Proverbs on Listening 关于聆听的箴言

Title: Proverbs on Listening
Date: 24th July 2022
Preacher: Rev. Wong Siow Hwee

Today’s topic on Proverbs is listening. It is also a collective term that includes all forms of information gathering and learning 【1】, such as reading (if it is literature), watching (if it is video), or observing (if it is real-life). Since Proverbs is all about becoming wise, the sages therefore put a heavy emphasis on the art of listening. The logic is simple. If you fail to listen, then you fail to learn. And if you cannot learn, then you will never become wise. And without wisdom, you may have life, but perhaps not a flourishing life.
Proverbs 10: 17 Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life,
but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.
Whether you become wise through listening or not, it doesn’t just affect you, but also those around you. Like breeds like. The humble listener is a path to life, a model for others to follow. The greatest motivation to actually listen and actively pursue wisdom is the good that you bring to others. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. If you choose to stay foolish, then you will inadvertently be a bad influence to others too. So today, I will share from Proverbs on the art of listening. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Proverbs 10: 8 The wise in heart accept commands,
but a chattering fool comes to ruin.
Proverbs 10: 14 The wise store up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.
One of the main obstacles to listening is actually speaking. On one hand, speaking aids listening, because it is through the back and forth interaction and communication with others that one may gather information and learn. On the other hand, speaking can often become a hindrance to listening, because in life, we can easily observe many around us who speak without listening.

Proverbs 18: 2 Fools find no pleasure in understanding
but delight in airing their own opinions.
They are only interested in expressing themselves, not listening to others. So the first thing that differentiates the wise from the fool is that the wise does not let their speaking get in the way of their listening. This is actually far more challenging than it sounds, because most human beings prefer speaking over listening. Even for introverts who speak less because they are shy, or people who don’t often have the chance to speak in public because of social norms, it doesn’t necessarily mean that quiet people are surely keen listeners because they may be constantly chattering and rebutting everything in their own mind. I can appreciate the preference of speaking over listening. 【2】Speaking is how we project influence in our world, and hence it is how we feel secure about our existence. Speaking begins at infancy when we cry out for attention, and in old age, when some start to really fall silent, that’s a sign of withdrawal from the world. So we speak to feel important, to have our say, literally, and even if no one cares to listen, we speak in our minds in protest, so that we maintain some semblances of control over external influences. If speaking is so essential to our identity and self-esteem, how do the wise manage to restraint their urge to speak, and allow themselves to still listen? I imagine that the wiser you are, the more self-control it takes to restraint your desire of speaking because you have so much more valuable things to say.

Proverbs 18: 15 The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge,
for the ears of the wise seek it out.
The answer to that is their intense hunger for knowledge. What makes a person wise is that their desire to learn triumphs their desire to influence. Of course, these two desires can be balanced and complementary, but the wise is mindful of the temptations of pride, and hence he lets the desire to learn be dominant over the desire to influence. The wise, in his hunger for knowledge, is far more fearful that he would fail to learn. And he knows the true value of knowledge. In the case for knowledge, it is good to be FOMO (fear of missing out).

Proverbs 18: 13 To answer before listening—
that is folly and shame.
This is what it means to be wise: in our desperate desire to learn, we choose to be quiet and listen. In the fear that we may miss out on something precious for life, we deliberately hold ourselves back from the urge to take control of a conversation by speaking. Imagine telling yourself: Shut up. Not now. Listen first. This is real hunger for knowledge, and a distinctive trait of a wise man.

Proverbs 12: 1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but whoever hates correction is stupid.
Proverbs 12: 15 The way of fools seems right to them,
but the wise listen to advice.
If you have real hunger for knowledge, you can even love discipline and correction. You would even be willing to listen to advice that might disagree with you. Would anyone be this hungry for knowledge? Not just to accept criticism, but to actually love and appreciate them? That seems like a tall order because most people want to be right, and feel right, and society tells us that only those who are wrong are losers. I need to make a short detour to talk about a paradigm shift in education. I hope this helps to explain why we are sometimes not hungry for knowledge, and how we can be hungry again. This is my mission today: Make Jubilee hungry again. Because without real hunger, there can be no real listening.

In the era of industrialization, education was about producing skilled workers who could perform specialized tasks with minimal errors. So, students had to acquire knowledge and go through testing, so that the industries would know who were the ones who were qualified to become such skilled workers. Such an education system is extremely efficient in transforming students into workers, but the flip side is that learning becomes a process to pass exams, like a product in a factory line made to pass the quality checks. This explains why many are no longer keen on learning after school, and there is a dread over testing. There is no real hunger for knowledge, unless there is profit involved.

Proverbs 15: 32 Those who disregard discipline despise themselves,
but the one who heeds correction gains understanding.
Those who rebuff criticism out of a false sense of pride, are actually holding themselves in contempt. The ill-disciplined person is on some level unhappy with himself and unconsciously self-destructive.” 【3】This can be the result of learned helplessness from frustrations in repeated failures to make the grade. Why should I change? Why should I learn, since I can never do it right anyway? This is how the hunger for knowledge is lost.

But humans are not finished products of an assembly line. Your worth is not determined by the exams, but by your journey afterwards. Now in the information era, we need entrepreneurs who keep on going after learning from their mistakes, workers who pursue life-long learning, and most of all, students who are self-motivated to learn and research on their own. Hence education is now shifting towards the growth mindset, in which testing is not a measurement of your worth, but a way to identify areas of improvement. I think we can recover this hunger for knowledge by inculcating the growth mindset.

