When I begin my sermons I dare the person not to listen to me. Not that I’m that great — it’s just that I’ve got something to say that’s too important to ignore.
Charles Swindoll
If it were only texts or men we had to handle! But we have to handle the gospel.
P. T. Forsyth
Preaching right is a little like dressing right: You have to know what goes with what. Most pastors learn early on not to wear a paisley tie with a plaid shirt or white bucks with gray pinstripes.
In the following chapter, Aurelius Augustine instructs preachers to dress their speech appropriately if they will declare the gospel with convincing results.
But how does one fashion a sermon for the circumstances? When should a preacher shout, when plead, when whisper, when reason? Augustine ventures different styles — the temperate and the majestic — and proposes occasions for their use. He suggests the language to use and the effects to seek. For instance, in dissuading civil war in Mauritania, he knew applause counted little; only a deeper response signaled conviction.
Augustine, one of the ancient church’s greatest theologians, served as bishop of Hippo in a pagan North African culture from A.D. 395 until his death in 430. His two most famous works, Confessions and The City of God, have become classics of Christian literature.
Augustine wrote in Latin, and most English translations date from the late eighteen hundreds. So we’ve tried to update the language where appropriate in order to make your reading easier. If you stay with the chapter, we think you’ll find this excerpt from
On Christian Doctrine has timeless application to the task of preaching to convince.
The teacher of Holy Scripture must teach what is right and refute what is wrong. In doing this, he must conciliate the hostile, rouse the careless, and tell the ignorant about current events and trends for the future. Once his hearers are friendly, attentive, and ready to learn (whether he has found them so or he has made them so), the teacher uses three methods to communicate truth:
•If the hearers need teaching, tell the truth by means of narrative.
•If the hearers need doubtful points cleared up, use reasoning and exhibition of proofs.
•If the hearers need to be roused rather than instructed, vigorous speech is needed. Here entreaties, reproaches, exhortations, upbraidings, and all the other means of rousing the emotions are necessary.
All these methods are constantly used by nearly everyone engaged in teaching. Some teachers employ them coarsely, inelegantly, and frigidly, while others use them with acuteness, elegance, and spirit. Both kinds can be effective. But a teacher should be able to argue and speak with wisdom, if not with eloquence, and with profit to his hearers (even though he profits them less than if he could speak with eloquence too).
Always beware, however, of the man who abounds in eloquent nonsense, especially if the hearer is pleased with worthless oratory and thinks that because the speaker is eloquent what he says must be true. As that great teacher of rhetoric, Cicero, rightly said, “Although wisdom without eloquence is often of little service, eloquence without wisdom does positive injury, and is never of service.”
One caution: some passages are misunderstood no matter how clearly the speaker may expound them. These should never be brought before the people at all, or only on rare occasions when there is some urgent reason. In those situations two conditions are to be insisted upon: our hearers should have an earnest desire to learn the truth and should have the capacity of mind to receive it in whatever form it may be communicated.
The Necessity of a Lucid Style
A desire for clearness sometimes leads to neglect of polished speech. One author, when dealing with speech of this kind, says that there is in it “a kind of careful negligence.”
Of course, we agree that the highest priority should be placed on clarity. What advantage is there in speech that does not lead to understanding? Therefore, good teachers avoid all words that do not teach; instead they must find words that are both pure and intelligible.
This is true not only in personal conversations but much more in the case of public speech. In conversation anyone has the power of asking a question; but in an oration all faces are turned upon the speaker, and it is neither customary nor decorous for a person to ask a question about what he does not understand. On this account the speaker ought to be especially careful to give assistance to those who cannot ask it.
How can one tell if further explanation is needed? A crowd anxious for instruction generally shows by its movement if it understands. Until some indication of this sort is given, the teacher should discuss the subject over and over, and put it in every shape and form and variety of expression. As soon, however, as the speaker has determined that he is understood, he ought either to end his address or pass on to another point.
Speak Clearly But Not Inelegantly
True eloquence consists not in making people like what they disliked, nor in making them do what they shrank from, but in making clear what was obscure. Yet if this is done without grace of style, the benefit does not extend beyond the few eager students who learn no matter how unpolished the form of the teaching. There is an analogy between learning and eating: the very food without which it is impossible to live must be flavored to meet the tastes of the majority.
