Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Join host Ellen Krause—co-creator of Coffee and Bible Time—as she sits down with authors, pastors, theologians, and everyday believers to explore Scripture, identity, relationships, and how to truly keep Jesus at the center of it all. Whether you're just starting your faith journey or looking to go deeper, this podcast is a space to learn, be encouraged, and draw closer to Christ.
Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak: Living Out James 1:19 in Real Life
We explore James 1:19 and unpack practical ways to become better listeners, thoughtful speakers, and people who manage anger biblically in our relationships and conversations. Taylor shares about a bug flying in her mouth.
Scripture referenced:
- James 1:19
- James 3:4
- John 15:5
Ellen's Bible: Amplified 'Journal the Word' Bible
Sermon referenced: The Look that Changes Everything (note: Taylor accidentally misquoted this quote to Tim Keller. The original quote is from Gabe Fluhrer.)
Join our community! If you are a Christian woman seeking to know God deeper, study Scriptures, pray with and for others, strengthen your faith, and support other in doing the same, this is the place for you.
Want to study God's Word for yourself? Try our In-Depth Bible Study Academy
Click here to try a free mini-course!
📫 Subscribe to the Coffee and Bible Time newsletter
🤝 To support the work of Coffee and Bible Time, donate here
💗 See what Ellen, Taylor, Ashley, and guests are loving on Amazon
https://coffeeandbibletime.com
Some of the links in this episode may be affiliate links, meaning if you click through and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I'm Ellen, your host, and you know what.
Ellen Krause:I wanted to take just a second because some of you might be new to our podcast and let you know that Coffee and Bible Time. We are a mother-two-daughters trio and today I'm super excited to have my daughter, taylor, with us talking about this topic. So I want you to think back to a time when you had a difficult conversation with someone and they truly listened to you. How did that make you feel? Well, in today's episode, we're going to talk about how to become people who really listen, even when conversations get tough. James 1.19 says know this, my beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. That might sound simple, but we all know how hard it actually is, especially when emotions are high or when we feel misunderstood. Well, taylor is here with me today to unpack what this verse means and how we can live it out in our conversations, our conflicts and even our inner thought life.
Taylor Krause:Hi, taylor. Hi, it's so good to be back with you. I love talking with you on the podcast. For those of you that are listening, hi, I want to say hi, I love talking to you guys and I'm excited for today's topic on James. We've been going through this in our community online. We'll have a link to that in our show notes if you're curious. But it's been a great journey through a very practical book, and this is the type of book where you read it and, if you're reading it right, the wheels and the gears will be turning in your head on how you want your life to be transformed.
Ellen Krause:Yes, and a lot of things can seem so theoretical or philosophical, but James is very practical, very practical In fact. I want to start by reading this verse again, but the amplified version, because it really I just loved this because it goes back to the original language and really pulls out what these important words meant. So it says understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear. And then it expands on here to say be a careful, thoughtful listener. And it says slow to speak, a speaker of carefully chosen words, and slow to anger, patient, reflective and forgiving.
Taylor Krause:I love that. I love that it helps you really think about this verse in a more in-depth way. It kind of elaborates on that.
Ellen Krause:Yes, for sure.
Taylor Krause:I'm excited to dig into it together.
Ellen Krause:Okay, Well just Holy Spirit, be with us here today as we dive into this and help us to walk away with some practical things that we can apply to our life. Amen, all right. Well, the book of James, as we said, is so practical. This verse is no exception. It's short and it packs in three powerful instructions. So let's go through them one by one. The first one is quick to hear. Why do you think listening is the first thing James tells us to focus on.
