The Goal of Teaching is Persuasion

This article was first published in French at TPSG.

The Charles Simeon Trust offers a course called Persuasion. Why? Because persuasion is the goal of teaching! That means that once we’ve spent hours in the text, dug into the structure, context, literary genre, etc., we need to do more than transfer information. We must discover how to appeal to those things through which our audience is persuaded. 

Paul makes a similar point in 2 Corinthians 5:11.

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

We are not content to converse with our hearers. We want to convince them of something. Even if we teach in a conversational tone, our purpose is to persuade our hearers.

How People are Persuaded

There are four main areas by which people are persuaded to believe anything:

1. Proclamation: Simply declaring the truth of Scripture.

2. Reason: Further disclosing the logic behind what we are declaring.

3. Personal Experience: Dialoguing with our hearers about how we have lived what we proclaim.

4. Expertise: Demonstrating the veracity of our proclamation with evidence.

Or to put it differently, we can think of it in terms of four questions:

• What are we saying to our hearers? – Declaration/Proclamation

• What are we explaining to them? – Disclosure/Reason

• What are we sharing with them? – Dialogue/Personal Experience

• What are we proving to them? – Demonstration/Expertise

Some of us are stronger in one of these areas than others. We need to grow in each. 

Illustration: The Overstuffed Shawarma

In a previous article, I discussed the three main elements of any Bible teaching: explanation, illustration, and application. And I argued that of the three, the most important is application – which came as a surprise to me when I heard it from the lips of Bryan Chapell, the godfather of Christocentric preaching. That means that when we teach, we need to give careful attention to the meaning of our text, but once we’ve discovered the central argument of our passage, we must package applications that people can take home. Like a good burrito or shawarma, if we overstuff it with too many ingredients, it will fall apart. So it is with a Bible teaching that is loaded down with far more applications than our listeners can handle.

Moreover, our minds should be in accord with the biblical author. Our job isn’t to invent our own applications but to discover the author’s intention for his original audience and to recast, reshape, and apply it to ours. 

5 Steps for Deriving Text-Driven Application

1. Identify if the text is appealing to the head, the heart, or the hands. 

Is it calling for a change of mindset, a change of attitude, or a change of action?

2. Identify the controlling aim of the passage.  

What one imperative is central to the argument? Too many applications will overwhelm our hearers.  For example, the Ephesians 6 passage on the Armor of God contains tons of imperatives. We should go over these as we teach this text, but it’s essential that we narrow them down to the controlling aim of the passage. In this case, the overarching imperative is, “Stand firm” (v. 11, 13, 14). 

3. Identify the text’s message for both the believer and the unbeliever. 

Christians need to be corrected and comforted by the Word of God. Non-Christians need to be confronted and shown how the Scripture connects to them. 

4. Identify the characters in the text.

Our purpose is not to immediately identify with someone in the text. Rather, we want to consider what or whom these characters represent. In the Royal Psalms, for example, David prefigures the promised Son of David, and those who oppose him represent the seed of the serpent who has been biting at the heel of his faithful remnant ever since the garden. 

5. Identify the systematic theological categories.

Look in your text for a categorical emphasis and how to wield it in the life of the listener. For as much as I love biblical theology, it is systematics that can help us when it comes to application, especially for unbelievers. Explaining and developing a theme of biblical theology takes a lot of time, but systematic categories are often right there in the text. Use those as a jumping-off point for application. For example, Psalm 19 speaks of God as the Creator, of whom all nature testifies. We can use this as a springboard to challenge our unbelieving hearers to contemplate the wisdom and power of God in his works of creation.

Conclusion

If the idea that you have to persuade others seems overwhelming to you, I have good news for you. We are responsible for doing our part, by preparing our Bible lessons in such a way that invites to our hearers to a change of heart or action. But ultimately, once we have done all we can, we pray and commit our hearers to the grace of God and rest in his sovereign hand. The results are up to him. And that, friends, is a source of comfort and peace.