Introduction: Worship and Persuasion

These essays celebrate persuasion as a communication ideal for the

Christian. Persuasion ought not be merely one approach to communication—

limited, say, to evangelism, or to formal teaching and preaching, or to an apologetic

defense—but ought to characterize all the communicative practices of those

following Christ. Living persuasively, I claim, enacts mature faith and reflects Spirit-

filled obedience. I further identify a life of persuasion as a life lived eloquently, by

which I mean that all of a believer’s communication—verbal, nonverbal, analog, and

digital—fits harmoniously, hand-in-glove, with God’s own persuasive

communication to humankind. Explaining what this eloquence looks like is the goal

of a Christian rhetorical theory. Developing such a theory, then, provides the

foundations for Christian communication.

Not all Christians, though, may see the need for more theory. Many Christians

would prioritize the need for practical communication strategies ahead of whatever

value could come from theological reflection on communication. Indeed, the

demands of speaking faith within Church and world are overwhelming, and the

immediate need in the here and now—for teaching children, navigating polarized

political environments, advocating for justice, evangelizing the lost, or growing a

local congregation—warrant timely advice and incisive practical instruction. These

demands seemingly outweigh the need for the reflective consideration of

persuasion itself, especially if that theoretical work requires, as it does herein,

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 2

sustained critical reflection on the unexamined assumptions shaping a Christian’s

habituated communication instincts.

Furthermore, characterizing this theological work as a rhetorical theory, and

using “eloquence” as a description of ideal communication seems, at first glance, to

be an archaic or tone-deaf speculation that either is irrelevant to the cultural

demands for a powerfully relevant Gospel witness or sets a standard vastly

exceeding the prosaic everydayness of how a typical Christ-follower stumbles

through conversations with distracted acquaintances, difficult family members,

opinionated co-workers, and disinterested neighbors. Furthermore, “eloquence” as

a description of ideal communication seems to run afoul of the apostle Paul’s explicit

disavowal of eloquence in his own ministry (1 Cor 2:1-4). Even if we can properly

contextualize Paul’s denial, and find some use for the concept of eloquence in

persuasive practices fully consistent with Paul’s Gospel message (which this book

attempts to accomplish), then we still might wonder why the use of terms like

“rhetoric” and “eloquence” are of any use at all. Why a Christian rhetorical theory?

What does it provide for the demands facing Christian communicators?

Rhetorical Theory

Rhetoric, according to the dictionary, is the art of persuasion. As any

introductory overview of rhetoric will note, though, the extensive and complex

history of the term has both detractors and champions. 1 For detractors, the term

often is used to denounce the specious pollution of the truth. For its champions,

though, the rhetorical art is an admirable capacity enabling humans to peacefully

navigate their personal and collective disagreements. So, the barest dictionary
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 3

definition does little justice to historical weight of the term as a normative

reference, both pro and con, to the morality of human persuasion. As a champion,

then, I define it affirmingly as a morally desirable practice: rhetoric is that art of

persuasion honoring communicative practices in pursuit of desired ends. To affirm

rhetoric, then, is to affirm the strategic practice of persuasion in which persons seek

desired ends in a way that acknowledges persuasion as a good and honorable gift.

Rhetoric, then, is a learned orientation toward persuading others (and also, inevitably,

the self) in ways that respect the process of mutual and ongoing influence. Strategic

communicative practices that undermine persuasion (such as coercion or

manipulation) are inconsistent with an art of rhetoric. We persuade because

persuasion is good (indeed, as I hope to convey, a divine good). A rhetorical theory,

then, is a reflective and evaluative perspective on those suasory practices. A Christian

rhetorical theory, more precisely, grounds this reflective evaluation on persuasion

within God’s redemptive and reconciling work through the person of Jesus Christ.

What good, then, is a Christian rhetorical theory? Although the term

“rhetoric” originates outside of scripture, it is the best term available to characterize

a wholesale reconstruction of Christian communication practice. 2 The richness of

secular rhetorical theory, in conjunction with the often-explicit use of rhetorical

theory to inform hermeneutics and homiletics throughout the history of the Church

(as will be noted at various points throughout this book), provide leverage for

reconstructing the theological and exegetical foundation of specific persuasive

strategies used by Christ’s followers. Although itemizing and recommending a

collection of persuasive techniques is part of any complete Christian rhetorical

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 4

theory, that specific collection emerges from the broader reflective and evaluative

analysis orienting believers toward the faithful use of techniques, equipping

Christians to bring all things, including persuasion, under the Lordship of Christ.

To further explain: Any account of what strategies a Christian should use to

persuade others, whether those be believers or unbelievers, presumes an implicit

theory of rhetoric. Typically, the implicit theory would presume something about

the persuader, the persuadee, the messages exchanged, and the situation (narrowly

and broadly conceived) in which, and through which, the persuasion occurs. So, for

instance, when a Christian interacts with a neighbor who stubbornly dismisses any

notion of God, and that neighbor indelicately expresses the view that Christians do

more harm than good within today’s society, any strategic response by this besieged

believer presumes something about self, the neighbor, the types of messages that

may or may not be acceptable in this situation, and, probably, the difficulty of one’s

Gospel witness within an inhospitable environment. Any strategic

recommendations for Christian persuasion, then, will operate upon these

presumptions, looking at a range of possible message tactics involving, perhaps, a

recognition of the neighbor’s values, a curated set of apologetic resources, the

relational dynamics of the two parties, and appeals categorized according to

outcome desired. The Christian’s response, then, emerges from this strategic

analysis of the “rhetorical situation” and seeks to modify something within that

situation, such as the neighbor’s openness to, or interest in, a further conversation

that leads eventually to a more direct conversation about Christ. 3

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 5

Thus, the typical approach to Christian communication is to provide answers

to questions about strategy, to assess the rhetorical situation and recommend

tactics for modifying that situation. A distinctively Christian rhetorical theory,

though, prioritizes the ongoing work of Christ’s persuasion within the lives of all

communicators, both persuaders and persuadees. As such, it shifts the priority for

Christian communication away from the typical questions and directs believers to

see those questions as a subset of a larger, more central question. The primary

communicative task is not to ask, What strategy do I use here? Or, How do I

persuade you? But to ask, How do I participate faithfully in the persuasion of God?

