Listen Quickly, Think Slowly

The book of James is a favorite for my wife. She loves the practical applications in the book. I appreciate the contemplative approach of Job and the theological rigor of Romans, but there is something to be said about James. The book sort of preaches itself. You rarely walk away from James wondering, “now what did he mean right there?”

One of those very practical passages is James 1:19

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

It goes without saying that our culture inside and outside of evangelicalism seems to have forgotten this passage. A 2020 American version of this verse could probably read “be quick to hear what we want to hear, race with others to speak about what ever heard, and hurry up and get angry for all the world to see.”

Emotionalism runs the day and dominates our landscape. But, why? T. S. Eliot once concluded, When we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts. We don’t think carefully enough to construct decent arguments. So, instead of thinking carefully, we yell louder.

For Christians who seek to apply the message of James 1:19, let me urge this: Be quick to listen, and slow to think. Slow thinking doesn’t mean no thinking and it certainly doesn’t suggest superficial thinking. When we slow down to think, we actually take time to create arguments and thoughts that might change the world and not change the moment.

Arguments built solely on emotion may win the battle, but they don’t win the war. These lazy approaches are reminiscent of parents who don’t potty train their kids because “it is too much work.” It is a lot of work to potty train a kid, but it is even more work to keep changing diapers until she is four.

The same logic undergirds the necessity for slow thinking. It is hard work to read, listen, write, and think. It is slow. It is monotonous, and it gains no popularity. No one in my church or community ever shows up to applaud me for slowly reading a book and thinking about it (in fact, just the opposite has happened in the past with statements like, “What does all of this book knowledge actually do in the real world?” or “I don’t need all of these books, I just want to love Jesus and that’s enough.”). However, by taking the time to process the thoughts, emotions, and as best as I can understand them, the motives of others, I can craft responses that are careful. I may lose the battle, but our goal is to win the war for minds, hearts, and souls.

Slow thinking doesn’t fit well within the age of social media and immediate news. Slow thinking looks more like philosophy and conversation and less like soundbites and tweets. Slow thinking looks like books and newspapers, coffee shop conversations, and complicated intellectual wrestling matches. Slow thinking takes hard topics and resists the temptation to boil them down to their least common denominator and instead wrestles with the hard and complicated truths.

Slow thinking is a habit of highly effective people, “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.” Unfortunately, too many of us seek first to be heard, and then, maybe later, to understand what others have to say.

Slow thinking is scary. When I slow down to think, my twitter feed does not attract many followers. When I slow down to think, I may not have a “hot take” to offer on every cultural experience. When I slow down to think, I may have to answer questions with, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t know yet.” But, when I slow down to think, my long-term effectiveness and faithfulness is multiplied.

One of my favorite books on the value of thinking is Alan Jacobs’, How to Think. In his book, Jacobs offers The Thinking Person’s Checklist. Below, I offer Jacobs’ checklist for you to consider as you work to listen more quickly and think more slowly.

1. When faced with provocation to respond to what someone has said, give it five minutes. Take a walk, or weed the garden, or chop some vegetables. Get your body involved: your body knows the rhythms to live by, and if your mind falls into your body’s rhythm, you’ll have a better chance of thinking.
2. Value learning over debating. Don’t “talk for victory.”
3. As best you can, online and off, avoid the people who fan flames.
4. Remember that you don’t have to respond to what everyone else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness.
5. If you do have to respond to what everyone else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness, or else lose your status in your community, then you should realize that it’s not a community but rather an Inner Ring.
6. Gravitate as best you can, in every way you can, toward people who seem to value genuine community and can handle disagreement with equanimity.
7. Seek out the best and fairest-minded of people whose views you disagree with. Listen to them for a time without responding. Whatever they say, think it over.
8. Patiently, and as honestly as you can, assess your repugnances.
9. Sometimes the “ick factor” is telling; sometimes it’s a distraction from what matters.
10. Beware of metaphors and myths that do too much heavy cognitive lifting; notice what your “terministic screens” are directing your attention to—and what they’re directing your attention away from; look closely for hidden metaphors and beware the power of myth.
11. Try to describe others’ positions in the language that they use, without indulging in in-other-wordsing.
12. Be brave.

Be quick to listen and slow to speak. The world will one day thank you for it.

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