Communicating Scripture with Augustine: Some Key Principles 🗝️
Augustine begins his book De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine or Teaching Christianity) by stating:
There are two things which all treatment of the scriptures is aiming at: a way to discover what needs to be understood, and a way to put across to others what has been understood.
Augustine, Teaching Christianity [De Doctrina Christiana], 1.1, ed. Rotelle, trans. Hill, vol. I/11 of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century [Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996], §1.1, page 109. All quotations of Augustine are from this translation.
I’ve previously written on Augustine’s key principles for reading Scripture, his “way to discover what needs to be understood.” Augustine spends the first three books of De Doctrina unpacking what this looks like. In book four, he turns to consider his “way to put across to others what has been understood,” or, how to communicate what we’ve understood. Here are seven key principles he shares.
Truth Requires Persuasion
First, he insists that truth requires persuasion.
Rhetoric, after all, being the art of persuading people to accept something, whether it is true or false, would anyone dare to maintain that truth should stand there without any weapons in the hands of its defenders against falsehood; that those speakers, that is to say, who are trying to convince their hearers of what is untrue, should know how to get them on their side, to gain their attention and have them eating out of their hands by their opening remarks, while these who are defending the truth should not? That those should utter their lies briefly, clearly, plausibly, and these should state their truths in a manner too boring to listen to, too obscure to understand, and finally too repellent to believe?
De Doctrina, §4.2.3, page 207–208.
So, “rhetoric” is the art of persuasion. Augustine highlights the importance of communicating well to defend the truth. Does it make sense to present the truths of the gospel boringly and unpersuasively while the world peddles lies using persuasive techniques to win people over? Not really! Augustine argues that those who speak the truth should also know how to present their message clearly, engagingly, and convincingly. If those spreading lies can capture attention and persuade listeners, then those defending the truth should be equally skilled in making their true case compelling and easy to understand.
2. Read Good Books, Listen to Good Preachers
So, how do we learn to be persuasive? We could read some books on the rules of eloquence, that is, rules on how to speak or write in a persuasive, clear, and compelling way. In his day, that might mean reading Cicero’s De Oratore or Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In our day, that might mean reading Chris Anderson’s TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. This would probably help. But Augustine has a better idea:
The fact is that, given a bright and eager disposition, eloquence will come more readily to those who read and listen to eloquent speakers than to those who pore over the rules of eloquence.
De Doctrina, §4.3.4, page 208.
If you want to become more persuasive, read good writers and listen to good speakers. Find good Christian books. Read them. Find good preachers. Listen to them. That will make you a better communicater.
3. The Big Three: Teach, Delight, Sway
Drawing on Cicero, Augustine then gives us the “big three” for effective communication.
An eloquent man once said, you see, and what he said was true, that to be eloquent you should speak “so as to teach, to delight, to sway.” Then he added, “Teaching your audience is a matter of necessity, delighting them a matter of being agreeable, swaying them a matter of victory.”
De Doctrina, 4.12.27, page 222.
If you want to persuade people, you need to teach them, delight them, and sway them.
Teach
This involves imparting knowledge or truth to the audience. It is about ensuring that they understand the subject matter or the moral lesson being conveyed.
Therefore the person who is saying something with the intention of teaching should not consider he has yet said anything of what he wants to the person he wishes to teach, so long as he is not understood.
De Doctrina, §4.12.27, 223.
You could give the greatest-ever exposition of a passage. But those listening don’t understand. That would be a failure. Your hearers need to understand what you’re saying. If you want your audience to understand what you’re saying, you need to have a vibe for what they will understand. This will probably mean that you need to actually know them. You have to present information in a way that they’ll understand. Most of the time, this will mean having:
A big idea
Three main points
A pathway to the gospel
At least one application
More on this in an upcoming article.
For what it’s worth, I’ve read hundreds of Augustine’s sermons and I’ve often wondered how his audience understood what he meant. That said, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:8).
Delight
So, you’ve taught some stuff. That’s good. But you also need to delight your audience. This means engaging the audience through an appealing and enjoyable style. It is about holding their attention and making the message more palatable or engaging, which can enhance their openness to the message.
If on the other hand he also wishes to delight the person he is saying it to, or to sway him, he will not succeed in doing so whatever his way of saying it may have been; but in order to do so, it makes all the difference how he says it.
De Doctrina, §4.12.27, page 223.
How you say something matters. As he goes on to say, you have to “keep him listening” (De Doctrina, §4.12.27, page 223). If you have content, this will do a fair of the work for you. Even if a speaker has no rizz, “his matter by itself, being true, delights simply by being shown to be so” (De Doctrina, §4.12.27, page 223).
How do you delight your hearer, beyond just the general content? Here are some thoughts:
Tell stories
Use illustrations
Present real-life scenarios
Tell jokes (jokes that are actually funny, even just one-liners)
Administer assonance and alliteration (points and words that start with the same vowel or consonant)
Be self-deprecating (not too much, though)
Use appropriate pace, pitch and pause
Ask questions
Sway
According to Augustine, swaying is the crucial step of persuading the audience to act on what they have learned. It involves stirring their emotions, will, or resolve to bring about a change in behaviour or to inspire them to take a specific action.
