This is the final sermon of a 4-part sermon series titled “How Should We Preach the Gospel?” preached at Mt. Gilead UMC in Georgetown, KY.
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If you want to listen only to the sermon, click this second link below.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Introduction
People today are obsessed with feelings, and I’m not just talking about the ladies who usually are better at expressing their feelings better than us men, because men have just as many emotions as women. We all do. Sometimes we men just suppress them or express them in different ways than women. Just hang out with some guys watching football after church some Sunday, and you’ll see lots of emotions come out; some better and some worse, and for Bengals fans such as myself it’s usually the worse.
But everyone has emotions and feelings, and today’s culture and media really banks on our emotions. Sex sells, but so do fear and anger. What we see on the news day in and day out is meant to arouse our feelings, those deep emotions of being afraid of something or someone or being angry at something or someone. The media knows. They know what they’re doing. One of my favorite quotes about rhetoric and persuasion is this: “Whoever does not study rhetoric will become a victim of it.”
Well, my friends, if we are preachers—and we are—then we are students of rhetoric and persuasion. Now, not all students are A or B students. Some are C or D students. God forbid that we Christians, we preachers are F students when it comes to studying rhetoric and persuasion. Paul once described his mission this way: he says, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we…persuade men” (2 Cor 5:11 NIV). We are trying to convince people to love and follow Jesus like we do. We are trying to bring others into God’s kingdom with us. We want them to believe like we do and put their trust and faith in God through Christ. And so, since we are preachers and persuaders, we are studying rhetoric, studying how to speak effectively to people, studying how to convince people of our own faith and trust in Christ.
The Pathos of Preaching
So for the last few Sundays, we have been trying to answer the question, “How should we preach the Gospel?” And preaching has three main elements: ethos, which is getting our hearers to trust us; logos, which is clearly and logically communicating our message; and this morning we are looking at the third and most convincing and persuasive element of preaching which is called pathos. Pathos means emotions, feelings, passions, desires. It is where we get down to the heart of the matter. And so, this morning, we are going to talk about the pathos of preaching the Gospel.
Pathos, as I said, is the most convincing way to persuade someone. Using emotions and feelings is the most powerful way to convince someone of something, because we humans are emotional creatures. The Greeks and Romans, who were the first really to write about rhetoric and persuasion and preaching, even way back then they understood that people make their decisions based upon how they feel (pathos), more than how they think (logos) or whether it is right or wrong (ethos).
Should I eat this Big Mac from McDonald’s? Well, if we use logic, we know that it is not very healthy, so therefore we shouldn’t eat it. And if we use ethics, we know that it is wrong to eat unhealthy foods. But people still buy and eat Big Macs and pizza and ice cream and drink soda and the like. Why? Because it feels good! It feels good to our senses. “For a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down.” It’s feelings, sensations, and emotions that convince us to eat fast food—although it’s sometimes convenience if we’re in a hurry. But it tastes good. It feels good. Yum! Who doesn’t like ice cream and chocolate and the like? Right?!
And all of this is just an example to show that we decide things based more upon feelings than we do logic (right thinking) or ethics (right doing). And so, since we are preachers who persuade people like Paul did, like Jesus did, like the apostles did, then we must get with the program and realize that our preaching needs pathos, feelings and emotions, preaching that touches the heart, not just the mind and the conscience. People make choices from their feelings, and feelings are perhaps the most powerful persuaders and convincers in this world. So we preachers must preach with pathos, with emotions, with conviction, with feelings to hopefully persuade the world who is not just listening with their ears, but also feeling with their hearts. Now what does this look like?
First of all, preaching with emotions and feelings must be genuine. It has to be real. We have to mean it and feel it. We need to be authentic and speak with conviction like we truly believe it. It’s not just words; it means something to us personally. People can tell when others are faking it. And so, first and foremost, how we truly feel about God, how we feel about Jesus, how we feel about the Gospel will come out in our preaching.
