By Calvin Pearson | Associate Professor of Preaching, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Texas
3. Seek to identify with the audience. Concepts related to this are mentioned in many homiletics textbooks, usually in the area of support material. We are taught to have illustrations that our hearers have experienced or at least have knowledge of. Identification is not limited to illustrations; it extends to delivery, style and virtually all areas of preaching. When speaking in deep East Texas, my southern accent tends to increase because I am instinctively attempting to build an identity bridge between me and the congregation. If others identify with you, they are much more likely to listen to you.
4. Understand and use the values or beliefs of the audience. Each audience will have a set of values. Though it may require years of listening and living with people, one can learn the values of a congregation. These values can help a pastor preach more effectively because he is supporting the text with the congregation's deep values. If a congregation in New England is being addressed, the value of tradition can be very important. A lifelong friend of mine has an annual men's picnic at a lake in central Massachusetts. He revealed one of his New England values when he explained that he continue to serve "Table Talk Pies"—even though hardly any one liked them—because that is what his grandfather served. The value was keeping the tradition. In speaking to an audience composed of people similar to my friend, the preacher can use their value that "traditions are good and should be kept" to persuade. In a sense, trusting Christ is a 2,000-year-old tradition—not that holding to tradition is the only reason to come to faith, but it helps to move a person.
5. Present how you might be positively affected by the opposition. This is an attempt to show the audience that they matter, since you can be moved by them. This effect upon you must come out of love and respect that you have for those to whom you speak. Perhaps you are presenting your complimentarian view of the role of women to an audience greatly influenced by feminists. You explain that the feminist teaching of women being "objectified" has helped you see a less-than-desirable mindset that you have toward women. When they hear that you have been helped by an opposing view, there is a possibility that they will feel more confident and secure, thus putting them in a position to listen more openly.
6. Ask our listeners to apply at least some of the truth (or in some cases all of the truth). As has been pointed out in evangelistic studies and in the experience of ministry, people often have to embrace the truth of the gospel in stages. It is rare that a person responds the first time he hears the gospel. Caution must be exercised: there is no middle ground when it comes to faith in Christ, but coming to faith may start with an awareness of sin. The person may not embrace Christ, but his understanding and feeling guilt is a start.
7. Give an invitation to take action on biblical principles. In James Crosswhite's book The Rhetoric of Reason, he presents the case that rhetoric has as its purpose action, not truth. A fireman trying to get a person to leave a burning building is not interested in the person believing a truth about a fire; he wants the person to leave the building—to take action. In most rhetoric studies, particularly in the area of argumentation, the issue is not truth but action. In contrast to this we are concerned with truth, but we want our hearers to go beyond an acceptance of truth to action.
Richard Weaver, a rhetorician with a worldview more palatable to Christians, closely links rhetoric and truth. He basically says that the speaker without truth has nothing to say. Certainly for us, the preacher without the truth has nothing to preach. It is not that we separate truth from belief, but rather we see the distinction between persuasion and truth.
Commitment to something does not necessarily mean you are positive it is the truth. Many times people are ready to take action before they are positive of the truth. Of course, truth is important, but at the point of persuasion we must link truth to action. If one accepts the truth that Jesus is the only Savior from our sin but does not follow through with trust, then we have failed to truly persuade that person.
When we stand in our world to announce, "Jesus died for your sins, and you must repent and trust Him as your Savior," we face both collective opposition from a relativistic mindset that rejects any "you must" type of statements as well as opposition from the individual sinful nature that rebels against God. Minds—hardened externally by culture's insubordination to its Creator and hardened from within by a choice of pride—cannot be moved by our rhetorical efforts.
Without the Holy Spirit's convicting work in a person, there will never be true persuasion. Therefore, relying upon His work, we must attend to our work with all the tools we can find while maintaining a proper attitude. We must be sheep in the midst of wolves, as shrewd serpents seeking to use every available means of persuasion, while as doves we stand next to the Cross of Christ.
1. Nancy Wood.
Perspectives on Argument, 2004.
2. Larry Overstreet in "The Priority of Persuasive Preaching" and Don Sunukjian in "The Preacher as Persuader" make the case that persuasion is part of the role of a NT preacher. Spurgeon in his
Lectures to My Students has a chapter entitled, "Conversion is our Aim" and Broadus in his legendary
On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons has a chapter devoted to argument.
3. Aristotle defined
rhetoric as "the ability to see the available means of persuasion." Book 1 Ch 2.1.
