Communication in Christian preaching emphasizes the importance of clear, appropriate, and truthful sharing of God's message, reflecting the need for wisdom and grace in speech (Ephesians 4:29). Illustrations often use imagery of measuring words or delivering news gently, highlighting the power and responsibility of language in building up the body of Christ (Colossians 4:6).
Clear, simple communication is best when delivering painful news.
For the messenger of painful tidings, the shortest and simplest way of communicating the facts is the best. When the tidings was brought to Achilles, of Patroclus' death, it is simply, "Patroclus is down: they are fighting around his naked corpse; and his armor is held by the plume-waving Hector." When Gen. Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, the rumor one morning had reached the House of Commons. Every one was alert to hear; when Lord North arose slowly in his place, and with a solemn voice said, "Gen. Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners to the Americans." A dead silence of several minutes followed.
Words must suit the speaker, like measuring a mouth before making a speech.
Words must be fitted to a man's mouth. 'Twas well said of the fellow who was to make a speech for my lord mayor, when he desired to take measure of his lordship's mouth. Selden.
Many people would honestly subscribe to a humble servant's letter without deviation.
circumstances, concluding thus—'I am, sir, your very obedient humble servant,' the greater part of the world might subscribe it without deviating from the strictest veracity."
Adapting communication to the audience is essential for effective ministry.
According to a story told by Rev. J. Ed. Shaw, of Hammonton, N. J., a man should always adapt himself to local conditions if he wants to slip along without falling over his feet.
Some time ago, Mr. Shaw said, a little colored congregation over in Jersey invited a preacher friend of his to occupy their pulpit at the coming Sunday evening service, and the good dominie, wishing to encourage the colored brethren, readily complied.
Reaching the church where he was the only paleface present, the preacher delivered a sermon full of helping advice, made an eloquent prayer, and then announced that the service would be closed by singing the hymn, “Wash Me and I Shall Be Whiter Than Snow.” At this point one of the darksome congregation rose to his feet.
“Look heah, pahson,” said he impressively. “Yo’ will hab to ’scuse me, but I rise to a point ob ordah.”
“What is it?” asked the preacher, with large symptoms of surprize floating over his features.
“It am dis way,” replied the parishioner. “Yo’ hab ebidently made a mistake in de crowd. Dis am a cull’ed congregashun, an’ s’nce all de pump watah an’ sof’ soap in de county can’t make de words ob dat hymn come true, I jes’ wish dat yo’ would change her to some uddah tune.”--Philadelphia _Evening Telegraph_.
Modern advertising shows diverse literary styles and reveals character and humor.
Mr. George Hibbard discovers a new literature in process of development, born of the needs of modern advertising. In _The Booklover’s Magazine_ he writes:
The modern advertisement is worth looking at, whether it is the sounding proclamation of some big corporation, with facts and figures both weighty and impressive, or the light eye-catching notice of some simple trade or contrivance. All forms of literary composition find place in the advertising pages: history, story, verse. Many advertisements measure up to the test of good literature. In truth, there is often an uncommon amount of character in them. A word here or a phrase there is often singularly vivid as “local color,” and behind many an advertisement it is possible to see a vigorous personality. Nor are there lacking in this new literature qualities of humor, both intentional and unintentional. One generation writes an epic, another an advertisement; who shall say that one manifestation is not as important as the other.
Clear articulation is more effective and compassionate than loudness, especially for the deaf.
See AGE.
ARTICULATION
“Clear articulation, not loudness in speech, is what the deaf desire. Remember this, and not only will the deaf hear, but they will be spared the physical pains and embarrassing discomfort occasioned by shouting,” advised Dr. C. J. Blake in a lecture at the Harvard medical school during which he discust hearing and speech.
“People thoughtlessly shout at those who are afflicted with deafness, little realizing the real pain they are causing,” said Dr. Blake. “If you would be thoughtful and considerate of these unfortunates, put emphasis on the articulation. Again and again have deaf persons said to me, ‘How I wish people would not shout at me so,’ and there is a pathetic note in the voice which long suffering creates.”
It was brought out that the so-called drumhead is tough enough to sustain a column of mercury twelve inches high and of its own diameter; but is, nevertheless, delicate enough to record sound waves vibrating 50,000 times a second.
The ordinary human voice, he explained, is vibrating about 152 times, and should be perfectly understood by an ordinary healthy individual. Consonant sounds, he said, are the retarding factor in speech, hence it is the duty of every person to cultivate the habit of clear articulation.
A painter’s eye is as essential to him as a lawyer’s tongue is to his profession.
