Public Speaking – Lesson 3

How to make our meaning clear in order to persuade and convince

Everyone would agree with this simple fact in connection with public speaking:

‘The audience cannot be expected to know what the speaker is talking about if the speaker does not know himself what he/she is talking about.’ It is therefore essential to clearly know in your own mind what you are going to talk about. In simple terms it is called ‘setting a goal’.

There are two questions we should ask ourselves: (1) Why am I speaking? and (2) What result do I want to achieve?

Once we are certain of our objective we can commence our preparations. Our last lesson saw the importance of an interesting start and finish and now we will be concerned with making our meaning clear in order to persuade and convince. At the start we must remember that some of the things we will tell our audience by way of doctrine will be difficult for them to understand, as some of our listeners will have believed contrary doctrine for a long time. As a result of this we may not be able to convince them the very first time they hear us. With this in mind we should endeavour to maintain the interest of the audience. They will be interested if they know what we are talking about from the start, otherwise we will lose them as an audience.

Jesus Christ always kept his audience – remember how they flocked to hear his words. There was always a multitude and they followed him wherever he went. We can learn from this example of Jesus and this lesson will help our preaching.

There follows two different methods to help us achieve our results.

1) Be simple

Jesus’ teachings were simple and straight to the point. Men and women from all walks of life understood what he meant. The secret of Jesus’ simple teaching was comparison. Jesus constantly made comparisons. For an exercise look up the number of times Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like …”. Jesus always used simple everyday occurrences to illustrate his teachings. Again as an exercise look up the substance of all the parables and in every case we will be familiar with the circumstances that go to make up the story of the parable even if we do not understand the full usage of the parable.

Another lesson we learn from Jesus’ teachings is found in John 6:52-68. Many of Jesus’ disciples went away when they heard his difficult sayings. Jesus is the judge of all men and perhaps his righteousness drove them away. Our position is difficult; we are not judges of men. We have, however, a deep responsibility to preach the Truth about God’s kingdom to them. Therefore it is of utmost importance we do not drive them away with complicated or difficult teachings. We must always remember that it took some time for us to slowly, but surely, learn the Truth. So let us not deprive our friends of the opportunity of slow but sure learning.

2) The ‘positive approach’ method

This is simply getting our hearers to say ‘yes’ to our propositions. To see how this is achieved we will look closely at the example of Paul in his famous address on Mars Hill in Acts 17:16-34.

The people of Athens were always curious to hear some new thing and as a result they were interested to hear Paul’s new doctrine. Paul was invited to speak and he began his address in this manner: “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious”. This was true; they were very religious, they were proud of all the gods they worshipped. Paul goes on to prove they were religious with an illustration, “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD’ ” This observation by Paul helped to unite the audience and the speaker and it allowed Paul to tell the Athenians the truth about the unknown God. In addition, he preached the doctrine of resurrection and salvation and he even quoted one of their own poets.

Paul’s success in this speech from Mars Hill was due to his ability to create a positive response in his audience. The men of Athens were saying ‘yes’ to his propositions more than if Paul’s approach had been: ‘You men of Athens, I perceive you are all wrong. You are worshipping idols of wood and stone, you are heathens. Cast down your idols and worship Jesus Christ and the living God’.

He persuaded and convinced his audience by the positive approach method and they understood his message.
 

Bro. John Muyala (Bungoma, Kenya)