Accordingly, Cicero has said, “An eloquent man must speak so as to teach, to delight, and to persuade.” Then he adds: “To teach is a necessity, to delight is a beauty, to persuade is a triumph.” Now of these three, the first (teaching) depends on what we say, the other two on the way we say it.
For the fastidious (those who care not for truth unless it is put in the form of a pleasing discourse), a superior teacher must learn the art of pleasing. And yet even this is not enough for those stubborn-minded men who both understand and are pleased with the teacher’s discourse but derive no profit from it. For what does it profit a man if he both confesses the truth and praises the eloquence, yet does not yield his consent?
We need to say here that some truths need only be believed. To give one’s assent implies nothing more than to confess that they are true. Some truths, however, must be put into practice and are taught for the very purpose of being practiced. It is useless to be intellectually persuaded of those truths (and, indeed, to be pleased with the beauty of their expression) if they are not learned to be practiced.
Using the Right Style
Although teachers of biblical truth are speaking of great matters, they should not always use a majestic tone. When instructing, they should use a subdued tone. When giving praise or blame, a temperate tone is appropriate. When, however, the teaching calls for action, we must speak with power in a manner calculated to sway the mind. Sometimes the same important matter is treated in all these ways at different times: quietly when being taught, temperately when its importance is being urged, and powerfully when we are forcing a mind adverse to the truth to turn and embrace it.
For example, there is nothing greater than God himself. Yet teaching the doctrine of the Trinity calls for calm discussion. It is a subject difficult to comprehend, and our goal is mainly to understand as much as possible.
But when we come to praise God, what a field for beauty and splendor of language opens up before us! Who can exhaust his powers to the utmost in praising him whom no one can adequately praise?
And if we are challenging our hearers to worship God, then we ought to speak out with power and impressiveness, to show how great an honor this is.
We have many examples of the three styles right in Scripture. We have an example of the calm, subdued style in the apostle Paul, where he says:
My brothers, I am going to use an everyday example: when two people agree on a matter and sign an agreement, no one can break it or add anything to it. Now, God made his promises to Abraham and to his descendant. The Scripture does not use the plural “descendants,” meaning many people, but the singular “descendant,” meaning one person only, namely, Christ. What I mean is that God made a covenant with Abraham and promised to keep it. The Law, which was given four hundred and thirty years later, cannot break that covenant and cancel God’s promise. For if God’s gift depends on the Law, then it no longer depends on this promise. However, it was because of his promise that God gave that gift to Abraham. (Gal. 3:15-18)
And because it might possibly occur to the hearer to ask, “If there is no inheritance by the Law, why then was the Law given?” Paul himself anticipates this objection and asks, “What, then, was the purpose of the Law?” And he answers his own question:
It was added to show what wrongdoing is, and it was meant to last until the coming of Abraham’s descendant, to whom the promise was made. The Law was handed down by angels, with a man acting as a go-between. But a go-between is not needed when only one person is involved; and God is one. (Gal. 3:19-20)
In the following words of the apostle, we have the temperate style: “Do not rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as if he were your father. Treat the younger men as your brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, with all purity” (1 Tim. 5:1-2). And also in these: “So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer” (Rom. 12:1). Almost the whole of this passage in Romans is exhortation in the temperate style of eloquence.
The majestic style of speech differs from the temperate style chiefly in that it is not so much decked out with verbal ornaments as exalted by mental emotion. It uses nearly all the ornaments that the temperate does but without needing them as much. For it is borne along by its own energy; the force of the thought, not the ornamentation, makes the real impact.
The apostle in the following passage is urging that for the sake of ministry we should patiently bear all the evils of life. It is a great subject treated with power, and the ornaments of speech are not wanting.
In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God’s grace not to let it be wasted. Hear what God says:
“When the time came for me to show you favor,
I heard you;
when the day arrived for me to save you,
I helped you.”
Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favor; today is the day to be saved!
