(Blog) Shut Up & Listen! - Ep. 950 - July 24, 2026

Proverbs 18:13: Why We Answer Before We Listen

Answering before you understand a matter can turn a conversation into a judgment built on assumptions. Proverbs 18:13 calls that response folly and shame, and its warning reaches beyond interrupting someone.

In Episode 950 of The Smith and Rowland Show, our conversation centers on a willingness to hear, especially when opinions, offense, or familiar religious language make us think we already know the answer. The discussion begins with humor, then returns to a serious concern: truth can be spoken clearly while the listener refuses to receive it.

A Sponsor Joke Opens a Serious Conversation

Alan Smith and Jeff Rowland begin with their usual teasing about who's leading the show and who's supposed to follow. Their imaginary sponsor, iPad, becomes a conference full of frustrated tablets tired of taking second place to laptops.

The joke grows into a set of breakout groups with names built around pronouns. That exchange leads Jeff to recount a news story he says he heard on Fox News about a middle school teacher dismissed for keeping a book about biological sex in his office.

In Jeff's account, the teacher wasn't teaching from the book. He simply had it in his office. Jeff objects to the dismissal and expects the dispute could lead to a lawsuit.

The conversation then moves toward the question that occupies the rest of the episode: what happens when someone encounters a message they don't want to hear? Alan observes that people may love truth in principle while resisting it when it challenges their settled views.

Proverbs 18:13 Names the Problem

The verse at the center of our discussion is Proverbs 18:13:

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him."

Jeff explains the warning in plain terms. When someone starts answering an issue before understanding it, that person risks making a fool of himself.

Alan connects the verse to interruption. A listener who constantly cuts someone off may already be answering a conclusion in his own mind. Sometimes the interruption has little to do with what the speaker was saying.

The problem begins when a topic triggers a ready-made opinion. The listener recognizes a few words, assumes he knows where the conversation is going, and stops listening.

Jeff also applies this to religious language. Familiar church phrases carry meanings people have learned over time. However, familiarity can keep someone from examining what a phrase means in the conversation at hand.

Alan calls that resistance an unteachable spirit. The person has already settled the matter and sees no reason to hear anything more.

Premature Judgment Can Close the Door on a Person

Jeff applies the proverb to a painful issue in the church: hearing that someone has fallen into sin and immediately deciding what that person's future must be.

A report of failure can prompt an instant verdict that the person should never serve again. In the attitude Jeff describes, restoration becomes tied to whether the offender has satisfied the listener's personal expectations.

His concern is the speed of that judgment. Before anyone understands the matter, the conclusion is already in place.

Jeff speaks from experience on several sides of the issue. He has answered too soon and suffered the embarrassment of being wrong. He has also been the subject of conclusions reached by people who didn't understand his situation.

Yet he has experienced the opposite as well. When he listened before answering, the fuller account changed his opinion and the way he understood what had happened.

For Jeff, Proverbs 18:13 exposes a major problem within the church. People can make lasting judgments about others while knowing only part of the story.

Joe's Dream Illustrates a Lack of Hunger for Truth

Alan shares a dream his son Joe had described to them. In the dream, Joe was at Elevation Church in Charlotte while Steven Furtick preached.

Furtick preached with intensity, but the congregation walked around and talked among themselves. Nobody paid attention. Eventually, he looked around and walked off the stage.

Alan and Jeff interpret the dream as prophetic. Their emphasis is the congregation's lack of interest in hearing, rather than a report about an actual service at Elevation Church.

Alan draws a distinction between having truth to preach and having an audience hungry to receive it. A preacher's effort cannot create that hunger by itself.

Jeff connects the dream to one of six major prayer concerns in their Sunday night gatherings: a hunger for the Word. He sees the absence of that hunger as a serious spiritual problem.

In his understanding, the church's falling away includes people no longer receiving truth. They may hear the sound of preaching without recognizing or welcoming what is being offered.

That is why both men return to the condition of the listener. Speaking truth matters, but so does the readiness to hear it.

Disliking the Speaker Can Distort the Message

Alan describes another kind of failed conversation. He makes a statement, notices that someone looks offended, and asks what the person heard him say.

Sometimes the response gives his words the opposite meaning.

He identifies several reasons this can happen. A listener may dislike the speaker, resent the subject, or take the conversation personally. Anger can shut down a person's willingness to hear before the explanation is complete.

Alan makes an important distinction here: hearing someone out doesn't require accepting everything that person says. A listener can observe what is being said without agreeing or interrupting to correct it.

He also acknowledges that some people wouldn't naturally receive much of his attention. Even so, he hopes he would allow them to finish if they approached him with something to say.

As Alan puts it:

"Sometimes your enemy will tell you the truth when your friends won't."

The point is that an unwelcome messenger can still say something true. Personal dislike alone doesn't settle the value of the message.

Spiritual Interference and the Confusion of Words

Alongside anger and assumptions, Alan and Jeff discuss their belief that spiritual forces can interfere with communication.

Alan describes this as a third presence at the table. Two people may be talking, yet something beyond their disagreement adds confusion to what each hears.

He compares it to static on a radio. The message comes through differently than the speaker intended. He also recalls Bob Jones's way of describing words becoming "squirrely."

Both men acknowledge that some people reject this explanation. However, they say they have experienced conversations in which they believed spiritual interference contributed to the misunderstanding.

Babel, Acts, and readiness to hear

Jeff connects the discussion to the Tower of Babel and Acts 2. He believes communication before Babel carried a shared clarity that was disrupted when God confused the languages.

He then points to Acts 2 and the giving of tongues. In his understanding, clear communication among believers depends on the Holy Spirit's work in everyone involved.

