natural tendencies. The natural marriage retreater must choose to lovingly pursue his sinning spouse, whereas the natural bulldozer must choose to wait patiently for God’s timing for resolution.
“The natural retreater must choose to lovingly pursue his sinning spouse; the natural bulldozer must choose to wait patiently for God’s timing.”
You want a middle ground between those two stances as the biblical place.
In summary, then, to fulfill God’s design for communication, you must remember two critical clarifications: your communication reflects what is happening in your heart. You must start there. And you are accountable to God for all your communication.
Then you must embrace and make habitual God’s rules for godly communication: listen, understand, speak truth in love, keep current, attack the problem not the person, and act, don’t react.
Discussion: Cultivating a Godly Heart
Questions about what you’ve heard today?
Yeah, Mark?
Yeah, I just really appreciate the emphasis on the heart. And I’m thinking about maybe you could speak to what are some ways we can cultivate the right heart? So for example, I think in Colossians 3:12, which was the verse that actually Betty encouraged us to like for our wedding, says, “As those who have been chosen of God, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness,” all that. What are some ways that you found helpful to cultivate that kind of heart?
Good question. If the heart is the most important part of communication, what are some ways to cultivate a Godly heart? I think we could give a rather large and expansive answer to that.
What immediately comes to mind are: you must subject yourself to the means of grace. How are we transformed in heart? It ultimately comes from beholding Jesus Christ. You need to be exposing yourself to the word, not only in your own study but in the teaching of the word. You need to be praying. You need to be fellowshipping with believers, allowing them to speak into your lives. You need to be serving. These are all things that help cultivate your heart in the proper direction.
But the other thing that comes to mind is you need to pay attention to the evidence in your own life, and you need to allow others to speak to the evidence that they see in your life about whether your heart and how your heart is going astray.
Because one thing that will prevent you from cultivating a heart after Christ’s own is if your heart is already smitten with something else. I’ve seen this sometimes in counseling where I want to encourage somebody to find joy in Christ, to entrust themselves to Jesus Christ, and they just won’t seem to do it, can’t seem to do it. And so I ask myself, “What instead has captured this person’s affections?”
Because until that false lover is unmasked for being an unsatisfying treasure, for being poisonous to that person’s heart and life, it’s going to be hard to get that person to see how lovely Jesus Christ is.
“Until a false lover is unmasked as an unsatisfying treasure, it’s hard to get a person to see how lovely Jesus Christ is.”
So those are the two things that come immediately to mind. I’m sure we could say more.
Other questions?
Yeah, Jody?
I think it was introspection looking up to God that we kind of—those things—and so not realizing building up all these in our just know that’s me, not you’re running around to everybody else, but it’s just cultivating.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so Jody, you said a few valuable things there. Speaking of means of grace, another way that somebody can speak into your life and even help cultivate a heart after God’s own is actually to read the words of other Christians, read Godly teaching, maybe from the past or from the present. The Puritans are a great source.
But you mentioned that they also very purposefully cultivated a lifestyle of repentance, which must be true for every believer. You don’t repent once in the beginning or repent every once in a while when you have a big sin. But some people sometimes talk about, “You need to keep short accounts with other people.”
Well, you need to keep short accounts with God, where you become aware that you’ve drifted away from him in a certain area or that you sinned against him in a certain area. You want to confess it and repent to God and realize that this is probably going to be a very frequent occurrence.
Now, some people can go so far as to say, “Well, everything I do is sin. I’m just constantly sinning and constantly needing to repent, because I’m sure that I always—I’m never doing right.” I think that’s going too far. God has made you a new creation, so you actually can do good. But you should expect that a lot of times you’re not going to be fully following with God. You’re going to need to be sanctified in a new area.
So don’t be like, “I sinned again. What a shock.” No, that’s actually expected. But you don’t just stay there. You don’t say, “Oh, I sinned again. Well, God forgives me. Thank you, Lord.” You say, “God, I want to put this to death too. God, wow, I see even more I need your grace. But you say that you not only forgive but you empower me to change. So with the power of Jesus Christ, with Christ in me, I’m going to pursue even more. Now, if this thing trips me up, I’m gonna get rid of it.”
