Understanding the communicator's intended meaning

Maurie Daigneau Nov. 30, 2021

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Jesus referred to himself as the "light of the world" (John 8:21), and it is my conviction that the gospel message, properly understood, serves as a prism, a clarifier of the true light (see John 1:9), through which the kind intention (see Ephesians 1:5,9) of all God had purposed in His Son can be known and understood.

Just as a prism clarifies the component colors of light, the proper understanding of the gospel makes known the truths of God. Such an understanding of the gospel is critical.

I did not have that understanding during the early years of my faith-life journey, and it is one that I now hold to dearly. I ask you to consider temporarily closing your current "Gospel Understanding" file and opening a new one.

If you read something that presents an understanding that is different from the one you currently hold, save it in the new file. You will always be able to delete the new and reopen the old at any time.

But before you do any deleting, I would simply encourage that you be like the Bereans, who steadfastly took whatever they were hearing to the Scriptures "to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11b).

The Communicator's intended meaning

Famed author and speak Tony Robbins once said, "The way we communicate with ourselves and others ultimately determines the quality of our lives."

Albert Einstein once said, "Any fool can know. The point is to understand."

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important communication God has ever sent to His creation. It is critical that we know and understand the truth of that gospel as it was intended to be known and understood.

Since it is the truth by which we will ultimately be judged, we must be certain that we understand the communication as intended by God, not as determined by the thought of man.

To highlight the key to the accurate understanding of any communication. I want to reference first a book called Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.Written in 1987 by Professor E.D. Hirsch, Jr., of the University of Virginia, the book identifies what he believes to be the necessary prerequisite to the proper understanding of any form of communication.

His thesis statement, "Without appropriate background knowledge, people cannot adequately understand written or spoken language," was well substantiated throughout the book. A study he conducted, which is involving the following paragraph, is extremely informative. It reads:

"The procedure is quite simple. First, you arrange the items in different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending upon how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to a lack of facilities that is the next step. Otherwise you are pretty well set."

Do you recognize and understand what the above paragraph means? In the study, several groups were given this paragraph to read, apart from any other knowledge.

Not one person in any of the groups could recognize the sentences from the paragraph, except the group that had, in addition to the paragraph, been given the title, "Washing Clothes." That title enabled the readers to "integrate the sentences into a mental model that they constructed from prior knowledge about washing clothes."

The model gave meaning to the sentences; thus, the intended communication of the paragraph could be properly understood.

Until such time as God chose to reveal the "appropriate background knowledge" through the gospel of His Son (the "Washing Clothes knowledge), the purpose and meaning of the first 4,000 years (biblical timeline estimate) of human history could not be fully understood.

This inability to understand is the pre-Christ condition of all human beings that was referenced by Paul early in his Romans letter when he quoted from the psalmist, "There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands" (Romans 3:10-11a).

This was the universal condition of the whole of humanity at the time because the Son of God had not yet brought understanding into the world (see 1 John 5:20a).

There is a second and equally significant point (not mentioned in Hirsch's book) that concerns the absolute necessity of properly interpreting that "washing clothes" knowledge of the gospel.

Referring back to the thesis statement of his book, we note the word "appropriate." If a hearer is to discern a communicator's intended meaning accurately, he or she must be certain that the drawn-upon background knowledge is the appropriate knowledge.

Reread Hirsch's "Washing Clothes" paragraph below. Only this time, do it from the perspective created by the title, "Filing Paperwork":

"The procedure is quite simple. First, you arrange the items in different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending upon how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to a lack of facilities that is the next step. Otherwise you are pretty well set."

Did you notice that this title also gives meaning to the paragraph? However, it is not the meaning intended by the communicator. Apart from the direct intervention of the communicator, or someone else who knows the true intent of the communication, the reader has no way of knowing that he or she has misunderstood the communication.

The reader would assume his or her position of understanding to be in harmony with the intent of the communicator and proceed completely unaware that such an understanding was actually erroneous. Regarding the gospel, I believe this to be an unintentional reality of which many in today's church are unaware.

This is excerpted fromThe Gospel You've Never Heard: An Understanding That Will Change Your Life, by Maurie Daigneau (Trilogy Christian Publishers). Used with permission.

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Maurie Daigneau is a retired business owner/entrepreneur and author of the newly-published book The Gospel You've Never Heard: An Understanding That Will Change Your Life. He has been in a personal relationship with the Lord for more than 50 years, and has committed the balance of his days to sharing the lessons he has learned from the only One any of us is to call “Teacher.” Maurie and his wife, Susie, raised five children of their own and are now the proud grandparents of 13. Learn More »

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