Therefore, Christ-followers, first and foremost, ought to locate themselves

rightly as persuaders—to get their rhetorical bearings—within and through God’s

own persuasive revelation. This is central to the ongoing strategizing of daily

communication. This is the path to Christian persuasion, which is the path of faith

lived eloquently. Before speaking, the believer responds first and always to the God

who persuades that he is both the beginning and the end of all that is to be said and

all that is to be done.4 Speaking persuasively to others derives from the believer’s

ongoing responsiveness to God’s loving pursuit. Christian rhetorical theory, then,

provides an orientation for living fully, and faithfully, in the persuasion of God.

In this way, then, a Christian rhetorical theory provides fresh occasion to

worship the Father, to call forth the power of the Spirit, and to encourage growth

into the likeness of the Son. Although rhetorical theory includes within its purview

practical strategies, the way into these strategies is to see them within the larger

picture, namely, that the push and pull of influence is indistinguishable from the
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 6

believer’s very identity in Christ as a child who worships the Father empowered by

his Spirit. In other words, the priority for Christian communication is to reconstruct

the very existence of persuasion through the revelation of Jesus Christ, and this only

can be done—and ought to be done—through the prior and worshipful

responsiveness to that revelation.

Holy Persuasion

The incessant and complex challenges of human communication tempt one to

develop one-size-fits-all formulae or, simply, to acquiesce to received strategies.

Conceiving those strategic choices within a theology of divine persuasion, though,

shifts the focus from reactionary trouble-shooting to worshipful participation in

God’s redeeming and reconciling work in a broken world.

Although Christians certainly need ongoing advice and direction to improve

communication, we also must see the forest of God’s rhetorical designs on us as we

navigate through the trees of tangled communication opportunities. A Christian

rhetorical theory places the multitude of communication problems, and how they

can be solved, within the more expansive vista of God’s persuasive work in and

through his creation. Rhetoric is holy work; rhetorical strategies ought to be

rendered unto the Lordship of Christ with a fervency no less than that urged

through the truths proclaimed and the actions commended. Rhetorical theory, as

developed herein, orients Christian communication as an offering to the one true

God who redeems all creation, including us, creatures far too consumed with

communicating as if we are our own gods.

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 7

Therefore, as Christians attend to the very real and urgent needs of

proclaiming the Gospel, of educating the youth, of mobilizing pray chains, of sharing

meals; as Christians assist the widows and the poor; and seek justice for the

imprisoned, enslaved, and wrongly accused; as Christians are called to be

missionaries here and abroad—as Christians do all of this and more, they worship

the God who sweetly, insistently, and mercifully pursues his beloved. God, acting

always and fully with love, plies the pursued with a persuasion that ought to

permeate all the believers’ words and deeds.

To live within God’s persuasion, then, is to live in reverential responsiveness

to—and by welcoming the influence of—God’s word. This primary responsiveness

sets the course of a person’s new life in Christ. Persons do not initiate God’s loving

move toward them; rather, persons respond to that loving movement. So, as the

biblical writers attest, we have “knowledge” only because God first knew us (1 Cor

8:2-3; Gal 4:9); we love only because God first loved us (1 Jn 4:19; Eph 2:4-5); we

call others to God only because God first called us (Jn 6:44; 2 Tim 1:9). The believer

lives, then, only as a response to God’s initiative. First and foremost, then, believers

ought to be responsive to—available to—God’s reconciling appeal. The Christians’

existence and identity as Christ followers is as persons who respond reverently to

God’s persuasive pursuit.

Living Persuasion

Placing persuasion within the kingdom reality of God’s own persuasion, then,

is elemental to becoming, as Jesus teaches, salt and light to the world (Mt 5: 13-16).

The Church is blessed with numerous books and articles providing learned guidance
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 8

on how to communicate in ways consistent with Christian faith. 5 This book need not

repeat that wealth of insight. But the rhetorical situations are complex and ever-

changing. Christians continue to experience the mysteries of communication

interactions won and lost, and churches continue to wrestle with the effects of their

flawed communication upon their own members and on the watching world. The

greatest need, then, is not to produce another handbook for Christian persuasion,

but to cultivate a Christian rhetorical imagination.

This book, then, differs from most books on Christian communication in at

least two ways. First, as already noted above, I speak of all communication as

rhetorical. Thus, I begin not with a model of communication as transmission,

translation, collaboration, dialogue, or the sharing of meaning, but with the reality of

influence evident everywhere and at all times in our relationship with God and

others.6 Whether digital or analog, intentional or unintentional, conscious or

unconscious, verbal or non-verbal, the Christian’s way of being faithful to God and

living that faith with others is a participation in divine persuasion. Although no

single term is sufficient to characterize the wonder and mystery of divine and

human communicative relationships, speaking of these as “rhetorical,” and relying

on the term “eloquence” to foreground the distinctively persuasive dimension of

lived faith, more suitably honors the work of God’s revelation in and through

believers than terms for communication that abstract message content from the

impress of message power.

