Is Rhetoric A Valid Tool For The Christian?
“The wise of heart is called discerning,
and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.”
Proverbs 16:21
What is the difference between persuasion and manipulation? Truth.
Two of the greatest speakers in the last 150 years have been Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. These two rhetoricians were at the forefront of influence in the 20th Century. They both wielded their words for good or evil. They won over the masses who followed their logic. They built their own ethos that matched their message. They most certainly spoke with pathos that wooed their audience into action.
What was the difference between these two men? Truth.
The Two Extreme Responses To Rhetoric
For the sake of using a modern proverb, one of the mistakes we can make today is to “throw out the baby with the bathwater”. When we see something that is used for a negative effect then we can tend to throw it out altogether. This results in a reactionary type of living. This reactionary mindset typically creates two “tribes” or “parties” that tend to speak past each other more than to each other. Just think about the current debates over issues such as schooling, technology use in the home, and even gun control.
This type of thinking has not left rhetoric (tools for persuasive speaking) untouched. Some look at rhetoric as persuasion or manipulation. Some see polished speech through the lens of Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler. This tends to make people put all their emphasis on rhetoric or to denounce it in totality. But, is there a way to use rhetoric in a legitimate way?
Is Rhetoric A Valid Tool For Christians To Use?
“The ancients considered rhetoric the essential skill of leadership—knowledge so important that they placed it at the center of higher education. It taught them how to speak and write persuasively, produce something to say on every occasion, and make people like them when they spoke.”1 Jay Heinrichs is right. Rhetoric was not only valued but cherished. Could it be that downplaying rhetoric in modern education has led to much of our screaming and illogical arguing today?
Just like anything good and beautiful, it can be taken out of context and manipulated. In short, it can be used as an idol.
Idolatry is when we take creation and treat it like the Creator (Rom. 1). An obvious example is sex. Sex was created by God and it is good—only in the context of covenant marriage between one man and one woman (Gen. 1 & 2). When it is taken out of God’s intended context then it becomes not merely unwise but wicked and sinful. What should our response be? The response is not to do away with sex altogether (1 Cor. 7:5). The proper response is to observe it within God’s intended context.
The same is true with rhetoric.
In the above proverb, it is clear that rhetoric is promoted as something that is good when used to promote the truth. Matter of fact, rhetoric is not just seen as good but also advantageous to promote wisdom.
It is important to compare this with 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Paul is not doing away with rhetoric altogether but rather he is not putting his confidence in his rhetoric like men of that day would do. David Jackman says, “In this sense he was totally unlike the travelling teachers of his day. They relied precisely upon the skills of rhetoric and philosophical argument in order to produce an impressive performance, develop popularity, and, no doubt, line their pockets…In the first century world, the people who were thought to have real influence were the rhetoricians who went from town to town with their impressive array of technical skills and speaking abilities.”2
Rhetoric, when used to promote false ideas, is manipulation (See Prov. 5:3; 7:21). Rhetoric, when used to promote true ideas, is persuasion. Nevertheless, the Christian preacher must not put his confidence in the “power” of rhetoric but rather in the “Power” of the Holy Spirit and the gospel.
Unfortunately, there are many who see how rhetoric is used to manipulate people (even and especially from modern pulpits) and they react by doing away with it altogether. There are a couple of problems with this:
As seen in Proverbs 16:21, Scripture still speaks highly of rhetoric.
Even when you “don’t use rhetoric” you are always using rhetoric. Everyone is always making arguments and logical points—or else there would be no coherent conversations among people who use language.
Scripture is written in a rhetorical fashion (genres, arguments, turns of phrases, etc.).
How Should We Use Rhetoric?
The key to understanding how to use rhetoric is by the truth itself. This is what this proverb is getting at. The key to understanding the proverb is the “parallelism”. Let me try to show you:
Line A: “The wise of heart is called discerning,
Line B: and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.”
In the Book of Proverbs, you won’t understand a proverb without keeping both lines in mind. Each line is always interpreting each other. Sometimes the proverbs will be:
Contrast
Example: “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.” Proverbs 16:2
Compare
Example: “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” Proverbs 16:24
Restatement
Example: “The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; whoever guards his way preserves his life.” Proverbs 16:17
Expansion
Example: “By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.” Proverbs 16:6
Progression
Example: “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Proverbs 16:7
Proverbs 16:21 seems to be more of an Expansion and Progression. This proverb is showing what wisdom and discernment will do in order to promote truth. Rhetoric is “sweet” when it is used to promote the truth. Rhetoric is, therefore, wise to use when truth and wisdom are being promoted.
What Does This Mean For Preachers & Teachers?
While it is true that rhetoric is wise to use when we are speaking the truth, we still make sure that our reliance is not in the persuasion of man but in the “persuasion of God” by the Holy Spirit. When used faithfully, rhetoric is like a waiter who describes a special dish for the night with words that make your mouth water. But, the main point is to persuade you to order that dish and not the speech itself. The “end” or goal is the dish—not the waiter.
And as long as the dish exceeds even the greatest of descriptions (which the gospel always does) then it is used faithfully. In this example, when you have a highly skilled chef in the kitchen then you know that your description of the dish will always be overshadowed by the dish itself.
To continue with the same illustration, wouldn’t it be dishonoring to the chef if we declined to speak highly of the dish? At the same time, wouldn’t it be dishonoring if we tried to steal the show from the chef and his dish?
Therefore, the goal of rhetoric is to describe and proclaim the infinite and eternal glories of God and His gospel of grace in such ways that (only by the power of the Holy Spirit through faithful explanation of God’s Word) make our people’s spiritual mouths water. It is a servant; not a master. It is the waiter; not the chef. It serves the purpose of pointing beyond itself. And that means that we should neither do away with it nor make it everything.
Jay Heinrichs, Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About The Art of Persuasion (Broadway Books: New York 2020), p. 4.
David Jackman, Let’s Study 1 Corinthians (Banner of Truth: Carlisle, PA 2009), p. 32-33.