Taylor Krause:That's a great question. I was actually really into reading Tim Keller this month and he was talking a lot about the human heart and our pride and what it means to be a humble person. And being a good listener is truly foundational to being a humble Christ follower. Because when you change your life to be from following yourself, following your own thoughts, your own passions, your own intuitions and you switch and your allegiance becomes to Christ, you are now first and foremost not the leader of your own life, you're a follower. You're a follower of Christ and being attuned to the Holy Spirit. And being a good follower of Christ means really listening well to what God says, what his word says, slowing down so that you can thoughtfully interpret God's word and what that means for your life, hearing the Holy Spirit speak to you and nudge you and prompt you to certain things.
Taylor Krause:And I love what Tim Keller says. He kind of talks about James and he says Be quick to listen, slow to speak. Why? Because the gospel is the death of the primacy of our own opinions. In other words, if we're always thinking that our opinions matter most, the gospel lays that to waste. Our opinions matter most, the gospel lays that to waste. It says the most important thing we hear is not what comes out of our own mouths, but what comes out of God's mouth to us. What do you think about that?
Ellen Krause:That's incredible and so true.
Taylor Krause:I honestly think it doesn't have to be more complicated than what James says and that's something I love about his book is he's straight to the point. Be quick to listen. He's saying that first, listening has to come first before you can speak, before you can feel justified in getting angry. Are you listening, are you reflective in that? And that is not easy to do.
Ellen Krause:No, no, Actually think about some good listeners in your life. What qualities do they have in common?
Taylor Krause:They're humble. They're humble and they're not self-seeking. They are okay with being wrong sometimes. Their first priority is not protecting their self-image or their ego. Conflict going on. There's a conflict, but they're not trying to turn it into a fight because their ego is not involved.
Ellen Krause:I have yet to achieve that. I was thinking of someone who was such a good listener, and that was my dad, and I just remember him just not saying anything, just truly looking me in the eyes and listening, and for me, I really struggle with that. I think it's the ADD, because we're so impulsive that we're always thinking to the next thing, and that's something that I'd really like to be better at and that I have to actually work very hard at. And sadly, I remember one time, Tay, when you were little and you must have learned this at school or something but you did like the peace symbol with your two fingers and then you pointed it at my two eyes, and then you pointed it at your two eyes and you were like Mom, like do you hear?
Taylor Krause:me, do you?
Ellen Krause:see me, hello yes. You know what? I remember that to this day because it taught me a lesson that I wasn't listening. Well, right, right. So even your kids notice Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Taylor Krause:Yeah, you can look like you're listening, but if in your own head you're thinking about this, that and the other, especially in a conflict I'll say in a conflict. Sometimes it'll look like I'm peacefully listening and I am gathering thoughts for my own defense. Scary, absolutely scary. That's not listening, that is pride.
Ellen Krause:We need to be quick to hear, which means being careful, thoughtful, truly listening, and then slow to speak is a speaker of carefully chosen words. So what do you think James is telling us about being slow to speak and the importance of that part of it?
Taylor Krause:Man, I think. Well, first of all, I think all of these three pair up being quick to listen, thoughtfully listening. That means you are not rushing into speaking when you have not carefully crafted wise words. Okay, Because the Bible tells us that your tongue, although it might be small, it is like the rudder of a ship that can steer conversation into destruction. And there is something about the heat of the moment when you are angry that you lose all sort of ability to control yourself and your words are the first thing to explode.
Taylor Krause:Honestly, daggers and and you know I'm going to say this because we're going to get on to being slow to anger some people might not be explosive with their words and they have other issues with anger that aren't helpful or appropriate, like stonewalling, cutting people off. That is also letting your anger control a situation in a way that isn't healing to anybody. But, to begin with, being slow to speak, it's like what we said before. It's like what we said before. Those of us that are following Christ now have to challenge ourselves to not prioritize our own words, thoughts, impulses over what God desires for us, which is self-control. I'm not sitting here saying that I have self-control, because that is something that you continually be sanctified to have with the Lord and you won't have self-control unless you're abiding in him. But self-control with the way that we speak is people. Both parties are quick to listen and slow to speak. You know what I'm saying.