This distinctive focus leads to a second difference between this book and

most other contemporary approaches to Christian communication. Whereas the

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 9

typical approach tackles the felt need of our communication failures by seeking to

align our messages—in strategy and form—with some theological or biblical

touchstone independent of, and prior to, our communication, this book develops the

interdependence of message and strategy. Focusing on divine influence is not

something one does after having identified the biblical message and locating the

communicative (rhetorical) situation but is integral to the very reception of that

message. Thus, the rhetorical dimension of Christian faith—the “rhetoricity” of one’s

relationship with God and others—ought to permeate the selection of biblical

content and the interpretation of the communication situations.

To recommend that Christians consider their lived faith rhetorically is to do

nothing more, really, than to urge that Christians take what now operates in

Christian thought and practice as a bundle of implicit and unexamined

presumptions about communication and make these explicit, testing them in the

light of scriptures. To the extent that all Christians make some judgments about the

persuasiveness of their communication, they are operating with an implicit

rhetorical theory. The task, then, is bring that implicit rhetorical theory—that

bundle of assumptions about truth, strategy, situation, speaker, and audience—to

the fore and reform it so that it is explicitly shaped by the image of Christ.

Central to the implicit and unexamined rhetorical theory guiding most views

of Christian communication—that implicit view I urge needs to be reformed—is the

separation of persuasion from God’s proclaimed truth. Nearly every approach to

Christian persuasion relies upon this separation, which operates as a functional

duality of God’s Word and God’s influence.7 The truth/persuasion duality has
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 10

worked its way into the daily practices of a believer’s approach to God and others.

At times it is a subtle distinction and, at other times, a clear and driving opposition

that shapes common approaches to evangelism and ministry, the ways one

understands faith, and even how biblical passages about communication are

interpreted. For instance:

Example #1: Interpreting Ephesians 4:15

In an all-too-familiar exegetical move, a visiting preacher in my Chicago

suburban church urged the congregants to speak truth to one another, especially

when a brother or sister is troubled with sin and temptation. However, the preacher

explained, such truth-telling also must be handled with sensitivity and grace. As

Paul states in Eph 4:15, the pastor announced, Christians are to “speak the truth in

love.” The preacher then guided the congregants through an interpretation of this

phrase with the assistance of three simple equations displayed on the screen:

Truth - Love = Condemnation

Love - Truth = Enablement

Truth + Love = Restoration

Without loving consideration, truth is received as condemnation. If the approach to

the sinful brother or sister foregrounds love and grace at the expense of truth, then

the communication is received as permissive and supportive, perhaps even enabling

the continuation of the sinful practice. The right approach, consequently, would be

to strike the balance between truth and love. This is, according to the preacher,

“living in the tension” between “showing grace and sharing truth.” Speaking truth

lovingly is the formula for restoration.

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 11

The practical advice at first glance makes sense, given contemporary

presumptions about truth as having a hard edge that must be softened.

Furthermore, the general advice about speaking with gracious care to others is

consistent with Peter’s instruction to provide a Gospel witness with “gentleness and

reverence” (1 Pet 3:15 [16, NRSV]), which fits a larger pattern of scriptural teaching

on speech (e.g., Prov 22:11; Col 4:6). Yet, upon reflection, the presumption of a

tension between truth and love, as if one is needed to balance the other, is

inconsistent with Paul’s teaching in Ephesians and, indeed, the very Gospel

preached by Paul.8 Indeed, truth and love are inseparable aspects of the very Gospel

that believers ought to live in all their relationships.

The context of Ephesians 4 makes the inseparability abundantly clear. At the

beginning of chapter 4, Paul emphasizes that living a life worthy of the Gospel

calling is characterized by humility, patience, peace, and “bearing with one another

in love” (2). He extends his view of Christian interaction by instructing on the

spiritual gifts bestowed by God’s grace “for the building up of the body of Christ”

(12). As believers minister to one another, the parts of the body are “working

properly” and the body is “building itself up in love” (16). In Eph 4, then, love is the

quality of the believer’s fellowship and also characterizes the trajectory of believers’

interaction as they grow into Christ-like maturity, “to the measure of the full stature

of Christ” (13). Thus, when Paul uses the participle phrase “speaking the truth in

love,” he is providing a characterization of how believers interact with each other. 9

In particular, “speaking the truth in love” is Paul’s way of contrasting the growth-

producing interactions among believers to those destructive practices , itemized in

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 12

v. 14, that toss the immature (“children”) “to and fro” through “trickery” and the

“craftiness in deceitful scheming” (14). Christ’s church is characterized by the

spiritual gifts that build rather than destroy, that promote the body’s growth. So,

speaking truth is always speaking in the love that builds one another. Love is not in

tension with truth but is its lived reality. “[I]n love” is, according to T. K. Abbott’s

1897 commentary, “not a limitation, but a general characteristic of the Christian

walk.”10 As Andrew T. Lincoln explains: “[I]t is not as if two competing claims or two

quite different qualities [truth and love] have to be held in balance. Ultimately, at the

heart of the proclamation of the truth is love, and a life of love is the embodiment of

the truth.”11 The truth that marks Christian fellowship is contrary to human self-

serving communication, which seeks to manipulate and control. To speak truth,

then, is to speak within the new life of Christ, which is to speak in love.

Thus, Ephesians offers no support for popular notion that the truth of Christ

needs to be tempered by the love of Christ. The inseparability of truth and love also

ought to be obvious from reflection on the overall scriptural witness to Christ. The

incarnate Jesus cannot be divided into the truth-telling Jesus and the loving Jesus.

