How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator by Joe Carter and John Coleman is an excellent resource for anyone who desires to have conversations and influence that will make a difference for the sake of the gospel. We live in a soundbite world and it’s all about how has the most outrageous statements. We are always trying to one up each other…and that’s not the way of Jesus. Truth is truth, but for people to hear it, you have to first win them over.
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- He was quiet but firm. Location: 84
- As Blaise Pascal phrased it: “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” Pathos is the essential complement to logos (discussed fully in the next chapter) in human understanding, and just as emotion without reason is hollow and incomplete, logic without emotion is cold and unmoving. Life without feeling is shallow and gray. Location: 162
- There are two components to pathos: knowing which appeals are likely to reach listeners and knowing how to implement them effectively. Location: 170
- People are not moved by abstract moral lessons or logical discussions in the same way they are moved by faces, names, tall tales, and vivid visual imagery. Location: 178
- A second method for stirring the hearts of your audience is to utilize shared or common values. Location: 232
- Truth, compassion, responsibility, freedom, and reverence for life were the values that the diverse group agreed were universal. Location: 235
- If you can convince members of an audience that a new concept is part of their existing shared values, you do not have to go through the process of proving those values in detail. Location: 284
- When you are addressing an audience, use shared artifacts in a similar way to impact your listeners emotionally and gain their favor. Location: 330
- Always remember that people are emotionally invested in their families, communities, countries, religions, and cultures. Using the shared artifacts of those groups appropriately will allow you warm entrance into the group and access to the shared values it promotes. Location: 335
- One of the greatest ways to create pathos in a speech or a performance is to show that you are genuinely emotionally involved in the subject. This does not involve melodrama or faking it. Being over-the-top or insincere in a display of emotion can kill your connection with an audience—as Nikita Khrushchev, presidential candidate Howard Dean, or any number of failed actors could testify. But showing that you genuinely care about the subject matter of your communication can win your hearers over. Location: 343
- You cannot expect others to become excited or angry about a subject unless you yourself are capable of genuinely reflected emotion. Location: 364
- Epizeuxis is a repetition of words with no others in between, for vehemence or emphasis. Location: 379
- A second strategy, ploce, is the repetition of a single word for rhetorical emphasis. Location: 386
- Third, anaphora is a type of repetition that uses the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, lines, or sentences. Location: 396
- Similar to this is the fourth strategy, mesodiplosis, the repetition of the same word or words in the middle of successive sentences. Location: 397
- Finally, one of the most effective ways to generate pathos and grab an audience’s attention is to ask questions. Location: 509
- In speech, good orators will often pose compelling questions at the beginning of their presentations to get the audience thinking about a subject, switching them from content absorption mode to content consideration mode. Location: 532
- Questions, well placed and used sparingly, can be powerful, emotional punctuations to a piece of communication that force your audiences to turn on their brains and really take ownership of the content at hand. Location: 535
- Jesus used facts, and his arguments made sense. If you are going to be an effective communicator, you must do the same. Location: 613
- A syllogism is a sequence of two statements, called premises, the truth of which implies the truth of a third statement, known as conclusion. Location: 615
- The syllogismus is the use of a remark or an image that calls upon the audience to draw an obvious conclusion. This form is similar to an enthymeme, though more compact, and frequently relies on an image. Location: 744
- Another figure of reasoning that Jesus was particularly fond of using is the a fortiori (Latin for “to the stronger,” or “even more so”) argument. Location: 763
- A fortiori arguments are exceptionally useful in communication as tools for pointing out the inconsistency of an action, policy, or statement. Location: 784
- Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to the absurd”) is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption must have been wrong, as it led to an absurd result. This type of argument is frequently used by rhetoricians and philosophers and was used to masterly effect by Jesus. Location: 807
- One of the most important elements of logos is the appeal to evidence—what management consultants often refer to as “fact-based” thinking. When you make an argument, it is often important that it not only make sense (i.e., it follows a logical chain of thought) but that your argument be based on observable truths. Location: 872
- Just as important as proper structure and reason, however, is the principle supporting your conclusions in multiple ways. You might think of building the cumulative case as giving your argument multiple legs. MULTIPLE SUPPORTS By basing your conclusions on multiple supports, even if your opponents attack one leg successfully, you have other supports that maintain the truth of your conclusion; and, more broadly, most people find a conclusion with multiple supports more generally compelling than one with only one support. Location: 902
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