What do you do when you say something and your hearers completely misunderstand? I mean, perpetually misunderstand? I mean, your hearers just keep on not getting what you’re saying?

Consider September 16, 2009, John Piper spoke at the American Association of Christian Counselors. You can read the manuscript and hear the talk here.

He was being completely transparent with the assembled counselors. His heartfelt passion to call out his own sin, be vulnerable, and rest on God’s grace is deeply encouraging. But, the reaction of the counselors was an eruption of laughter. Repeated eruptions of laughter. It is weird. Just weird.

I do not mean to indict the counselors. In charitable judgment, I do not think they meant to be that way. They just missed it. The speaker and the audience were not on the same plane. I think that this happens often. What makes this noteworthy is the mass of misunderstanding that occurred in that room. There was a fog. More than one person did not get it.

The point that I want to make is the miraculous nature of communication, in general. We should not take for granted that God made us communicative creatures. We make sounds to one another with our mouths and it means things. That is amazing. That we can ever “get” each other is breathtaking. And even all of this is corrupted by sin. It won’t always be this way. The communication that exists in the Trinity is something that we can only dimly imagine now. The glory and harmony in that conversation is one that we don’t want to miss. Fortunately, authorial intent will not be inhibited in the new heaven and new earth. We will talk with Jesus and never misunderstand what He says. No blur, no fog, no variety of planes. We’ll hear His voice and understand everything He tells us. And the telling will last forever.