The Spirit empowers us to speak.

Mk 13.9-10, Mt 10.17-20, Lk 21.12-15.

When Jesus warned his students about the coming tribulation in his Olivet Discourse, he told ’em he (or the Holy Spirit, depending on the gospel) would have their back when it came time to testify before kings and leaders. He put it this way.

Mark 13.9-11 KWL

9 “Now look at you yourselves. They’ll turn you in to the Senate. They’ll cane you in synagogues.

They’ll stand you before leaders and kings because of me, to witness to them.

10 You have to first declare the gospel to all the gentiles.

11 When they turn you in, don’t premeditate what you might say:

Instead whatever’s given you at that hour, say it, for you aren’t speaking; the Holy Spirit is.”

 

Matthew 10.17-20 KWL

17 “Watch out for the people: They’ll turn you in to the Senate and their synagogues. They’ll flog you.

18 They’ll take you to leaders and kings because of me, to testify to them and the gentiles.

19 When they turn you in, don’t worry about what you might say at the time you give a defense:

20 It isn’t you speaking, but your Father’s Spirit in you speaking.

 

Luke 21.12-15 KWL

12 “Before all these signs they’ll lay their hands on you and persecute,

turning you in to synagogues and prisons,

dragging you before kings and leaders, because of my name:

13 This will become your chance to testify!

14 So make up your minds to not pre-prepare your defense:

15 I’ll give you a mouth and wisdom which they can’t withstand,

which contradicts everything brought in opposition to you.”

Jesus is speaking of when we’re put on trial—or not, ’cause if you weren’t a citizen, Romans didn’t bother with due process, and a lot of countries behave the same way. (Too often Americans don’t either. We don’t always recall that rights aren’t granted by our Constitution but by our Creator—so due process isn’t an American right but a human right.) If given the chance to defend ourselves, or simply speak for ourselves, don’t have a premeditated, canned answer. Speak off the cuff. It’ll sound authentic… for it’ll be authentic. And he and the Holy Spirit will help.

Now this was considered a risky idea in Jesus’s day, and in the Roman Empire. Because if you were a politician or attorney back then, you were expected to know the art of public speaking; in other words classical forensic rhetoric. It was expected of every public speaker, especially if you were in government. If you had to stand before a court, a senate, a praetor, an emperor, or the general public, you had to know and follow Roman standard expectations for public speaking. If you didn’t, and spoke for yourself instead of hiring someone else to do it for you, you were considered uneducated, amateurish, stupid, and not to be taken seriously or listened to.

The rules of rhetoric.

Aristotle of Athens taught there were three things every public speaker oughta have.

CREDIBILITY (Greek ἔθος/éthos, “[good] habits”). Speakers gotta sound like they know what they’re doing. They have to have practiced in front of enough crowds to where they’re comfortable in speaking. This’d help them come across as sincere, knowledgeable, confident, trustworthy—in short, believable. ’Cause if the listeners don’t believe you, there’s no point in speaking.

If you aren’t actually sincere, knowledgeable, confident, or trustworthy, you gotta fake these things—although Aristotle preferred you actually have a good character, instead of faking one. (Word will get out, y’know.)

So speakers had to prove they knew what they were talking about. And y’notice the folks who gave their testimonies in the bible, tended to talk somewhat knowledgeably about their subjects. Stephen’s big long speech about Israeli history, given during his trial, tends to strike people as unnecessary, but it absolutely wasn’t: It was so the Judean senate would recognize Stephen knew his bible. So when Stephen came to his conclusions—that God didn’t need a temple, plus the senate had assassinated their Messiah—these conclusions couldn’t be dismissed as if they came from some babbling moron. It’s no wonder they wanted him dead.

PASSION (πάθος/páthos). Speakers have to be passionate about their causes. They gotta connect with the audience, and evoke strong emotion in their listeners.

Yes, to manipulate them. ’Cause if your logic and reasoning isn’t strong enough to make your case, you can at least gain the audience’s sympathy, and maybe tip a ruling towards your favor. So tell a heartwarming story. Tell a joke. Use puns. Exaggerate. Shout a little. Cry a little. Pause dramatically. Shock ’em with the unexpected.

Nowadays we consider emotional manipulation, in public speaking, to be wrong. Logic, not emotion, should rule the day. And to a large degree the ancient Greeks and Romans agreed. But the reality is, we humans are emotional creatures, and a lot of us do let our emotions rule. So rhetoricians figured it’d be stupid to ignore this tactic. They taught their students to do it… so everybody did it. Audiences even expected speakers to do it: It wasn’t considered a good speech unless it tugged your heartstrings a little.