The Savior who announces that God loves the world through his only begotten Son

(Jn 3:16) cannot also be proclaiming this truth as if it is so hard-edged that it would

be too harsh without a suitably loving approach. And the truth of Christ’s death on

the cross is as hard-edged as truth can get; yet, this hard-edged truth also is where

the love of God is most gloriously demonstrated. The “offense of the cross” (Gal

5:11) is the truth that God incarnate loved so much that he gave himself to die. The
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 13

eternal beauty and mystery of this divine love is that it is the eternal beauty and

mystery of divine truth.

Therefore, Paul is not marking a separation between truth and its loving

presentation. He is not providing instruction on Christian communicators to wrap

truth in love or to somehow soften its blow with a gracious demeanor. Eph 4:15 is

not 1st century Pauline sensitivity training. But, sadly, the presumed duality between

the content of the Gospel and the mode of speaking the Gospel has found its way

into quality commentaries on Ephesians. Why would conscientious preachers and

scholars perpetuate such a curious view? I believe that a secular assumption about

truth and communication has edged its way into the Christian imagination, and this

unexamined rhetorical theory clouds the exegetical vision. We see this operate

when a commentator’s pastoral caution about Christian speech overwrites Paul’s

text. Notable here is John Stott’s exposition on Ephesians 4. 12 His summary of vv. 1-

16 aptly emphasizes Christian unity through a “steady growth in maturity by

holding the truth in love” (173). Yet, when commenting on v. 15, Stott shapes his

exegesis through his observations of the “contemporary church” in which some “are

determined at all costs to defend and uphold God’s revealed truth” yet do so while

“conspicuously lacking in love.” “They seem to enjoy nothing more than a fight,”

Stott laments (172). Conversely, other members “make the opposite mistake” by

sacrificing “the central truths of revelation” for the purpose of “exhibiting brother

love.” For Stott, “Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love; love becomes soft

if it is not strengthened by truth” (172). The (undoubtedly) accurate observation

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 14

about the communication practices of flawed Christian community becomes Stott’s

interpretive framework for expositing the passage. 13

Similarly, Lynn H. Cohick’s more recent commentary on Ephesians adds a

contemporary assumption into the otherwise helpful comments on 4:15. 14 She

rightly states that “[t]eaching the truth in love is a means to the goal of equipping

saints for ministry” (113). Yet, on the same page, Cohick glosses the phrase

“speaking the truth in love” as Paul “track[ing] a middle path between two common

extremes” (emphasis added). These extremes are, she notes, the “importance of

correct doctrine” and a “humble spirit straining after Christ.” Notice that the

exegetical point is carried by the notion of what is “common,” an otherwise

unexplained or unexamined reference point for separating truth from love.

In Stott, Cohick, and my local preacher, the exposition of Eph 4:15 has been

shaped by an assumption imported into the text. It is explicitly identified as the

notion that God’s divine truth is separable from the manner in which that truth is

impressed upon others. The love of Christ must be the modality of interpersonal

influence since the stating the truth of Christ, apart from that love, undermines

Christian unity.

The view that God’s redemptive truth is insufficient, or even dangerous,

without a loving communicative approach to others is theologically nonsensical. Yet,

that view is widely held through the “common” assumption of a distinction between

God’s truth and the modality of communication through which that truth is spoken

to others. This is, indeed, a rhetorical theory, albeit one that foists theological error

onto Paul. Through a reconstructed rhetorical theory, though, Christians are

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 15

directed not to live truth and love in tension but to live truth as the loving appeal to

grow into the fullness of Christ. A rhetorical theory, whether implicit or explicit,

shapes the believer’s communicative practices. Whereas the flawed rhetorical

theory imposed on Paul’s text would have believers asking themselves, How can I

tell others in the church the truth without being offensive? The eloquent Christian

asks, How do I speak the Gospel to others in a way that furthers Christ’s redeeming

and reconciling work?

Example #2: Marketing the Ministry

Several years ago, I was chatting with one of my students about a recently-

completed summer internship. This student had the privilege of working on the

youth staff of a large seeker-driven megachurch. Although enjoying the ministry

experience, the student’s contemplative nature clashed with the mechanics of

creating ministry events. We both acknowledged the value of an appealing youth

outreach, yet the behind-the-scenes orchestration of every element was akin to

watching how the sausage was made. “What is one of the tasks they asked you to

do?” I inquired. “Spray Fabreze in the event venue,” was the reply. “What scent?”

“Not sure, but it probably changed based on what they wanted to happen that

night.”

I do not know if the event planners announced the smell of the night to the

middle-schoolers assembling for Bible teaching, laser lights, and contemporary

worship music, and I do not know if Fabreze was selected primarily to mask dirty

socks or to provide an ambient scent, but this student intern could not help but

wonder if the ministry had stepped too far in aligning the Gospel with marketing
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 16

strategies. What was the place of strategically-used aromas in their theology of

ministry? Did they have such a theology, or had they bracketed olfactory rhetoric as

theologically neutral? Perhaps they had a rhetorical theory guiding their middle-

school ministry, but if so, it wasn’t conveyed to the student intern. More likely, they

had an implicit ministry theology that embraced Fabreze (and other contemporary

seeker-service elements) through a means-end duality: the truth of the Gospel (the

end) is best conveyed through culturally relevant standards of communicative

excellence (the means).