See RECEPTIVENESS.
CAPACITY, ORIGINAL
During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough: “I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.”
Common sense is a universal language understood across cultures and contexts.
Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point, added, “That’s the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds.” Upon which Lord Eldon replied: “You mean in plain Scotch, Mr. Clerk.” The advocate readily retorted, “Nae maitter! in plain common sense, ma lords, and that’s the same in a’ languages, we ken weel eneuch.” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
Advances in communication speed reflect progress in society and technology over time.
The progress of the world can be inferred from facts like the following:
In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office Department was conducted by the Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours to convey news from Washington to Philadelphia. In 1834 New York Saturday papers were not received in Washington until the following Tuesday afternoon. In 1835 the mails were carried between Philadelphia and Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two lines daily, one to go through in a little more than two days, the other in three and a half days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside carried the mail between Philadelphia and New York, ninety miles, in six hours, making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad, as a factor in the mail service, did not have a beginning before 1835. August 25 of this year the formal opening of the road between Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos Kendall, then Postmaster-General, at first objected to having the mails carried by rail over this road, since it would, as he feared, disarrange connections with existing lines of stages. In October, 1834, a writer in the Boston _Atlas_ says: “We left Philadelphia on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car, and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna, at dusk--a distance of eighty-two miles.”--JOHN M. BISHOP, _Magazine of American History_.
Primitive tribes used signal drums to rapidly transmit messages over long distances.
Many explorers have commented on the speed with which news travels among savage tribes, says _Amateur Work_. A curious observation as to a possible solution of the problem of their methods has been made by the Rev. A. Rideout, who, as a missionary among the Basutos, has noticed their method of sending messages from village to village by means of a signal-drum or gourd. This gourd, covered with the dried and stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound which travels and can be heard at distances from five to eight miles. The transmission and reception of messages on these drums is entrusted to special corps of signalers, some one of whom is always on duty, and who beat on the message in what is practically a Morse alphabet. On hearing the message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can always tell whether it is for his chief or for some distant village, and delivers it verbally or sends it on accordingly, and it is thus carried on with surprizing rapidity from one village to another, till it reaches its destination. All that took place in the Boer War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, were known to us by gourd-line message hours before the news ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives guarded the secret of their code carefully. To my knowledge, messages have been sent a thousand miles by means of it. This is probably one of the earliest forms of wireless telegraphy.
Wireless communication resembles spiritual communication through vibrations in the ether.
Having discovered that we are immersed in the ether, and that it responds instantly, and to untold distances to electric vibrations, the daring inventor said, if I can set the ether ajar with a certain kind of vibration by shooting up into it strong electric impulses, then I can plant yonder in the distance another instrument keyed to that particular kind of vibration, and it will pick out its own from the ether, quivering, as it is, with an infinite number of vibrations. Just as when you run the scale of the piano in a room, each object responds to its own note. When you touch D a certain lampshade will shiver in answer. That is its note. It knows its own vibration, and is silent to all others.
This, then, is what is transpiring now among men. A code of signals being arranged, one here sends up his request or prayer into the heavens, speaks into space. The whole hemisphere of ether is set quivering. Another yonder, a thousand miles distant, picks out of space the syllables of that prayer, one by one, and then throws back through space the answer. Nothing so marvelous as this, so near spiritual conditions, has ever before entered the heart of man. It is not surprizing that the air is full of prophecies, dreams and visions. One says we will yet be able to carry in a pocket, like watches, little vibrators, so that we can communicate with our distant friends without wires or towers, or skilled operators, as readily as we take out our watch and tell the hour of the day. Others, in this prophetic madness, say we may yet learn the vibration of the planets, and fling off into space our “All hail” to Mars and Venus.
— JAMES H. ECOB
Sympathy can be powerfully communicated through simple physical gestures like handshakes.
If one’s heart be charged with sympathy, he will convey it by his handshaking, as if he carried with him this ingenious toy:
An “electric handshaker” to shock unsuspecting friends, has been devised by a man in Paterson, N. J. The specification of the patent that he has secured reads, according to _The Western Electrician_: “It is intended that the cell or battery and coil be concealed in the inside breast pocket or other convenient hiding-place on the person intending to operate the toy. The two wires are to be run down the sleeve of the operator and the ring slipt on one of his fingers, the two contact buttons being turned toward the palm of the hand. If now, the circuit through the induction-coil and battery being closed, the operator shakes hands or otherwise brings the two buttons on the ring into contact with another person, this person receives a most surprizing and effective electric shock. Owing to the small size and the ingenious method of concealing the apparatus, the recipient of the shock does not at once discover the source of the discharge, and the toy is productive of much amusement.” (Text.)