Ellen Krause:Absolutely, absolutely, because the danger of speaking words that are not well thought out can be so devastating, and detrimental. You can't take it back Cannot and things get seared into people's minds they do, and of course that requires forgiveness eventually. But I'm just saying James is trying to avoid that right. By helping us get a grip on it before we do say something that we regret.
Taylor Krause:It's true and I think about, especially today, in the digital age. I don't know if it sounds cheesy to say that, but the amount of times that I have, impulsively, I'm mad somebody's getting on my nerves. I don't know if it's an email I'm sending out, if it's text message and I am typing away. I am typing away paragraph after paragraph. My impulses are just flowing out of of me, okay, and right before I'm about to click send, I think to myself, well, maybe I should just read, read over what I said. And and sometimes I'm like okay, taylor, this is a little scary, okay that that you were actually that fired up on emotion. And nowadays, with chat GPT, sometimes you're sending out an email and you're upset and you're like, okay, I'll just throw this into chat GPT, and chat GPT will make me sound like I'm not psycho, and chat GPT is like, okay, yeah, we can work with this. Let me just, you know, erase everything you said and be a lot more diplomatic, have some decorum here.
Taylor Krause:But truly, I think, aside from that funny stuff, the Holy Spirit is really supposed to be what we're leaning into to filter our thoughts and filter our words. Filter our thoughts and filter our words. And I've said this before but in your walk with the Lord, this is not. It's not a quick fix. It's not reading a Bible verse and being like, oh yeah, I can do that. Like sure, boom, check Done. I'm slow to speak, quick to hear, just because I've read this Bible verse and I prayed to God. It is an abiding relationship, just because I've read this Bible verse and I prayed to God. It is an abiding relationship which means it's like the analogy of I am the vine, you are the branches. You can't bear fruit, apart from me. In other words, if you want to live out these Bible verses, you want to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. You cannot produce that good fruit without leaning and relying on the Lord. He is what is going to be able to make your path straight. And I have said this before too. And here I go rambling. I'm always rambling when I'm getting on these podcasts with you.
Taylor Krause:But in the time that we're in now, with instant gratification, with our phones, with laptops, everything, we do not have the patience to slowly sanctify our life by abiding in Christ, because it is not an instant gratification thing, it's daily discipline. Up in this generation of phones, I've hardly had a time in my life where technology isn't there and I don't have memories of that, like growing up in childhood with phones and stuff. Ipads in school, right, oh my gosh. As soon as the iPads were out at least in my school district they were like okay, in middle school we're giving everybody iPads and you can take those things home. You can take those things home. Then it's like okay, well, my attention span is about the size of a pea, and now I'm looking at the Bible and I'm like this isn't looking all that convenient to sit down and even prayer for more than three minutes. That sounds a bit inconvenient. You know, it gets a little bit scary.
Ellen Krause:Yes, you know, honestly, for me it's got to come down to like those breath prayers, because when you're about to be in the heat of the moment, or you know you're getting riled up moment, or you're getting riled up is just praying in your mind. Lord, help me here, help me bite my tongue so that I don't say anything that I regret. Take a five-minute time out. I need to just stop, think, reflect before I say anything. I think those are all pieces of good advice. Well, let's jump into the slow to anger part, because you started to allude to that result of all of these things. Why do you think that James links all these together in one verse?
Taylor Krause:I think I kind of said a little bit before, but they all go hand in hand, they do. You know what I'm saying? If you are quick to speak, then you're not listening. If you're not listening, then you're probably quick to speak. If you are exploding in anger, then chances are you're prioritizing to a degree that's disproportionate to the situation, your own emotions and your own thoughts and feelings.