We do not want anyone to find fault with our work, so we try not to put obstacles in anyone’s way. Instead, in everything we do we show that we are God’s servants by patiently enduring troubles, hardships, and difficulties. We have been beaten, jailed, and mobbed; we have been overworked and have gone without sleep or food. By our purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness we have shown ourselves to be God’s servants — by the Holy Spirit, by our true love, by our message of truth, and by the power of God. We have righteousness as our weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves. We are honored and disgraced; we are insulted and praised. We are treated as liars, yet we speak the truth; as unknown, yet we are known by all; as though we were dead, but as you see, we live on. Although punished, we are not killed; although saddened, we are always glad; we seem poor, but we make many people rich; we seem to have nothing, yet we really possess everything.
Dear friends in Corinth! We have spoken frankly to you; we have opened our hearts wide. It is not we who have closed our hearts to you; it is you who have closed your hearts to us. I speak now as though you were my children: show us the same feelings that we have for you. Open your hearts wide! (2 Cor. 6:1-13)
The Necessity of Variety
It is not against the rules to mingle these various styles. Although in most speeches one style will predominate, every variety of style should be used, consistent with good taste. For when we keep monotonously to one style, we fail to retain the hearer’s attention. But when we move from one style to another, the discourse has more grace even though it tends to last longer.
Each style has distinctives that prevent the hearer’s attention from cooling. We can bear the subdued style, however, longer without variety than the majestic style. The mental emotion necessary to stimulate the hearer’s feelings can be maintained only a short time. Therefore we must avoid trying to carry the emotional pitch too high or too long, lest we lose what we have already gained.
Mingling the Various Styles
Now it is important to determine what style should be alternated with what other, and the places where any particular style should be used. In the majestic style, for instance, it is almost always desirable that the introduction should be temperate. And the speaker has it in his discretion to use the subdued style even where the majestic would be allowable, in order that the majestic, when it is used, may be the more majestic by comparison.
Further, whatever may be the style of the speech or writing, when knotty questions turn up for solution, the subdued style is naturally demanded. And we must use the temperate style whenever praise or blame is to be given, no matter what may be the general tone of the discourse.
In the majestic style, then, and also in the subdued, both the other two styles occasionally find a place. The temperate style, on the other hand, occasionally needs the quiet style. But the temperate style never needs the aid of the majestic, for its object is to gratify, not excite, the mind.
If frequent and vehement applause follows a speaker, do not suppose that only the majestic style has been used. This effect is often produced both by the accurate distinctions of the quiet style and by the beauties of the temperate. The majestic style, on the other, frequently silences the audience by its impressiveness and calls forth their tears.
For example, when at Caesarea in Mauritania I was dissuading the people from that civil, or worse than civil, war they called Caterva (for it was not fellow citizens merely, but neighbors, brothers, fathers, and sons even, who, divided into two factions and armed with stones, fought annually at a certain season of the year for several days continuously, everyone killing whomever he could), I strove with all the vehemence of speech I could command to root out and drive from their hearts and lives an evil so cruel. It was not, however, when I heard their applause but when I saw their tears that I thought I had produced an effect. For the applause showed that they were instructed and delighted, but the tears that they were convinced to stop.
Watch and Pray
But whatever may be the eloquence of the style, the life of the speaker will count for more in securing the hearer’s compliance. The man who speaks wisely and eloquently but lives wickedly may, it is true, instruct many who are anxious to learn (though, as it is written, he “is unprofitable to himself”).
But they would do good to many more if they lived as they preach. For some people seek an excuse for their own evil lives by comparing the teaching with the conduct of their instructors. They say in their hearts or even with their lips, “Why do you not do yourself what you bid me do?” They cease to listen with submission to a man who does not listen to himself, and in despising the preacher they learn to despise the word that is preached. The apostle Paul told Timothy, “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but be an example for the believers in your speech, your conduct, your love, faith, and purity” (1 Tim. 4:12).
And so our Christian teacher, even though he says what is just, holy, and good (and he ought never to say anything else), doing all he can to be heard with intelligence, pleasure, and obedience, will succeed more by piety in prayer than by gifts of oratory. So he ought to pray for himself, and for those he is about to address, before he attempts to speak. When the hour comes to speak, he ought, before he opens his mouth, to lift up his thirsty soul to God, to drink in what he is about to pour forth, and to be himself filled with what he is about to distribute.
Thus the Holy Spirit speaks in those who for Christ’s sake are delivered to the persecutors; why not also in the teachers who deliver Christ’s message to those who are willing to learn?
Copyright ©1986 Christianity Today
