Thinking in Christ — Issue 6

A Plain Sound

"For if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who would prepare himself for war? So also you, unless you uttered by the tongue words easy to understand, how would it be known what is spoken? For you would be speaking into the air." (1 Corinthians 14:8-9)

An uncertain trumpet helps no one. The soldiers hear a sound, but they cannot tell whether it calls them to advance or to retreat, and so they stand still while the battle is decided without them. Speech that cannot be understood is the same. It fills the air and moves nothing. Clear thinking, then, is not decoration. It is the difference between a word that can be obeyed and a word that only sounds like obedience.

Begin with the ordinary work, because it is real work. A thought must first be put in order. What is the main point, and what only supports it? What comes first, and what follows? Order is stewardship. It does not make a false claim true, but it does let the claim be seen for what it is, and that seeing is the beginning of testing it.

Therefore define the terms. A word used loosely will be heard loosely. If two people use the same word for different things, they will agree loudly and mean nothing alike. Say what the word means, and say how far it reaches. A term defined is a term that can be examined. A term left vague is a term that can hide.

Likewise, let an example do its proper work. An abstract claim is hard to hold, and a concrete instance puts weight in the hand. Show what the claim looks like when it walks. Yet an example illustrates; it does not prove. One instance, however vivid, does not settle a universal claim, and a well-chosen story can make a falsehood feel true precisely because it feels real. Use the example to clarify the claim, and then judge the claim by the Word, not by the warmth of the illustration.

So also with ambiguity. Words that can be read two ways will be read two ways, and the reader who benefits from the second reading will always find it. Say the thing plainly enough that the hearer can disagree with it. A statement no one can disagree with is not a deep statement. It is an empty one, protected by fog. Let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matt 5:37, paraphrase). A plain answer can be wrong, and a wrong answer can be corrected. A foggy answer cannot even be corrected, because no one can find where it stands.

From this follows the place of questions. Ask what is meant. Ask what follows. Ask what stands behind the claim, and what would count against it. Such questions are not hostility. They are the work of a mind that refuses to be carried along by sound alone. A claim that cannot survive the question "what do you mean by that?" was never a claim. It was a noise, dressed as a thought.

And seek the judgment of others on your own speech, because a mind cannot always hear its own fog. Another hearer can say, "I did not follow you there," and that sentence is a gift. Feedback shows where the trumpet sounded uncertain. It exposes the gap between what was meant and what was heard. Receive it without defending the fog. A speaker who will not be told he is unclear has chosen to seem impressive rather than to be understood.

Yet here the deeper difficulty must be named, and it must not be softened. Vague speech is not always an accident of poor technique. Often it is a refuge. A plain statement can be tested, and a tested statement can be found false, and a mind that loves its own thought will therefore prefer the fog, where nothing can be pinned down and nothing can be condemned. The heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9, paraphrase), and a deceitful heart loves language that deceives, because it lets the speaker seem to have said something while having committed to nothing. The fog is not a failure of vocabulary. It is a strategy of the heart.

Therefore no technique for clarity can finish the work. Organizing thoughts, defining terms, giving examples, removing ambiguity, asking questions, seeking feedback, reflecting and revising: all of this is good labor, and all of it can be done by a mind that remains its own lord. A mind can speak with perfect precision and still speak lies, because precision is a property of sentences, not of hearts. The first case in a dispute sounds complete until it is questioned (Prov 18:17, paraphrase), and a well-ordered argument for a falsehood is still a falsehood, only better furnished. Clarity exposes. It does not redeem.

This is why there is no neutral clarity. The mind is either conformed to this world or transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom 12:2, paraphrase). Apart from Christ, the understanding is darkened and alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18, paraphrase), and its clearest sentences will still serve a darkened end, because the mind that frames them answers to itself. In Christ, every thought is taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor 10:5, paraphrase), and clarity becomes service: the mind no longer speaks to protect itself, and so it can afford to be plain, even when plainness costs it the argument.

For the same reason, feedback has a limit that must be honored. Other hearers can show where speech was unclear. They cannot show the heart why it wanted the fog. The auditor proposed for that work is the very mind under audit, and it will forgive the ambiguities it favors and condemn only the ones it dislikes. The Lord searches the mind and tries the heart (Jer 17:10, paraphrase). Only the Word judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12, paraphrase), and only under that judgment does a person learn that his unclear speech was not a skill to be polished but a self to be surrendered.

Let clarity, then, do its true work and stop there. Let it order the thought so the claim can be seen. Let it define the term so the claim can be tested. Let it give the example so the claim can be grasped. Let it remove the ambiguity so the claim can be answered. Let it ask the question so the hidden premise comes into the open. Let it receive correction so the fog is named. All of this is commanded under the larger command to test all things and hold firmly what is good (1 Thess 5:21, paraphrase). But let clarity never be asked to produce what it can only display. A clear sentence does not make faith. God gives the increase, and no arrangement of words, however precise, can manufacture the hearing that belongs to Him alone.

This brings the matter to Christ, where it must come. He is the Word, and the Word does not stammer (John 1:1, paraphrase). He is the truth, not merely a teacher of true things (John 14:6, paraphrase), and His speech is plain precisely because He has nothing to hide and no self to protect. His yes is yes because He is faithful, and His no is no because He is true. The trumpet that sounded over Israel was uncertain in the mouths of men, but in Him the call is distinct: come, repent, believe, and live. A mind taken captive to Him does not need fog, because it no longer needs to survive its own verdict. It can speak plainly and be corrected plainly, because its life is not staked on winning the sentence.

So speak plainly, and speak plainly under the Word. Order the thought. Define the term. Give the example. Remove the fog. Ask the question. Receive the correction. Revise the sentence. Do all of this diligently, because a careless mind is not a faithful mind. But do it knowing that clarity is a servant, not a savior. The trumpet must give a certain sound, and the certain sound is this: the Word speaks plainly, the heart is known, and in Christ the mind is freed to say what it means and mean what it says.