When you listen to someone over the telephone or on the radio, you can hear their words and listen to the tone of his or her voice, but you cannot “read” their body language. What you communicate through the sound of your voice and the gestures of your face and body can either confirm the meaning of your words or actually discredit them. Researchers disagree on the percentage that nonverbal and vocal elements have on communication, but some say that words alone can be as low as 7%. Others would claim that words themselves can have a much greater impact than those statistics, depending on the speaker, the listener, and many other variables.
As you “hear” the words of Jesus which Matthew recorded for us in His biography, he often used various descriptive phrases to help the reader picture His tone of voice as well as His actions. For example, when the leper came to Him, we read that “Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man” – Matthew 8: 3. Doesn’t that affect the way that His you hear His words? On other occasions, there are phrases like, “He gave orders” and “when He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them”. In many situations, it is His actions that help to clarify what His words really mean. What was He trying to accomplish as He went through the towns and villages, teaching, preaching and healing? Why did He want His disciples to have the experience of going out by themselves to preach about the Kingdom of heaven and to introduce to the Israelites this Son of Man called Jesus?
Why not try to use your eyes to see how Jesus’ actions clarify His words and your God-given imagination to understand what He is saying more accurately? Would you agree that His actions speak as loud as His words so that together the purposes of The King were and are and will be accomplished.