Preachers Are to Persuade

At first it seems that one appointed to proclaim the Word of God would not be concerned with argumentation. We preachers are commanded to proclaim, not persuade, so why craft a method to promote acceptance? Is that not the role of the Spirit?

In response to this perception, well-respected homileticians make a strong case that persuasion is the role of the New Testament preacher. Larry Overstreet, Don Sunukjian and many others make the point that preachers should seek to persuade.² This article will attempt to describe how we are to engage in this practice.

A current cultural trend, articulated by pollsters such as George Barna and theologians like David Wells, highlights that we preach in a difficult context. Preaching the judgment of God upon sin to people whose favorite misunderstood biblical command is "judge not" is a heavy task. We must be skilled in argumentation so that our increasingly hostile listeners will have every opportunity to hear what God is saying and will take action based upon what they hear. We must be as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.

Innocent as Doves: Biblical Mandates

The Scripture gives us many guidelines for our attitudes toward others. The hardest one to talk about is humility—but would anyone deny its importance? To say we are humble in our argumentation is presumptuous, as though we didn’t have any motives. However, it is vital to see the following suggestions are not just another part of a method we learn so that we can "win" in our next debate.

C.J. Mahaney was asked to write a book on humility. (I suppose that otherwise it should not and could not be written.) In Humility: True Greatness he gives a picture of humility from the words of Carl Henry. When Mahaney asked the evangelical patriarch about maintaining a humble spirit, Henry responded, "How can anyone be arrogant when he stands beside the cross?"

In order to reach a world of wolves, we must attempt to bring Carl Henry’s view of humility together with argumentation theory. Borrowing the wording from Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric³, to be sheep, serpents and doves, we must seek to use every available means of persuasion while standing next to the cross of Christ.

Servant’s purpose. If you want to be great in God’s kingdom, you must be the servant of all. In contrast to this, our natural tendency in argumentation is to present our point in such a way that our hearers will think we are right. Our purpose is too often to win the argument so that we can show ourselves to be the greatest. To be dove-like we must seek to persuade so that the listener can benefit. Benefits to us should be of no consequence. Unlike the salesman who seeks the benefit of his customer and himself, we can seek to persuade purely for the benefit of the listener. We persuade to serve our listeners by seeing good take place in their lives.

Loving heart. Perhaps the first command we learned as children gives the proper motive in argumentation: "love one another." Motives are hard to discern, much less control; but we must ask ourselves, Why do we work hard to present the truth of God effectively?

When I am honest with myself, I must admit that too often, I step into the pulpit fully prepared with my words so that when I step out I will be fully affirmed by the words of others. Unfortunately, at that point, my motive is not love for God and others but love for myself. To be dove-like is to be motivated by love for God and others. We preach because we love the One whose Word we proclaim and because we love those to whom we proclaim it. We persuade out of love for God and for those we are seeking to persuade.

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