So this is what Paul did in his own trials: Spoke of his past as a prosecutor. Spoke of his dramatic conversion. Spoke of his new zeal for the gospel and God’s kingdom. Then took a shot at evangelizing his hearers—as Agrippa Herod realized, and Paul totally admitted.

LOGIC (λόγος/lóghos, “message”). By lóghos Aristotle meant a well-reasoned message, explained with a little inductive or deductive reasoning.

Inductive thinking takes common knowledge (whether there’s any truth to it or not, which is the usual flaw with inductive reasoning) and try to base our conclusions on it. Deductive takes a statement, finds exceptions to it (“If my client were poor he’d rob a bank, but he’s not poor”), and whittles away at the statement till you can’t help but reject it. Rhetoricians shrewdly advised their students to not finish their chain of reasoning (“…therefore he didn’t rob that bank!”), because the audience usually had enough sense to figure that part out… plus they felt clever for doing so, and making ’em feel good keeps ’em on your side.

We see the apostles practice inductive logic by quoting bible, which their listeners trusted, and drawing conclusions from it. As for deductive logic, this appears far more often in the apostles’ letters than their speeches, but we see it pretty clearly in Peter and John’s defense:

Acts 4.19-20 KWL

19 In reply Simon Peter and John told them, “Decide, by God, if it’s right to heed you or God:

20 We can’t not talk about what we saw and heard.”

Supernatural public speaking.

Paul had been to academy, the ancient equivalent of university, studying under Rabban Gamaliel the Elder. Jesus’s students, particularly the Twelve, had not. They’d only been to synagogue. (Though their rabbi was Jesus of Nazareth, which counts for an awful lot!) So while Paul definitely received training in rhetoric, as other accounts of Gamaliel make clear, it wasn’t something you’d expect to find in synagogue lessons. Jesus was an out-of-the-ordinary teacher, so he might’ve taught basic rhetoric to his students… or they might’ve picked up some of it by listening to him speak.

Either way, it startled the Judean senators when they saw Peter and John’s παρρησίαν/parrisían, “speaking ability” (KJV “boldness”). These guys were comfortable with public speaking. Yet they had no rhetorical training the senators were familiar with; they’d never been to academy; they only studied under Jesus. Either Jesus slipped ’em some advanced subjects, or (which Jesus makes clear in the Olivet Discourse) they’d been gifted by the Holy Spirit.

’Cause God can do that. When we have the ability to hear the Spirit—and we do!—and we practice listening to him, he tells us what to say. No, he won’t take over our lips and work us like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He simply tells us what to say, and it ends up being just the right thing. It’s supernaturally good.

Is it therefore guaranteed the Spirit will get us an acquittal? Absolutely not. Stephen got killed. Eventually Peter got killed. Eventually John got exiled; eloquent or not, he didn’t talk his way out of it. The Twelve were martyred, all proclaiming Jesus till the end.

Jesus doesn’t promise any pretribulation rapture. He only promises those who endure to the end will be saved. Mt 24.13 We might not convince anyone. Might get killed. But despite our death, Jesus is resurrection and life. We may die, but thanks to Jesus, we’ll live. Trust him.

And if you ever find yourself in circumstances where you gotta defend yourself under pressure, trust the Holy Spirit. He may not give us an instant crash course in Aristotelian rhetoric. But he’ll still tell us just what we need to say.

Saved exclusively through Jesus.

It’s the exclusivity that bugs people.

One of the things about Christianity that offends people most is how we claim we can only be saved through Christ Jesus.

We do have bible to back up the idea, y’know.

Acts 4.8-12 KWL

8 Then Simon Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, told them, “Leaders of the people and elders:

9 If we’re investigated today about a good deed to a disabled man—how was he cured?—

10 it must be made known to you all, and all Israel’s people:

In the name of Messiah Jesus the Nazarene—whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—

by this Jesus, this disabled man stands before you, cured.

11 This Jesus is ‘the stone dismissed by you builders, who became the head cornerstone.’ Ps 118.22

12 Salvation isn’t found in anyone else, nor is there given to people

another name under heaven by whom it’s necessary for us to be saved.”

Jesus is the only way by which people have access to God:

John 14.5-7 KWL

5 Thomas told Jesus, “Master, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?”

6 Jesus told Thomas, “I’m the way. And truth, and life. Nobody comes to the Father unless through me.

7 If you knew me, you’ll also know my Father.

From now on you know him. You’ve seen him.”

These absolute statements make Christianity exclusive: You gotta have a relationship with Jesus if you want to get to God. There’s no getting around Jesus. He is how God chose to reveal himself, so if we reject Jesus, we’re rejecting what God’s trying to tell us. Bluntly, we’d be rejecting God.