Proverbs 17: 10 A rebuke impresses a discerning person
more than a hundred lashes a fool.
A rebuke comes down harder on a perceptive person. It is felt more acutely because he has the sensitivity to learn from his mistake. The growth mindset is such that it is ok to be wrong, that is part and parcel of the learning process to be better. A wise person is fine with being tested, to be wrong and then corrected, because he has a hunger for knowledge. Correction and discipline become a positive avenue for growth and learning.

Proverbs 19: 20 Listen to advice and accept discipline,
and at the end you will be counted among the wise.
Proverbs 19: 27 Stop listening to instruction, my son,
and you will stray from the words of knowledge.
And here is where teachers and parents need to reinforce the growth mindset. The Chinese say that good advice is like bitter medicine. Why would I ever want to take the bitter medicine? Because I got better after that. And you can indeed always become better and better, as long as you continue to learn and listen. There is no denial that the process of learning takes grit and resilience. What matters before that is the faith that change is possible.

So far I have talked about the importance of a hunger for knowledge. This hunger shuts our mouths from speaking too much, and it opens our ears to accept correction and criticism. I have also shared why we might have lost this hunger in our education process, and the frustrations of being graded. I then shared how we can recover this hunger with a growth mindset by looking at failures and corrections positively. Lastly, if you are truly hungry and ready to listen, I want to share about a few tips in listening.

Proverbs 14: 6 The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none,
but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.
Proverbs 14: 7 Stay away from a fool,
for you will not find knowledge on their lips.
Proverbs 14: 15 The simple believe anything,
but the prudent give thought to their steps.
Proverbs 14: 18 The simple inherit folly,
but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
These four proverbs from chapter 14 spell out a simple truth: that you need discernment in your listening. Be hungry, but be a picky eater at the same time. I am reminded of a Perrier commercial in the 80s. A man was crawling desperately in thirst in the desert. He found a bar in a distance. Crawling to the bartender he asked: Perrier? The bartender said, No Perrier. And then the man crawled on in the desert. The tagline appears: Once you discovered Perrier, nothing else will do. Similarly, the wise may be hungry, but he also makes sure that what he receives as knowledge through his listening is quality knowledge. Discernment is especially important in our world, where disinformation is rampant and even facts such as statistics and videos can be manipulated to suit a false narrative. Thankfully, there are a few proverbs for the judicial process that we can use as tips to serve as reminders for discernment in our listening.

1st tip: The Judge tip: Be an equitable listener.
Proverbs 21: 13 Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
This is a reminder that though we are picky eaters, we should be unbiased in giving everybody a chance to prove themselves. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Just as both the poor and the rich have an equal right to a fair trial, we can similarly learn from people from all walks of life, and not just the successful or well-educated. The judge tip is to ensure fairness so that we do not pre-judge in our listening.

2nd tip: The Prosecutor tip: Stick to the truth.
Proverbs 17: 4 A wicked person listens to deceitful lips;
a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.
Wicked people tend to favor lies and gossips that work in their favor. And if you watch a lot of Korean dramas like I do, such as Again my Life 【4】, a good prosecutor will stick to the truth and not whatever information that is favorable, and will not only believe things that he wishes to hear. This is especially important in this day and age where the social media only feeds you media that you are more likely to click on, and you risk confining yourself into an echo chamber. So the prosecutor tip is to be wary of your own biases in your pursuit of the truth. This is also related to listening without pre-judgement.

3rd tip: The Defense Lawyer tip: Ask probing questions.
Proverbs 20: 5 The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters,
but one who has insight draws them out.
12 Ears that hear and eyes that see—
the Lord has made them both.
True perception is a gift from God. In view of its divine origin, the ability to see clearly is to be treasured and used properly. The practical lesson is that one should diligently attend to wisdom and observe the word carefully. So the defense lawyer tip is to ask probing questions that will draw out the real intent of the speaker.

4th tip: The Defense Witness tip: Watch out for inconsistencies.
Proverbs 21: 28 A false witness will perish,
but a careful listener will testify successfully.
In a trial, the plaintiff opens their case and the plaintiff witnesses go on. After that the defendant opens and the defense witnesses go on. This proverb states that if the plaintiff witnesses are lying, the defense witness who listens carefully and patiently to their testimonies will, when he finally speaks up, win his case. This is because he will detect weaknesses and inconsistencies in the false witnesses from the plaintiffs and defeat them. We should have the same level of caution as a listener. The defense witness tip is to watch out for inconsistencies to discern who the liars are in your learning process.

5th tip: The Jury tip: Always hear both sides of a story.
Proverbs 18: 17 In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right,
until someone comes forward and cross-examines.
This proverb is a warning to hear both sides to the dispute before reaching a decision. Why do you think this proverb was given? Because most of us are too quick to judge. So the jury tip is straight forward: don’t be too quick to jump into conclusions, always hear both sides of the story.

I wish you all the best in your journey towards wisdom. Always be hungry for knowledge, but be picky eaters using the 5 tips I have just shared with you.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning
[2]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OWRuPa3Bp1XLzgMRrKB4ebzYGvDRrUga/view?usp=sharing
[3] Fox, M. V. (2009). Proverbs 10–31: A new translation with introduction and commentary.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Again_My_Life

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