As we know, the use of scents is an increasingly popular resource in “sensory

marketing” strategies. The consumer experience can be affected, according to a

growing body of research, through both “ambient scenting” and “scent branding.” 15

The strategic use of odors can increase a consumer’s favorable attitudes toward an

environment (like a grocery store, or a hotel lobby) and enhance the memory of a

product. Some research indicates, though, that when consumers are told about the

scent, the effects on consumer behavior are reduced. Thus, consumers who are less

aware of the olfactory appeals are influenced in ways similar to subliminal

advertising. In their expansive review of literature on scent-based marketing, three

UK researchers note that subliminal tactics are illegal in visual and audio marketing,

so they encourage additional investigations into the legality of using scents to alter

consumer behavior.16

In a consumer culture, youth ministers understandably face pressures to

make sure their youth group is branded, their ministry events are properly

marketed, and their students are given a memorable experience. The line between
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 17

ambient scenting and psychological manipulation is too thin to proceed without

interrogating the rhetorical assumptions guiding practice. At the least, youth

ministers ought to resist a merely utilitarian use of Fabreze and, instead,

worshipfully consider the eloquence of God’s truth to middle-schoolers. Indeed,

God creates and appeals to all our senses, so the use of scents in a church-based

youth group ought not be determined by an implicitly-held separation between the

verbal content of a youth meeting and its suasory design.17 So, the Christian rhetor

ought to ask: How do we participate persuasively in Christ’s redemptive work? How

ought we live God’s persuasion here and now (amidst the smells and sounds of a

crowded junior-high youth group)?

Example #3: Gospel Formulas

Several summers ago, one of my students had the extraordinary opportunity

to intern with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in the United

Kingdom, interviewing seventy church leaders and pastors throughout Ireland,

Scotland, Wales, and England concerning the present state of evangelism and how

the BGEA could more effectively partner with churches. This student met faithful

believers, remarkable men and women who labor faithfully in a culture increasingly

antagonistic to, or fully ignorant of, any expression of Christian testimony. As one

British evangelist explained, in past decades he could envision evangelism as

speaking to a person on one end of a long road who was facing toward the other end

and seeing Jesus standing in the distance. Today, though, this evangelist laments, he

still sees a person standing at one end of this long road, but now this person is facing

away from Jesus, with his back turned.

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 18

As my student learned through these multiple intensive interviews, British

pastors and Christian leaders see many of their fellow citizens as having no

knowledge of, nor interest in, anything having to do with Jesus. The British Church,

in all its various denominations, continues to do extraordinary work within

communities, providing invaluable social services and, in important ways, doing

works consistent with Christ’s love. But the people who are served, by and large, are

not hearing the Gospel; and the people in the congregations, by and large, are not

telling them the Gospel. The consistent pattern through these interviews is that

Christians are not sharing the good news, and they don’t, according to my student’s

overall conclusion, because they do not seem to believe it will matter to those who

hear it.

In light of this heartbreaking pattern, my student joins with many of those

interviewed and affirms what seems to be an obvious recommendation: Christians

need to share their testimony—to tell their stories—so that others hear and connect

the dots between the works of the churches and the redemption offered through

Jesus Christ.

I, along with my student, join with my British brothers and sisters in

affirming the need (our need) for the open and confident testimony of Jesus’

salvation. Lurking in this recommendation, though, is a deeper concern that

undoubtedly contributes to the Christians’ skepticism about the efficacy of personal

witness. The reluctance to witness is, as the sources reported, mixed with a sense of

futility: the gospel message will not make a difference. I cannot help but wonder if

this is precisely a recognition that the Gospel they envision sharing is not
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 19

persuasively effective; it will not be received as anything other than merely another

tired attempt to get converts to a religion perceived as woefully irrelevant. I wonder

if the Gospel is itself conceptualized as a plan, a set of doctrines, or verses separable

from persuasive appeals.18

When we in the U.S. are called by pastors and evangelists to share our faith,

this call often is accompanied by recommendations—or perhaps even formal

training sessions—focused on Gospel templates, or formulas, of approved truths

and doctrines. Indeed, I suspect such training would be central to the BGEA’s own

follow-up training to churches in the U.K. Within this approach to evangelism,

witnessing to others too frequently means learning to describe our lives of faith

through somebody else’s training manual, such as the “Roman Road,” or the “Four

Spiritual Laws,” or BGEA’s own four-step “Begin Your Journey to Peace”

(https://peacewithgod.org.uk). The assumption is that we must learn and

accurately represent those fundamental doctrinal truths that count as a salvation

message and that these are prior to and independent of the particular phenomenon

of any one believer’s persuasive encounter with Christ. If we are to be persuasive in

sharing our testimony, this evangelistic logic would claim, then we must make sure

our strategy is a supplement, or a carefully monitored added layer, to that which

actually counts as the approved elements of a Gospel proclamation. Thus, when

Christians are called to boldly share the Gospel with their neighbors, many may very

well have in mind that at some point they must talk through the official bullet points

of some doctrinal template. Regardless of how we frame it, or what sort of relational

context we establish, it comes down to a pre-packaged formula that exists

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 20

independently of whatever persuasive relationship we have with our savior and

with others.

Therefore, to simply enjoin Christians to boldly share their testimony may

not overcome the very real concern among the flock that the testimony they share

will be blithely ignored or, worse, will contribute to the growing cultural sensibility

that the Gospel lacks personal or intellectual integrity. Why? Perhaps many

recognize that the Gospel we are taught to share is disconnected from the Gospel

that grips our lives. It is a Gospel not of glorious redemption and new creation but a

Gospel of packaged Bible passages. It is a Gospel that assumes the Bible verses are

polluted or jeopardized if we think of them first and foremost as God’s persuasion to

us; it is a Gospel that assumes God’s influence in pulling us to Him happens through

the sheer magic of selected verses rather than the full-court press of the Spirit

through personal witness, story, emotion, and argument. 19 Perhaps our feebleness in

personal evangelism, then, is a feebleness self-inflicted through our impoverished

view of rhetorical existence. By separating God’s persuasion from the Gospel (as if the

truths to be told are independent of their persuasive appeal in our lives), we have

disconnected the message of Christ from the appeal of Christ.