Now if you’re of another organized religion… big deal. Your religion already has its own claims of exclusivity. Muslims figure there’s no god but God—and Muhammad’s his messenger, so if you wanna know God you gotta embrace Muhammad’s revelations. Buddhists don’t even care about Jesus; he’s a nice guy, but they prioritize the Buddha’s teachings. And so forth.

What these absolute statements tend to annoy most, are those pagans who are trying to claim all religions are the same, or just as valid as one another, or that it’s okay if people have a hodgepodge of beliefs from every religion. Namely it’s okay if they make up an eclectic religion, where they get to pick ’n choose their favorite beliefs from here, there, and everywhere. But if there’s no getting to the Father apart from Jesus, and they’re trying to get to the Father every which way, it kinda reveals they don’t know what they’re doing.

A lot of Christians claim what these bible quotes mean is we must become Christians or we’re going to hell. And that’s not actually what they say. They say—no more, no less—that salvation comes exclusively through Jesus. Not that we gotta first become Christians. Not that we gotta first embrace Christian doctrines. These aren’t statements about the steps anyone has to take. They’re only statements about how God works: Through Jesus.

So if God chooses to save someone from one of those other religions, be they Muslim, Buddhist, pagan, even atheist: He’s only gonna do it through Jesus. Regardless of how they—or we—imagine salvation works.

Yeah, here’s where I start to confuse and lose people.

Is our faith living, or dead?

James 2.14-17.

So now we’re at one of the more controversial passages in Christendom: The notorious “faith without works is dead” bit.

Properly faith is a synonym for trust, and when Christianity talks about faith we mean trusting in God. We figure there’s something of substance holding up our beliefs: God himself. He’s real and reliable, and will do as he said he’d do. It’s not just “faith in faith”—that we imagine what we want, believe really hard, and stuff will happen. That’s how magic is supposed to work, and we all know magic isn’t real. But you’d be surprised how often people think faith works that way. (Or that magic is real.)

Now if faith is based on something solid, it means we should be able to stand on that faith, right? Should be able to act on it. Should be able to do stuff based on our trust in God. If I trust in a stepladder I should have no trouble standing on it; seems kinda stupid if I never use it because I really don’t care to test it. What’s the point of owning a stepladder then?

Same argument James made here: What’s the point of “having faith” if it never comes to anything? If we never use it? Is that even faith?

James 2.14-17 KWL

14 What’s the point, my fellow Christians, when someone says they “have faith,”

yet doesn’t take action? Can “faith” save them?

15 When a Christian brother or sister starts to become needy and go without daily food,

16 and one of you tells them, “Go in peace: I declare you to be warm and full!”

yet doesn’t give them anything useful for their body, what’s the point?

17 This “faith,” when it’s all by itself and takes no action, is dead.

Obviously he answered that question: Nope. Not faith. If it’s fruitless, it’s nekrá kath’ eaftín/“dead by itself.” (I moved the “by itself” to earlier in the sentence.) It’s not just faith without works that’s dead. Faith without anything is dead.

Note this situation James described in his example, where “one of you” tells a needy Christian, “Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled.” Jm 2.16 KJV It’s not a hypothetical situation. It still happens all the time. This is when Christians wish blessings upon one another. “Oh it’s so sad you don’t have a job, but y’know what? I’m gonna declare for you that you will get a job. That my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Pp 4.19 KJV You just trust in God now; he will take care of you.” And then, just like every sucky intercessor, that well-wisher does nothing to help God take care of them.

So, this kind of so-called “faith”? Dead.

Yep. Every compassionate-sounding Christian who says, “Aww,” at all the sob stories, yet lifts not a finger to do anything, and all they have are best wishes and warm prayers: Hypocrites with dead faith. Pretending it’s faith—pretending they believe God’ll take care of people—but y’know, we Christians are meant to be how God takes care of his needy. Remember when the first Christians had needy people in Acts? No you don’t, ’cause they didn’t:

Acts 4.32-35 KWL

32 The number of believers were one in thinking and lifestyle.

Not one of their possessions was said to be their own.

Instead, everything of theirs was commonly used.

33 The apostles gave their witness of Master Jesus’s resurrection in great power.

Great grace was upon them all, 34 for they had no needy:

Whoever among them owned land or houses were selling whatever was sellable

35 and placed them at the apostles’ feet. This was passed along to everyone—whoever had need.

When’s the last time someone in your church sold a house and gave the proceeds to the church to help out the needy? When’s the last time you ever heard of a church doing that on a regular basis? Face it: We suck.