Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication by Stanley Andy & Jones Lane

Author:Stanley, Andy & Jones, Lane [Jones, Lane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781601422149
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2008-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

• What, if anything, does the Bible say about this?

• If nothing, why?

• Who, in the Scriptures, faced a situation that forced them to interface with this topic or idea?

• What did they do? What didn’t they do that I might have expected them to do?

• Did Jesus ever address this topic directly or indirectly?

At that point I try to take my hands off the wheel and let the text direct me instead of the other way around. Once you discover a text or narrative that addresses your great idea, let the Bible speak. Even if the text contradicts your idea or assumptions going in, let the text speak. It is in that tension that you will make some of your greatest discoveries. When our minds are made up going in, we unintentionally resist the influence of the Holy Spirit. That’s when we run the risk of misusing the text.

The toughest sermon I have ever preached was on the topic of divorce and remarriage. I don’t like what Jesus said about remarriage. On the surface it seems to condemn the victim as well as limit their options going forward. It was tempting to skip what He said and dive right into the apostle Paul’s more user-friendly approach. But I decided instead to limit the message to what Jesus said on the subject.7 No hedging. No trying to make it fit with other parts of the New Testament. The point for that message was: You can’t un-one what God has made one.

Popular notion.

I told our folks how uncomfortable I was with the whole subject and especially Jesus’ ideas. But, what He said, He said for a reason. As I closed in on my one point, I took two glass pitchers of water, one with red food coloring, the other with green, and poured them together into an empty glass container. The text as well as the illustration made the one point unmistakably and in some cases painfully clear. You could have heard a pin drop.

When you make an uncomfortable discovery in the text (and there are plenty) the best question to ask is, “Why would a God who claims to love us and demonstrated His love say such a thing?” Whenever I take the time and make the effort to wrestle that question to the ground I always learn something new. As it turned out, that message turned out to be a tremendous encouragement for divorced and remarried couples. How? Because any time we help people discover where they are and where they aren’t they have a clearer understanding of how to get where they need to go.

My point? Let the text speak for itself. When it agrees with your preconceived ideas, great. When it doesn’t, dig in and learn something. And keep digging until you unearth the one thing.

We do an event every quarter called “Married Life Live.” The purpose of this event is to focus our married couples on one of six marriage essentials. These six essentials are what we believe to be the irreducible minimums for a good marriage.

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