Taylor Krause:And you know I'm going to say this anger is sometimes a natural response to things that are unjust, that you're really hurt by. But there has to be boundaries, right, there has to be boundaries with any emotion that you have. Anything can go overboard, and that's because we're sinful human beings, and even good things can become sinful, right, it's not just these things we deem bad or are unwanted, and so they all go hand in hand. You're probably going to be less likely to explode in anger if you are practicing listening thoughtfully, if you are challenging yourself to be slow to speak. It is not easy to do, which is why I said you have to rely on God for that. So what do you think, mom, in terms of anger being sinful?
Ellen Krause:Well, I guess the thing that comes right to my mind is that it's not always sinful. It's how we respond to it, because anger in certain situations, when there's been an injustice, is completely valid Right.
Taylor Krause:It's just how we express that emotion, without letting it control us Right, and you know what we talked about this in our community, just how sometimes people get confused when scripture shows God being angry. Like, oh, should we be afraid God is angry? He must be a scary God. Or if God has the same type of anger that we have, then is he just out of control, whiplashing people with his anger? Sometimes people kind of picture God as like somebody who's shooting a lightning bolt out of his finger and zapping somebody if he gets upset. People kind of picture God to have human anger and the more you read scripture, the more you study God's character and his holiness.
Taylor Krause:Anger is something that pours out of, like you said, mom. It's a result of there being an injustice, it's a result of unholiness, things not being right. It flows out of a place of goodness, from the Lord. He is so good and he is so holy that to see injustice, vile, evil, sinful things makes him feel a righteous, holy anger that is justified in his good character. Now we don't really have that type of righteous anger because of the sinful world that we live in.
Ellen Krause:And that's what James goes on to say in the next verse. He says let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So he knows that our human nature, you know we may be attempting to have righteous anger, but that can really get out of control.
Taylor Krause:Right, and I'll say this, something that I learned in my attempting down that path of counseling. For those of you that have been following along, I have been out of my master's degree program for a little bit now because my school shut down sadly, and subsequently my program with it, but Causing a bit of anger. Oh yeah, let's just say that I was going to say that anger is actually a secondary emotion in most cases, like anger is what you, what presents, and if you feel that anger and you dig deeper, there's an emotion underneath that presenting emotion and a lot of times it's sadness. And I think that there's something deep to that actually, because sometimes I feel really heated up in anger and in an argument and even just with my sister I was. She was telling me the other day, when you get angry in an argument, you're very accusatory, you're not actually saying how you're feeling, and there's something in there where my anger was just so, it felt so big and so I felt an injustice, right, and of course used that as a means of justifying my anger. But when she did say like you're not saying how you're feeling, you're not saying how you're feeling, yeah, that annoyed me in the moment.
Taylor Krause:I'm not going to lie. I'm like, okay, let's stop getting to my emotions, let's move past this. I'm not in the mood Later to see like underneath the surface of this erupting anger is a lot of sadness over whatever happened. And that's because we're fragile, right, yeah, and it really gets down to I mean not to be cheesy, but like the little person in us, the little girl or the little boy that feels that pain and that injustice, and there's something in us that's like, yeah, let's protect ourselves with this anger, but really we're sad, we're hiding behind that anger sometimes. What are your thoughts on that?
Ellen Krause:Yeah, I was just thinking when you said that, that little girl inside, and I'm thinking back just to my own situation of being adopted and sometimes being angry at you know why didn't they keep me? But now that you say that, and if I look back deeper into it, it is because I have a sense of sadness. Although I am truly grateful that I had two loving parents, I think just part of being adopted wondering where you came from is a legitimate natural feeling, but I can see how that there is something deeper underneath that for sure. Amen, that was deep. Well, as we start to kind of wrap this up, how would you suggest to people like maybe a first few steps just to live out this verse?
Taylor Krause:That's a great question for all of us to hear, and I'm saying this to myself too, because I need. All the wisdom that I can get Is being quick to listen, for a believer starts with you and your relationship with God Listening to what he has to say and going to his word to hear what he has to say. If you are like, okay, I haven't been really in God's word lately, start in James actually, because it is a very, very practical book and it's a great book for if you're busy and you only can read a couple verses at a time to really soak in and ingest. Great book for that. But start with listening to what God's word says.