Example #4: The Leap of Faith

Serving as a pastor in a Big Ten campus ministry, Danny has regular

conversations with students who have been deeply secularized. Even among those

who claim to be Christian, Danny hears the struggle in their faith journeys as they

navigate an intellectual world that seems fully consumed with epistemological

relativism. On the one hand, the Christian students want to believe they are clinging
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 21

to an absolute, objective truth. On the other hand, those students navigate their

convictions in an intellectual and cultural environment in which relative knowledge

is the only acceptable stance. Danny believes these students are trapped in a false

dichotomy between objectivism and subjectivism, between the ideal of an objective

and transcendent set of doctrinal truths, which probably was insisted upon in their

evangelical youth groups, and the everyday challenges of university life in which the

received “truth” of their Christian faith seems to be merely one among a myriad of

alternative subjective options.

As Danny describes both the sorrows and excitements of his ministry, he

laments the impoverished epistemological space these students inhabit. Their world

has been described to them as a forced choice: Either you leap by faith into a

collection of immutable beliefs, or you accept that your faith is merely your own

(“what I happen to believe”), resting tenuously upon personal experiences and

shored up through affirmations of a personal identity. In studying this phenomenon,

Danny has come to see the students’ predicament as the outworking of a faulty

dualism. He, rightly I believe, traces this to a subject/object philosophical dualism

filtered through a “postmodern” embrace of epistemological nihilism. He recognizes

the need for a way beyond the intellectual impasse, a way for students—and for all

of us, actually—to cleanse our thinking of these exhausted intellectual conundrums.

What Danny sees as the way forward is, indeed, a recognition that God’s

saving truth comes to us not as abstracted propositions but through embodied

witness, not as merely a chosen identity occasioned by some combination of nature

and nurture, but as divine action moving through inspired scripture. What he sees
 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 22

as the much-needed rejection of a subject/object dualism goes hand-in-hand with

the rejection of a God’s influence/God’s message dualism. According to the lived

experiences of the students Danny describes, both the objective and the subjective

poles of the duality reflect an overall suspicion toward persuasion, as if persuasion

is either irrelevant or unwanted. For the objectivist, truth exists independent of any

human influence; the truth is presumed to be outside any merely subjective or

biased appeals that likely distort or cloud truth’s purity. Thus, objective truth is

independent of any persuasion whatsoever and, as truth, must be clearly evident to

all. An objectivist sees eloquence as dangerous, an artifice designed to distract and

deceive. For the subjectivist, truths vary by person, culture, family, class, race,

historical position, and on and on; therefore, an attempt to persuade others of a

particular truth is at best naïve and at worst violently insensitive. The subjectivist

sees eloquence as a threat of imposition, an attempt to manipulate and control.

In avoiding persuasion, then the objectivist discovers and announces and the

subjectivist empathizes and shares stories. Neither recognizes the desirability or

inevitability of persuasion within one’s epistemic judgments. For the Christian

university students trapped with the objectivist/subjectivist binary, divine wisdom

—the truth of the Gospel—seemingly has no truck with divine eloquence. Both

objectivists and subjectivists separate persuasion from the epistemology of Christian

faith.20 Neither the objectivists nor subjectivists are able to see persuasion as a mode

of living that honors faith as a worshipful reception of God’s eloquent wisdom.

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 23

These four cases reflect how an implicit rhetorical theory shapes Christian

communication. Assuming a particular relationship among message, strategy,

speaker, and audience, shapes ministry strategy, evangelism training, and the very

conception of one’s lived faith. In the following chapters, I will challenge this implicit

theory and provide the foundations for an explicit theory, namely, that God’s

persuasion is both the grounding of faith and the goodness through which the

believer persuades others.

In Part One, I begin, rightly, with Christ’s persuasion. But this will require the

careful reformation of a rhetorical epistemology and a theological admonition on

the nature of incarnation. As such, chapter one sets the terms and contours of a

distinctly Christian rhetorical theory. In chapter two, I situate Christ’s persuasion

within the broader scriptural context of God’s persuasive appeals to humanity. In

accounts of God’s creation work (Gen 1-2), the Fall (Gen 3) and God’s persistent

approach to woo people back into relationship with him, we find both an affirmation

of God’s eloquent truth and an explanation for how the duality of truth and

persuasion came into existence. Living rhetorically in today’s world, then, is living

forth the redemptive work of God’s own persuasive designs on humanity.

In Part Two, I map the initial coordinates of how to live a Christian rhetorical

theory through reflections on power, time, and peace. In effect, these chapters serve

to amplify the primary question for a Christian persuader: How do I participate

faithfully in the persuasion of God? In chapter three, I construct an ethic of rhetorical

power in light of Paul’s denunciation of “eloquence” in 1 Cor 2: 1-4 and Jesus’s

apparent rejection of strategic preparation in Matt 10: 17-20 (and parallels). In

 Eloquence of Faith: Introduction 24

chapter four, I orient Christian persuasion within the time of God’s redemption,

using Paul’s admonition about believers’ communication in Eph 5:16. In chapter

five, I explain how Christian persuasion is a practice of peace by reflecting on the

crucifixion, divine judgment, and the portrait of lived peace in the book of James.

Overall, these chapters lay the groundwork for a Christian persuasion that is

empowered by God’s spirit, attentive to the time of God’s salvation, and practiced as

the peace of Christ.