Second, preaching with pathos and feelings means that we will share our own personal experiences with God—these are usually called testimonies. We share our own personal stories of what God has done in our lives, how following Jesus has changed our lives for the better, how the Lord helped us through some difficult time or situation in our lives; testimonies of God working in the here and now in our very lives. I’ve heard lots of those stories from many of you. I’ve shared some myself, though I’m more of a teacher preacher. Many of you are very good at sharing your testimonies about what God has done in your lives. Amen. Do more of it! Share more. But, you know, sometimes that’s all that people share when preaching the Gospel, and they think that that is all that preaching is about. But that’s incomplete. We need all three elements: ethos, logos, and pathos. It’s not all warm fuzzies. It’s not always about the feelings of knowing and experiencing God’s presence and power. I mean I’ve had God touch my life and heart in some very special, powerful ways. But the thing about emotions and experiences is that they come and go. And sometimes God doesn’t make everything wonderful and rosy. We have to suffer sometimes and take up our own crosses and follow Jesus just as even he did. And that doesn’t feel good. We have to die to ourselves and that is painful, not the warm fuzzies of Easter bunnies and rainbow unicorns in the clouds. Sometimes our faith doesn’t feel good, but it is nevertheless important that we share those times that are good. That helps us in times when we ourselves are struggling, and it also gives witness and testimony to the goodness of God in a world that doesn’t think that God is good. So it is important that our preaching have all three parts: ethos—we practice what we preach; logos—we make sense and are clear; and pathos—we share what God has done in our lives and what he is doing now in our lives. This last one really touches people and connects with them, and that is what is so powerful about the feelings and emotions that we share when we preach.
Finally, there are lots of emotions and feelings that we could instill in our hearers, our audiences: we could try to make them feel pity for us or someone else, or feel compassion, or jealousy, or fear, or hatred, or love to name a few. Sadly, what I have found is that lots of preaching is based upon fear. You’ve heard me say this before, but I call it “the scare the Hell out of you” technique. I just don’t believe in that way of preaching. Our motivation for knowing God should not be fear of some punishment. Is that why sons and daughters have relationships with their moms and dads? Because they’re afraid of them and afraid of how their mom and dad will punish them if they don’t want to be around them? Surely not. Yes, there is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, but that is more about reverence, revering and being in awe of how amazing and wonderous the uncreated Creator is who was and is and is to come, who always has been and always will be, God only wise. But fear, being afraid is not from God. How many times do we hear in the Bible, “Do not fear!”? It’s a lot! And there’s that famous quote in 1 John that says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19). And so, our motivations for being Christians and continuing to be Christians can never be built upon fear. That kind of fear is not of God. Fear of hell will never save anyone, but love will; God’s love for us and our love for God in response to him first loving us. Love will bring salvation; fear brings condemnation. And hallelujah that as Rom 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And Peter says “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8). Love is the emotion, love is the feeling, and motivation that we want to instill in our hearers. And love is much more than just a fleeting feeling.
Paul reminds us in our passage this morning that he did not come and preach to the Corinthians “with eloquence or superior wisdom” when he proclaimed the Gospel to them for the first time. He didn’t use high sounding rhetoric with all of its pomp and circumstance. He came to them full of emotions, full of feelings, as he says in v. 2, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Cor 2:2-4). A demonstration of the Spirit’s power? Paul came to them and preached out of his love for Jesus. He was meditating upon Jesus’ love for him and Jesus’ love for the whole world. He came meditating upon Jesus’ cross, his love. He didn’t come to them afraid to die and go to Hell. No, he came in reverence and in awe of all that Jesus had done for him. That was far more persuasive than any logical argument about Jesus that he could present to them. As Paul said previously in ch. 1, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, (we preach) Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:22-24).
The Path to Preaching
How then should we preach the Gospel? We should preach the Gospel with our lives and how we live, with our words and what we say, and with our hearts and Whom we love. “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:8-9). Let’s share that love and joy, that salvation with the world by preaching the Gospel with our lives, words, and hearts. Let’s pray.
Dr. Timothy J. Christian 