False syntax examples show the importance of clear, honest communication.
The following specimens of false syntax are given by the _Printers’ Register_:
A man who was suddenly taken sick “hastened home while every means for his recovery was resorted to. In spite of all his efforts he died in the triumphs of the Christian religion.” “A man was killed by a railroad car running into Boston supposed to be deaf.” A man writes, “We have decided to erect a schoolhouse large enough to accommodate five hundred scholars five stories high.” On a certain railway the following luminous direction was printed: “Hereafter when trains in an opposite direction are approaching each other on separate lines, conductors and engineers will be requested to bring their respective trains to a dead halt before the point of meeting, and be careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other.” A steamboat captain, advertising an excursion, says: “Tickets, twenty-five cents; children half-price to be had at the office.” An Iowa editor says: “We have received a basket of fine grapes from our friend W., for which he will please accept our compliments, some of which are nearly two inches in diameter.”--_Printers’ Register._
Cultural gestures can hinder or help communication and witness for Christ.
As we (missionaries) talk in the street, or in chapels, we begin to gesture. Remember that many gestures have well-known and disreputable meanings. For instance, I have been holding my hand behind my back as I have been speaking to you. It is a most offensive thing in some countries to hold your hand behind your back. An African missionary was just about concluding difficult negotiations with a chief, when he closed his eyes and placed his hands over them. Instantly chief and subjects alike arose in wrath and nothing further could be done with them. That use of the hand had lost the missionary all that he had gained. The Westerner, in Kipling’s phrase, is always hustling. He must get to a place just as quickly as possible, but in getting there he offends propriety. He ought not to walk rapidly; he is not a letter-carrier nor a coolie. Why does he not walk as a gentleman should?--H. P. BEACH, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
A tiny photograph of a newspaper was sent by dove and enlarged to read news remotely.
I have to-day a paper at home, as long as half my hand, on which was photographed the whole contents of a London newspaper. It was put under a dove’s wing, and sent into Paris, where they enlarged it, and read the news.
— WENDELL PHILLIPS
Open communication with God brings a continual influx of blessings like tides from the ocean.
The Mediterranean is practically a tideless sea, and yet the visitor to its waters is puzzled at the discovery of what appears to be a tide. But the explanation is that there is a connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, so that what seems to be a tide at Gibraltar is simply the rolling waves from the tide of the mighty Atlantic into the sea that washes the shores of southern Europe and northern Africa. As long as the channel at the Straits of Gibraltar is open, so long will there be this rolling in, and so there will be a constant influx of blessing while communication with God is unhindered.
True influence comes from meaningful speech, not frequent or empty words.
See PROPHECY.
ORATORY
There are men in legislative assemblies who speak often, but are never masters of any situation. They have great powers of utterance, but nothing to say. The orator whose burning sentences become the very proverbs of freedom is not he who consumes the most time and employs the selectest paragraphs. I have seen men in Congress often on their legs and buzzing about like able-bodied darning-needles, but they never managed, even by accident, to sting anybody into attention.
— JAMES T. FIELDS
Communication sustains social bonds and fellowship even in physical isolation.
“The farmers’ telephone was a boon during heavy and unprecedented snows,” says _The Electrical World and Engineer_, “and many interesting uses are reported in New York State in places where many roads were blocked with drifts over ten feet deep. Hemmed in so that they could not see a neighbor for weeks, farmers have been able to converse with their friends and thus keep in touch with the world.” (Text.)
A simple phrase can reveal character and suggest deeper truths with humor and insight.
* * * * *
Sometimes a word or phrase will do in literature what a sketch will do in charcoal, defining a character and suggesting a whole line of possibilities. An instance of this is in the following from _Everybody’s Magazine_:
After a certain jury had been out an inordinately long time on a very simple case, they filed into the court-room, and the foreman told the judge they were unable to agree upon a verdict. The latter rebuked them, saying the case was a very clear one, and remanded them back to the jury-room for a second attempt, adding, “If you are there too long I will have to send you in twelve suppers.”
The foreman, in a rather irritated tone, spoke up and said: “May it please your honor, you might send in eleven suppers and one bundle of hay.”
Missionaries must wisely avoid taboo topics to maintain good communication and respect.
