There was one particular preacher who I found hard to listen to. After the first 3 or 4 sentences I was pretty much lost in other thoughts. I couldn’t figure out why for the longest time. The actual content of his sermon was solid, he used his voice well, and included personal stories, even showing some vulnerability. What was my problem?

Then one Saturday night over a jigsaw puzzle, Heather and I listened to an orator from a popular church in the US and I was totally captivated. His preaching was convicting, inspiring and encouraging all at the same time. And his voice was just pleasant to the ears.

The next morning, I was again listening to that first preacher. This time I tried repeating everything as he said it, using last night’s orator’s voice inside my head. Same words, different tone. His preaching was surprisingly captivating. Like, really amazing stuff coming out his mouth. I’m like, wait, isn’t this the very same guy? How could his preaching become so amazing just by substituting in a different voice?

Then I experimented with different speakers I knew well, re-stating every sentence in their voices. I gave them all nicknames:

• The Convincer – Every sentence had a word or two emphasized really strongly, like it was supposed to mean something profound…. I felt stupid.
• The Condemner – His voice made it sound like he was ending every beautiful sentence of God’s truth with “and in comparison, you are bad”
• The Comforter – Most of the sentences lost their meaning through this voice, but I knew I was loved.

And the two I started with:

• The Communicator – The guy I couldn’t listen to was preaching perfectly… to a mirror. There was no connection because he wasn’t talking to us.
• The Confessor – The orator seemed to be sure that was he was saying was not only universally true, but personally experienced by him.

This is when my daughter would stop me and say, “Dad, before you go spreading this far and wide like it’s some new discovery, you should be aware that everyone already knows that most communication is nonverbal.”

OK, I kinda knew that. I could imagine how many ways there are to say a sentence with completely different meanings based on tone. Like, “OK, mom, I’ll go clean up my room” can be said in a variety of ways that totally change what is meant. It’s also why my Brazilian friends always send me voice messages instead of texts, because they understand what conveys the most meaning.

But I didn’t imagine it could relate to a whole 40 minute sermon. I thought that the words would eventually drown out the tone and the point would come across.

I went home and checked the Greek on the verse “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks”. In both Matthew 12:34 and Luke 6:45, when translating the word “speak” they don’t use the more common “λεγο”, but rather “λαλεῖ”, the “prolonged form of an otherwise obsolete verb” (BibleHub). It means “to utter a sound… having reference to the sound and pronunciation of the words and in general the form of what is uttered. while λεγο refers to the meaning and substance of what is spoken; hence λαλεῖν is employed not only of men, especially when chatting and prattling, but also of animals.”

So, it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the sound comes, not the words. That means you can hear the speaker’s heart when they speak, by listening to their tone. And their tone drowns out their words. All you can hear is their heart.

This is deeply convicting for me, as my tone is sometimes just not great, even when I’m saying something true. It exposes my heart. And it’s not helping anyone else. And I can’t cover it up with eloquence or accuracy.

I also find it hopeful. We don’t need to work on saying things better, because all people see is our hearts. Let’s rather ask God to give us clean hearts.