Love, or Gongs and Cymbals?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment." Proverbs 10:21

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." 1 Cor. 15:31

"Chinese frustrate me!" an American told me. "They never say what they really think. But I'm not afraid to people a piece of my mind."

That was an understatement! This fellow had given so many people a piece of his mind that I was surprised he had enough left to think with. And he often prefaced his words with, "The Lord has given me a word for you...."

I wondered which Lord his words were from, because the effect of his words was usually to lift up himself, not others. I often wished he'd give us a piece of his heart rather than his mind, and speak the truth from love rather than pride. As Paul wrote, "...but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ." Ephesians 4:15

Westerners have long been frustrated by the "inscrutable Oriental," and Chinese indirectness annoys me as well. But I've come to appreciate their discipline in not just verbalizing everything that comes to mind, and in speaking the truth in a way that minimizes their own loss of face, as well as mine.

Of course this can go too far. It is frustrating when I'm trying to get an honest opinion about a problem and a Chinese colleague or friend refuses to be candid. I can't even get a simple answer to "Like a cup of tea?" without asking 3 or 4 times. "No, don't want to trouble you! "No, too much bother." "No, you're too kind"--all when they know I've already brewed the tea and its sitting on the teapot right in front of them.

In a magazine article entitled, "Turning the Tea Tables", I wrote about how I warned Chinese MBA students before they visited my home, "In my home you're in America, not China. So if I offer you tea and you're thirsty, you'd better accept it on the first offer, because I won't grow pushing it on you." The students laughed, but when they showed up everyone of them.... you'll have to read the article here to for the humorous but enlightening outcome.

There is, of course, a time for directness. Jesus was pretty straightforward when he told the hypocritical religious leaders that they were whitewashed tombs, and in Matt. 23:15 he accused them of crossing land and sea to make disciples who became twice the sons of hell as themselves! This did not endear Jesus to his audience.

But Jesus was "in your face" only with the hypocritical leaders who not only refused to listen to him but also were leading others astray, weighing people down under heavy burdens but not lifting a finger to help them. Jesus, by contrast, was gentle, speaking the truth not only in love but in parables that listeners could interpret according to their own experiences and needs. He did not drive the truth down their throats but said, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen." Mark 4:23. He offered not more burdens but rest. "Place my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your souls, because my yoke is pleasant, and my burden is light." Matt. 11:29,30

When we speak the "truth," I hope our motive is to lift up others and not ourselves, and that we speak it in love and not pride. For as Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 13:1, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

Noisy gongs and clanging cymbals? Evidently Paul also listened to Chinese opera!

Supplement: Chinese Indirectness, Macgowan, "Sidelights on Chinese Life," 1907, p.1,2
Note: 100 years ago, "Chinaman" was not deprecatory.

THE Chinaman's mind is a profound and inexplicable puzzle that many have vainly endeavoured to solve…..Any one who has ever studied the Chinese character must have come to the conclusion that the instincts and aims of the people of the Chinese Empire are distinctly the reverse of those that exist in the minds of the men of the West.

It may be laid down as a general and axiomatic truth, that it is impossible from hearing what a Chinaman says to be quite certain of what he actually means. The reason for this no doubt arises from the fact that a speaker hardly ever in the first instance touches upon the subject that he has in his mind, but he will dwell upon two or three others that he believes have an intimate relation with it, and he concludes that this subtle line of thought ought to lead the hearer to infer what he has all the time been driving at.
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