T
TABOOED TOPICS IN THE EAST
The greatest danger of falling into verbal sin, perhaps, is that missionaries talk upon topics which are tabooed. For instance, you meet a friend whose shop is next to a house that has burned down, and you congratulate him upon it. It is an awful mistake, a most ill-omened remark. When Dr. Nassau, of Gabun, met some children and tried to cultivate the friendship of their mothers, he began to count them, which was unfortunate to the last degree. One can not talk about death in many countries without giving great offense. There are many other topics that are tabooed, but they can be learned about from native teachers.--H. P. BEACH, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
Legal language exaggerates simple transactions, illustrating needless complexity in communication.
Certainly lawyers can not rail at theologians for adhesion to traditional forms.
An author who inveighed against the practise of lawyers drawing long deeds and settlements, thus satirized it: “If a man were to give to another an orange he would merely say, ‘I give you this orange’; but when the transaction is entrusted to the hands of a lawyer to put it in writing, he adopts this form, ‘I hereby give, grant and convey to you all and singular my estate and interest, right, title, claim and advantage of and in the said orange, together with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, and all right and advantage therein, with full power to bite, cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away as fully and effectually as I, the said A B, am now entitled to bite, cut, suck, or otherwise eat the same orange, or give the same away, with or without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, anything hereinbefore or hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments, of what nature or kind soever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.’” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
True wisdom is knowing when to speak and when to remain silent.
A young man who was an inveterate talker was sent by his parents to Socrates to learn oratory. On being presented to Socrates the young man spoke so much that Socrates was out of patience. When the bargain came to be struck, Socrates asked him double the price. “Why charge me double?” asked the young man. “Because,” said Socrates, “I must teach you two sciences; the one to hold your tongue, and the other how to speak.”
Silence may be as eloquent as speech. The art of the matter is practise, each at the right time and in the right place.
Good humor and wisdom can overcome opposition and win hearts in ministry.
In 1747 Mr. John Brown was invited to become the pastor of a church at Hingham. There was but one opponent to his settlement, a man whom Mr. Brown won over by a stroke of good humor. He asked for the grounds of his opposition. “I like your person and your manner,” was the reply, “but your preaching, sir, I disapprove.” “Then,” said Mr. Brown, “we are agreed. I do not like my preaching very well myself, but how great a folly it is for you and me to set up our opinion against that of the whole parish.” The force of this reasoning appealed to the man, and he at once withdrew his objections.--_The Argonaut._
Preachers should avoid lofty language that hinders understanding and accessibility.
In the town of Goslar, in the Hartz mountains, there is in the principal square a fountain evidently of mediæl date, but the peculiarity of its construction is that no one can reach the water so as to fill a bucket or even get a drink to quench his thirst. Both the jets, and the basin into which they fall, are above the reach of any man of ordinary stature; yet the fountain was intended to supply the public with water, and it fulfils its design by a method which we never saw in use before; every person brings a spout or trough with him long enough to reach the top of the fountain and bring the water down into his pitcher. We are afraid that all our reverence for antiquity did not prevent the full exercise of our risible faculties; sixpennyworth of mason's work with a chisel would have made the crystal stream available to all; but no, every one must bring a trough or go away unsupplied. When preachers of the gospel talk in so lofty a style that each hearer needs to bring a dictionary, they remind us of the absurd fountain of Goslar. The use of six-syllabled jaw-breaking words is simply a most ludicrous vanity. A little labour on the part of such pedants would save a world of profitless toil to their hearers, and enable those uneducated persons who have no means of reaching the preacher's altitude to derive some measure of instruction from his ministry.
A good illustration powerfully refocuses and refreshes a distracted congregation.
A good illustration is the most powerful “motor” ever invented; it will drag a whole congregation which has drifted into infinite space back again to earth in a twinkling. It comes like a sweet sea-breeze blowing in through the church windows on a hot Sunday, and relaxing the feverish tension of crowded worship.--MACKAY SMITH, _Harper’s Magazine_.
Brief, clear introductions are more effective than long, boring ones in public speaking.
Some introductions to sermons, speeches, articles, etc., would gain if they were made as brief as the speech of this mayor:
“Long introductions when a man has a speech to make are a bore,” said former Senator John C. Spooner, according to _The Saturday Evening Post_. “I have had all kinds, but the most satisfactory one in my career was that of a German mayor of a small town in my State, Wisconsin.
“I was to make a political address, and the opera-house was crowded. When it came time to begin, the mayor got up.
“‘Mine friends,’ he said, ‘I have been asked to introduce Senator Spooner, who is to make a speech, yes. Vell, I haf dit so, und he vill now do so.’”