That includes the person speaking, the ears hearing, and the heart receiving. Jeff also refers to the readiness of mind described in Acts.

His emphasis is that a speaker's spiritual preparation doesn't remove the listener's responsibility to be ready to receive.

The "Fiery Darts" of Ephesians 6

Alan brings the discussion to Paul's teaching on the armor of God, particularly Ephesians 6:15-16. Paul describes feet prepared with the gospel of peace and the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the wicked.

Alan connects those darts with temptation, sudden doubt, and harmful thoughts aimed at the mind and heart. He uses the phrase "trafficking communications" to describe his understanding of how the enemy introduces destructive thoughts into an exchange.

The discussion emphasizes the word quench. A fiery dart isn't something to let burn unchecked.

Alan describes answering a false thought with truth as throwing cold water on it. If a thought introduces an accusation or falsehood, the response is to identify what is untrue and state what is true.

Jeff connects this kind of attack to the Garden of Eden, where the enemy's words challenged what God had said.

For both men, the danger includes the conclusions people draw about each other after confusion enters a conversation. If they accept those conclusions without examining them, the misunderstanding can become personal suspicion.

Suspicion Can Follow You Into the Next Conversation

Alan and Jeff say they have experienced moments when they weren't understanding one another. In those situations, they believe it matters to stop and acknowledge the confusion rather than immediately blaming each other.

Alan describes naming what he believes is happening, praying, and exposing the interference to the light. Otherwise, he may begin assuming Jeff is trying to trip him up, while Jeff may form a similar suspicion about him.

Jeff explains how that suspicion can grow. An unresolved misunderstanding shapes the next conversation before it begins. The listener starts expecting a particular motive or offense.

Over time, that expectation can become so strong that the person's actual words no longer get a fair hearing. Alan describes people reaching the point where they think they can quote what someone else is thinking.

A hidden grievance makes a negative report easier to believe

Alan recalls a conversation with Rick about loyalty. Rick's point was that people defend one another more readily when they aren't carrying something against each other.

By contrast, someone with a hidden grievance may welcome a damaging report. Instead of asking what happened, that person reacts as though the accusation confirms what he already expected.

Alan connects this to harbored sin in the heart. An unresolved offense can make a person more receptive to a destructive thought or accusation.

That brings the discussion back to the proverb: a listener's heart can settle the answer before the matter has been heard.

A Teachable Spirit Still Has Something to Learn

Jeff points to Paul's repeated statements that he doesn't want believers to be ignorant about certain matters. He refers to five such warnings and treats them as evidence that believers need to learn rather than assume they already understand.

The opposite attitude is satisfaction with whatever knowledge a person already has.

Jeff rejects that satisfaction in himself. He says he knows himself and isn't impressed, but he is impressed by the Holy Spirit's ability to teach him what he lacks.

Alan connects that thought to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth. In their discussion, learning truth means being introduced to more of the Holy Spirit and, through Him, knowing more of God.

That understanding gives teachability a spiritual purpose. A settled refusal to learn can also become resistance to what God wants to show a person.

Their concern is a closed mind that approaches every familiar topic with the conclusion, "I already know all I need to know about this."

Knowing Someone Yesterday Doesn't Mean Knowing Them Fully

Jeff also challenges the confidence behind the phrase, "I know so-and-so."

At 63, he says he doesn't fully know himself, even though he has spent more time with himself than anyone else has. That makes him cautious about claims to know another person completely.

The exchange includes plenty of teasing about how much of Jeff remains for others to discover. Underneath the humor is a point about change.

If learning truth introduces a believer to more of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit changes that person, yesterday's understanding of him will be incomplete.

Alan then wonders whether declaring that he's having a bad day could sometimes amount to admitting he isn't changing that day. Jeff turns the moment into another joke by claiming he has never had a bad day.

The exchange returns to the same concern about fixed judgments. A person can keep changing while others continue responding to an older version of him.

Our Political Commentary Returns to the Same Proverb

The closing discussion applies Proverbs 18:13 to American politics and cultural division. Alan and Jeff describe what they call woke ideology, socialism, and communism as harmful influences, and they connect those influences to their discussion of fiery darts.

Jeff says some news coverage makes him feel so sick that he turns it off. Alan describes that reaction as a kind of "spiritual heartburn," a burning in the soul.

Jeff also recalls watching a program about the Bill of Rights. He argues that political efforts to move the country toward socialism conflict with the rights the founders worked to protect. In his view, competing political ideas are another place where people accept conclusions without hearing the full matter.

Alan contrasts attention given to New York City's mayor, Zohran Mamdani, with coverage of President Donald Trump and developments involving Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Jeff then discusses possible future Democratic presidential candidates, naming Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Gavin Newsom. He places Ocasio-Cortez and Buttigieg at the top of polling he recalls and characterizes both as communists.

He also recalls a poll putting Democratic preference for socialism over capitalism at roughly four in ten. His explanation returns to education: he believes students accept conclusions from professors before fully examining the matter.

These are the episode's political judgments. They follow the same concern expressed throughout our conversation about the church and relationships: accepting an answer before understanding what is being answered.

Truth Still Needs a Willing Listener

Our conversation ends with encouragement for Steven Furtick and other preachers to keep preaching. Joe's dream becomes a reason to persist, even when people seem unwilling to hear.

Proverbs 18:13 places responsibility on the listener as well. A person can recognize familiar words, form a confident opinion, and still fail to understand the matter.

The strongest thread throughout the episode is teachability. Truth has room to correct an assumption when the listener remains willing to hear.

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