So yeah, if you are doing that in a characteristic, habitual way, then it’ll be easier for you to do that with and before your spouse, which is very good for cultivating communication and a strong relationship.
Practical Resources and Homework Application
One thing I will mention: it is another resource for cultivating communication and relationship. If you Google something called “biblical counseling conference table,” you will see online some written guidelines as to how you can have good communication in your relationship.
If you haven’t had good communication in your relationship in a while, you can set aside a formal time. It could be each day, a couple times a week, or weekly, where you just sit and talk for maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes with your spouse or with a significant other and say, “Let’s talk through some important things that we otherwise never get to talk about.”
The guidelines will show you different rules about that. As you conference, it needs to be according to the rules of Godly communication that you both know about. If one of you starts to violate those rules in the conversation, the guidelines can tell you what to do to allow the conversation to continue to be profitable.
This is a way of building the habit that really should exist in all marriages: open communication, regular, deep communication about important things.
“The habit that should exist in all marriages is open, regular, deep communication about important things.”
If you find that in your relationship, or if you’re trying to counsel somebody who has a relationship that has very poor communication and it doesn’t seem like it’s ever getting off the ground, this is a good way to start cultivating this. That’s the biblical counseling conference table. You can just Google that.
Did you have something to say, Mike?
Work well with the assignment for this week. It’s good—not in general, “I wish we could communicate better,” but “How can we? That is part of loving each other to communicate well. So how specifically can we do that?”
Yeah, absolutely. Mike mentioned that with the assigned homework, in terms of how you can love and serve one another, some of the specific things that you might write down or you might consider is having to do with communication. Is there a way that my wife would like me to communicate? Or is there a way that I would like my wife to communicate to me? Or my husband? And you can write some of those things down.
Emma and I did the homework assignment already, and it had an edifying result. We were thinking about, “Okay, yeah, we are doing certain things that we both want each other to do in terms of loving and serving each other. But hey, there are some new ways that we didn’t know about, and we’re glad to do those things.”
If you have a proud heart or if you’re not following these rules for Godly communication, this homework assignment could cause a blowup in your marriage. But I encourage you not to let that happen. Don’t be like, “Oh, I can’t believe she wants me to serve in this way, or he wants me to serve in this way.” Just listen, seek to understand, and then practice maybe some follow-up questions.
The whole idea is cultivating edifying discussion and leading to the enrichment of your marriage relationship.
If you have further questions or comments, please talk to me later in the service. I’m going to be heading home and getting the rest of the family after this, but talk to me later in the service or email me.
Next week, we will look at God’s design for marital union, which means we’ll be discussing what the Bible has to say about the sexual aspect of marriage and also how Christians should think about different types of birth control. This is going to be an important lesson next week.
Let me close our time today in prayer.
Lord God, we want to communicate in a way that reflects your commands, but also you, Lord Jesus. One of the things that you were known for was being a gracious communicator. People were marveling at the gracious words that came from your mouth. You are a very understanding Lord. You didn’t keep your disciples in the dark about things you were doing.
You say, “Slaves don’t know, but I don’t treat you as slaves. I treat you as friends. So I’m going to be open with you. I’m going to disclose myself to you.”
And you were very patient with your disciples, even when they said foolish things, when they said inaccurate things, when they said sinful things. But Jesus, you didn’t respond with sin. You purposed, before every conversation and in each conversation, to follow the Father’s will.
Jesus, we want to follow your design. We want to follow your pattern. And you are in us, Lord Jesus, by your Spirit. So we are confident we can do this. But it does mean going against our natural tendencies. It does mean setting aside idolatrous desires.
So God, help us to do this. Help husbands and wives to do this. Help those who are not even married but just want to cultivate and are called to cultivate better communication. Help them to do this in this church so, Lord, that we might honor you and we might see the blessed result of it.
Your ways are always good, Lord. Help us to conform to your way.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Amen. Thank you, everyone.