Taylor Krause:People ask us a lot I think I said this in a couple podcasts ago what is God's will for my life? I just want to know what god has to say. His word was given to us by the lord, divine inspiration, through the hands of human authors. We do believe here at coffee and bible time and encourage you to challenge yourself to see god's word as the living word of god. And if you do that and you read God's word and you challenge yourself, even if you're struggling, coming to him in prayer, asking Lord, show me, help me listen through your word.
Taylor Krause:That is going to be the most transformative time in your life are the times that you were shaped by God's word in listening to what he has to say. That's the first step in being quick to listen. With that then is the transformed life that follows, and when you really do abide with the Lord, your relationships with other people and how you interact in terms of oh hey, when you are getting in conflict, you're probably going to be more likely to be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to get angry, because you are going to look more like Christ, the more you are really in his word and the more you're praying, especially prayers that sound like Lord. Sharpen me or show me the ways that I can grow. Show me the ways that I can change. Convict me when my anger is getting out of control.
Ellen Krause:I think having another Christian in your life that can call you out is so incredibly helpful. It stings, it's painful at the time, but I think that's also what really helps us grow is when someone sees it in us and we're like.
Taylor Krause:is when someone sees it in us and we're like oh, I have to say this just because it is so on topic. But yeah, mom, you are that for me. I think you know that I'll be getting out of the house soon, so I won't have this accountability partner, so I'm getting off the hook in a little bit Just kidding.
Taylor Krause:We can cover that on FaceTime, okay, yeah, and you know, isaac doesn't let me slide, okay, when I, when I get nuts, but anyways, um, this is funny and actually is potentially no purpose me saying this, but yesterday we were on a walk and I was just telling her about I was fired up about something. Okay, not going to lie, I am PMSing, okay, but I was fired up about something and I was telling her. I was like I was in the middle of this heated argument and like a bug flew in my mouth. And then I'm talking, I'm talking, talking, and then again a bug flew in my mouth for the second time. And the second bug, it wasn't a little bug, it was like a fly, okay.
Taylor Krause:And the second bug, it wasn't a little bug, it was like a fly, okay, I spit that thing out so fast. I was like you've got to be kidding me Two bugs in one day in my mouth. And my mom was like you know, taylor, maybe it's because you aren't really being slow to speak, quick, listen. And I was like, oh my gosh, you know what? You might actually be right, and if there were always bugs flying into my mouth when I was flying off the handle, that might just be the accountability I need. Honestly, I was like I hope I don't contract diseases from that fly.
Ellen Krause:Oh my, I mean, I was like half joking when I said that too, though, because it was pretty hilarious it was.
Taylor Krause:I did scare you half to death when I was spitting that fly out. Yes, you did.
Ellen Krause:Oh my Well. Thank you so much, TA, for being here for discussing this, and I just want to encourage anyone who's listening that that's what the power of Jesus does inside of you. I have seen people in my life transformed from this whole, being quick to anger, and it has been an incredible God honoring journey, and so believe that when God says there's nothing that's impossible for him, it is true. Would you mind closing us out in prayer?
Taylor Krause:Absolutely, dear Lord, we just praise you for who you are. We believe that you are such a good God. Lord, we want to honor you in the way that we live out our lives and interact with other people, and we just take a moment to confess and lay at your feet the ways that we have not honored you with our emotions and with the way that we handle our anger. With that, lord, we ask would you help us to abide in you? Would you help us to change our path and help us to look more like you? Help us to glorify you in the way that we interact with other people, in being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry.
Taylor Krause:Lord we ask all these things in your name, amen.
Ellen Krause:Amen. Thank you so much for being here to listen to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. We would love it if you would share this with a friend and subscribe. We love you all. Have a blessed day.