In the Conclusion, I describe the formation of Christian rhetorical agency

through the local church and in relation to the larger culture that often is hostile to

Christian persuasion. Through a redeemed rhetorical imagination, believers live in

persuasive relationship with God, church, and world. Within a distinctly Christian

rhetorical theory, then, the formation of rhetorical agency is a formation into

Christian maturity. And it is maturity, after all, that God desires for us—to grow into

the likeness of Jesus, shining forth to a watching world the persuasion of Christ, the

Word and Wisdom of God.

Notes
1
For recent, brief historical overviews of the rhetorical tradition, see the “General Introduction”

in Patricia Bizzell, Bruce Herzberg, and Robin Reames, eds., The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings

from Classical Times to the Present, 3rd ed (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020), 1-16; and

Richard Toye, Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

2
That a secular term is borrowed to orient exegetical and theological analysis is, in itself,

unremarkable. However, the challenge with “rhetoric,” and the associated term “eloquence,” is

that these often evoke practices and attitudes contrary to scriptural teaching, such as in Paul’s

denial of eloquence in 1 Cor 2:1-4, or Jerome’s account of God accusing him of being “a follower of

Cicero and not of Christ” (“Letter 22: To Eustochium,” W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley,

trans., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6., Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds.

[Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893], par. 30). My claim follows Augustine’s

lead in de doctrina Christiana (which will be reviewed in the next chapter) that, once properly

reconstructed through the Gospel of Christ, “rhetoric” and “eloquence” are valuable terms as

second-order concepts useful for organizing and guiding theological and exegetical reflections on

the practices of persuasion everywhere apparent in divine revelation and enjoined on believers

as faithful participants in that revelation. The vocabulary of “rhetoric” and “eloquence” also has

the distinct advantage of referencing the socio-cultural milieu of public persuasion influential

throughout the 1st century A.D. Mediterranean world affecting Jewish and Christian speaking and

writing; see, e.g., Ben Witherington, III, New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art

of Persuasion in and of the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Cascade Book, 2009), 1-21.

3
This standard description of rhetorical action relies on the classic essay by Lloyd F. Bitzer, “The

Rhetorical Situation,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1-14. For an example of this implicit
rhetorical theory shaping recommendations for Christian influence, see Ed Stetzer, Christians in

the Age of Outrage (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2018). Stetzer identifies characteristics

of the contemporary context for messaging (a culture of “outrage”), the attitudes and values of

the communicators contributing to outrage (e.g., “lies” believed about politics and Christian

mission) and the general strategies appropriate to, and corrective for, this situational nexus of

cultural and individual variables (e.g., “loving others in a winsome way”; xv-xvi).

4
In speaking of God as persuasive here and throughout this book, I am presuming that God

speaks to persons made in his image. It is beyond the scope of this study to specify what, exactly,

it means to say that God speaks, or how that speaking is related to scriptural revelation, to Christ

as God’s Word, or to the general revelation through which all persons have knowledge of God

(Rm 1:19-20). The masterful study of God’s speaking is Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse:

Philosophical Reflections on the claim that God Speaks (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press,

1995). Whereas Wolterstorff focuses on the epistemological problem of what it means to say that

God speaks (and if we can say this with rational justification), I focus on the phenomenon of the

recorded and experienced influence attributed to God’s word in scripture and through scripture.

My approach is a practical theology of divine influence with direct application to the believer’s

growth in Christian maturity.

5
In addition to Stetzer, cited above, see, e.g., Naaman Wood and Sean Connable, eds., Humility

and Hospitality: Changing the Christian Conversation on Civility (Pasco, WA: Integratio Press,

2022); Benson P. Fraser, Hide and Seek: The Sacred Art of Indirect Communication (Eugene, OR:

Cascade Books, 2020); Timothy Muehlhoff and Richard Langer, Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing

without Dividing the Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), and Winsome
Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,

2017); Ken Wysma and A. J. Swoboda, Redeeming How We Talk: Discover How Communication

Fuels Our Growth, Shapes Our Relationships, and Changes Our Lives (Chicago, IL: Moody

Publishers, 2018); Christine Herman, “A Lesson in Listening: Why the Best Witnesses Use Their

Ears First and Their Mouths Later,” Christianity Today June 2017, 41-43; Shapri D. Lomaglio, “The

Witness of Our Words: How Should We Communication in an Age of So Much Noise?” Advance

Magazine Fall 2017, 12-13; Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Public Faith in Action: How to

Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote with Integrity (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2016); Os

Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,

2015); Quentin J. Schultze and Diane M. Badzinski, An Essential Guide to Interpersonal

Communication (Baker Academic, 2015); Jonathan K. Dodson, The Unbelievable Gospel: Say

Something Worth Believing (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014); For my own attempt to identify

the essentials of Christian communication, see Kenneth R. Chase, “Listening, Speaking, and the

Art of Living,” Liberal Arts for the Christian Life, ed. Jeffry C. Davis and Philip G. Ryken (Wheaton:

Crossway, 2012), 143-154.

6
The concepts of communication and dialogue are of recent historical development and, as such,

often overlay biblical accounts of divine speech with assumptions foreign to the socio-cultural

milieu of the biblical texts; see John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of

Communication (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

7
This duality also is characteristic of Western European/North American assumptions about

communication, in which matters of content often are separable from matters of form. For the

cultural contrasts, see these overviews of Afrocentric and Asiacentric communication in which
the word is inseparable from its performative power (Afrocentric) or inseparable from its

performative contexts (Asiacentric): Molefi Kete Asante, The Afrocentric Idea, rev. ed.

