Dear All,
Long time never posted liao, so thought of sharing something
with all of us. and also Happy CNY to all!
-by Pastor John MacArthur
The difference lies in the means we use to persuade. The Word of
God is the only legitimate means of persuasion. Legitimate
persuasion is cognitive—stirring the mind with reasonable truth.
Convincing with tear-jerking stories, histrionics, and emotional
outbursts takes an unfair advantage of people and wrongly muddles
their thinking. That does not mean we cannot use all the
communication skills available to us, but we should avoid playing
on people's emotions, even by repeated singing or playing of hymns.
These are artificial and should be avoided because they bypass the
reason.
Our goal in preaching is to constrain people to choose change
because it is reasonable and right before God, not because they
have been manipulated into some momentary feeling or action. We
persuade them from the Scriptures to choose the right course of
action. We do not pile on emotional pressure until they break. We
want them to know clearly what the alternatives are and that they
must choose.
If after hearing our sermon someone does not know what he is
supposed to do about it, we did not reach that person. I believe
the legitimate point of persuasion ends with the clear presentation
of the truth and must not move beyond that to artificial emotional
stimuli for eliciting a response. This latter kind of appeal has
produced false Christians and weak believers bouncing from one
emotional high to another without a theology to live by.
In 1 Tim. 4:13, Paul writes to Timothy,
"Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture,
to exhortation and teaching." What he tells Timothy is to read the
text, explain the text, and apply the text. That verse is a call to
persuasive, expository preaching.
Paul himself was a very persuasive preacher, but he never tried
to manipulate emotions to move people artificially. At the end of
one of his messages, King Agrippa exclaimed, "In a short time you
will persuade me to become a Christian" (Acts 26:28). Agrippa clearly understood the message.
Sadly, he made a wrong decision in spite of his understanding.
Ultimately, however, our sermons will only be as persuasive as
our lives. A traveling speaker who does not remain in one place
long enough for people to get to know him may be able to "fake" it
without a consistent life to back up his message, (though this is
regrettable). Those of us who preach to the same people week after
week, however, cannot do that. Our people know us, and our
persuasiveness depends on the quality of our lives.
Paul's preaching was persuasive; but it was his life that won
the hearts of people. The Ephesian elders cried when Paul left
them, but not because they would not hear him preach anymore. They
were "grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that
they should see his face no more" (Acts 20:38). The integrity of the preacher's life is
a key element in persuasiveness.