(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998), 95-98; Yoshitaka Miike, “An Asiacentric

Reflection on Eurocentric Bias in Communication Theory,” Communication Monographs 74

(2007): 272-278.

8
Neither can such a tension be found in Peter’s admonition in 1 Pet 3:15-16. Peter’s

characterization of personal witness (“Always be ready to make your defense”) as given with

“gentleness and reverence” instructs believers that their devotion to Christ (“sanctify Christ as

Lord,” 15) extends even to the modality of speech in the most difficult of situations (when others

treat you with “evil” or “abuse,” 9). As Karen H. Jobes explains, believers ought not allow “fear to

drive them to use the same tactics of insult and malicious talk against their opponents”; 1 Peter,

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein,

eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005): 231. So, the manner of response is not a

communicative technique to balance the harshness of Gospel truth but a lived demonstration of

the believer’s stated witness. J. Ramsey Michaels, along with most commentators, believes the

gentleness and reverence towards others is rooted first and foremost in the gentleness and

reverence of believers toward God: “this God-centered quality of the heart finds expression also

in one’s behavior toward others”; 1 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary Vol 49, David A. Hubbard

and Glenn W. Barker, eds. (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988): 189. Thus, speaking of one’s faith with

gentleness and reverence is itself a practice of that faith. The manner of one’s speech is not

separable from, or in dualistic tension with, the content of one’s speech.

9
The Greek participle translated “speaking the truth” (ά ληθεύοντες) can be taken as referencing

a manner of life encompassing both speaking and acting. Harold W. Hoehner translates the full

phrase as “being truthful with love”; Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI:

Baker Academic, 2002), 564. Most commentators, though, maintain “speaking” as a more suitable

translation given the Eph 4 context of speech-based gifts in building up believers and the contrast

to those deceivers in v. 14 who threaten Christian unity; see, e.g., Frank Thielman, Ephesians,

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein,

eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 284-285.

10
T. K. Abbot, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the

Colossians, The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T Clark, 1897), 123.

11
Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol 42 (Waco, TX: Word Books,

1990), 260.

12
John R. W. Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today, J. A.

Motyer and John R. W. Stott, eds. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979).

13
Stott’s analysis of this passage has been cited approvingly by others who, in turn, exegete Eph

4:15 through a tensional view of truth and love. See, e.g., Arthur G. Patzia, Ephesians, Colossians,

Philemon, New International Biblical Commentary, W. Ward Gasque, ed. (Peabody, MA:

Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 246; Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical

Commentary on the New Testament, Clinton E. Arnold, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010),

269.
14
Lynn H. Cohick, Ephesians: A New Covenant Commentary, New Covenant Commentary Series,

Michael F. Bird and Craig Keener, eds. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010).

15
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, “Scent Branding Catching On with Retailers,” Chicago Tribune, April2 20,

2014, n. p., accessed online October 29, 2016.

16
Justina Rimkute, Caroline Moraes, and Carlos Ferreira, “The Effects of Scent on Consumer

Behavior,” International Journal of Consumer Studies 40 (2015): 24-34. The claims about

consumer behavior in this paragraph are from this essay.

17
Theological reflection on scents often focuses on liturgical practices (“smells and bells”). For

ministry specifically with youth, creating enriched worship and educational experiences for

diverse or non-churched youth populations leads to practical considerations on the value of

sensory experiences for any youth program. See, Kasebwe T. L. Kabongo, “Africanisation of

Theological Education: An Exploration of a Hybrid Epistemology,” HTS Teologiese

Studies/Theological Studies 76 (2020): 1-8; Lauren Calvin Cook, “Deep in the Body:

Neurodiversity and Embodied Knowledge in Youth Ministry,” Journal of Youth Ministry 19

(2021): 68-89.

18
For similar concerns about the use of formulas in contemporary evangelism, and analysis

similar to my example here, see Dodson, The Unbelievable Gospel, 22-23. Guinness explains: “No

single [apologetic] method will every fit everyone because every single person is different, and

every method—even the best—will miss someone. . . . Jesus never spoke to two people the same
way, and neither should we” (Fool’s Talk, 33, emphasis in original). Similarly, Tim Keller tweets,

“While there is only one gospel (Gal 1:6-10)—namely, that we are saved from divine punishment

by Christ’s works—not ours—there are different gospel presentations of the one gospel”

(@timkellernyc, 10/7/20, 7:20pm).

19
Benson P. Fraser emphasizes the value of “indirect communication” for contemporary witness

in which the creative artistry of story grounds persuasive appeals; The Sacred Art of Indirect

Communication (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020). Similarly, Alan Noble highlights the role of story in

providing a “disruptive witness” for the Gospel within contemporary culture; Disruptive Witness:

Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018), 148-163.

20
On the idea that rhetorical epistemology enables us to move beyond the impasse of

subjectivism/objectivism, see Donald Juel and Patrick Keifert, “A Rhetorical Approach to

Theological Education,” in To Teach, To Delight, and To Move: Theological Education in a Post-

Christian World, ed. David S. Cunningham (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2004), 282. I have been most

directly influenced on this point by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New

Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 510: “We combat uncompromising and irreducible

philosophical oppositions presented by all kinds of absolutism: dualisms of reason and

imagination, of knowledge and opinion, of irrefutable self-evidence and deceptive will, of a

universally accepted objectivity and an incommunicable subjectivity, of a reality binding on

everybody and values that are purely individual.” I differ notably from Perelman and Olbrechts-

Tyteca, though, in that their view of rhetorical epistemology denies the truth of divine revelation.

Thus, ironically, in their denial of philosophical dualities, they assume that theological truth is
incompatible with a rhetorical perspective, thus reproducing the very duality I am challenging.