When, however, something is being taught that has to be done, and is precisely being taught so that it may be done, in vain does the way and style in which it is said give pleasure, if it is not put across in such a way that action follows. It is the duty, therefore, of the eloquent churchman, when he is trying to persuade the people about something that has to be done, not only to teach, in order to instruct them; not only to delight, in order to hold them; but also to sway, in order to conquer and win them.
De Doctrina, §4.13.29, page 224.
This is the hardest one to do. This is the bit where you’re hunting for Feelz. You're looking to trigger emotions (in a good way!) to activate some kind of action. It’s about connecting with your audience in a way that resonates with their experiences, struggles, and hopes, and then channelling those emotions into a clear, compelling call to action. It's about moving people from just hearing to feeling, and then finally, to doing.
4. Pray Before Preaching
So, you’ve understood your passage, you’ve written your sermon or talk in such a way that it’s persuasive, and you reckon it will teach, delight and sway. You’ve got good stuff to say. But, if God’s not at work in the process, what good is it? We need to pray.
And so this eloquent speaker of ours is at pains, when he has just and good and holy things to say—he ought not, after all, to be saying anything else; so he is at pains to ensure as far as he can, when he says these things, that his listeners understand them, enjoy them, obey them. And he should not be in the slightest doubt that if he can ensure this, and to the extent that he can, it is more the piety of prayer than the ready facility of orators that enables him to do so; by praying then both for himself and for those he is about to address, let him be a pray-er before being a speaker. At the very moment he steps up to speak, before he even opens his mouth and says a word, let him lift up his thirsty soul to God, begging that it may belch forth what it has quaffed, or pour out what it he has filled it with.
De Doctrina, §4.15.32, pages 225-226.
Your ability to deliver a helpful message comes more from the piety of prayer (that is, your devotion to God in prayer) than from your amazing public speaking skills. So, pray as you prepare. Pray for yourself; that God would help you to understand what his Word says and that you would communicate it faithfully and effectively. Pray for your hearers: that God would use the Holy Spirit to enlighten their hearts so that they might understand what he has to say (through you) to them (see 1 Corinthians 2:12). Pray that the truths you’ve quaffed will belch forth and fill up your audience, stirring them to love God and neighbour all the more.
Having prayed, give the message you’ve quaffed a good old belch.
5. Match Content with Tone
As we get to up to speak, Augustine encourages us to ensure that we match our content with tone. Drawing again on Cicero, Augustine says:
That man therefore will be eloquent who, in order to teach, can talk about minor matters calmly; in order to delight, about middling matters moderately; in order to sway, about great matters grandly.
§4.17.24, 228
We need to match our tone with our content. I remember once listening to a well-known preacher talk about hell. It was weird because he was smiling. How can you smile when you’re talking about hell? He wasn’t even up to the part where Jesus saves us from hell. He was just talking about how, because of sin, we deserve to go to hell. It was jarring. We have to match our tone to the content. Don’t get excited about the small stuff. This is often my problem. I get really excited about stuff that doesn’t matter, like spreadsheets, organisational systems, and AI-generated-songs. Those are stupid things to get excited about. Don’t let your trivial anecdote, barely related to your talk, be the one thing people remember. Be super chilled with the less important stuff. Be appropriately excited for the middle-tier stuff. And get passionate and excited about the stuff that really matters. Your hearers will pick it up.
6. The Weight of a Speaker’s Life
Next, Augustine reminds us of the importance of the way we live.
But for us to be listened to with obedient compliance, whatever the grandeur of the speaker’s utterances, his manner of life carries more weight.
De Doctrina, §4.27.59, 245.
Our lives matter.
There are plenty of people, after all, who seek an excuse for their bad lives in those of their very own leaders and teachers, replying in their hearts, or even bursting out with it and saying to their faces, “Why don’t you yourself do what you are telling me to do?” Thus it happens that they do not listen obediently to someone who doesn’t listen to himself, and that they despise the word of God being preached to them along with the preacher.
De Doctrina, §4.27.60, 245.
People look to leaders and teachers as examples. When they see us living sinfully and doing dumb stuff, we lose our credibility and nobody cares what we have to say. If we don’t practice what we preach, why would anyone else practice what we preach? But even worse than this, we risk undermining the very message of the gospel. People see our poor behaviour and decide (often subconsciously) that our God and his gospel must be pretty lame and not worth following. And they end up despising God. Because of us! I know people who have given up on Jesus because the lives of their pastors, teachers and leaders have been completely out of sync with what God calls for in the gospel.
7. It’s Ok to Get Help
Finally, it’s ok to get help with your talk. We’re not on our own. We have others around us who can help us teach God’s Word.
There are, of course, some people who can declaim and enunciate well, but cannot think up and compose anything to say and declaim. But if they take things that have been written eloquently and wisely by others, and proffer them to the people, provided they have that role to play, they are not acting improperly.
De Doctrina, 4.28.61, page 247
You might not have the preaching skills of St Augustine himself. You might feel like you could never stand up and give a talk or sermon. You would have no idea where to start. Augustine says it’s ok to get help writing the talk or even use what someone else has written. In most cases, I would caution against using someone else’s talk or sermon word for word. In today’s context, there’s the very real problem of plagiarism. We don’t want to pass off someone else’s work as our own. But I can think of two ways I’d spin what Augustine says:
Firstly, there may be a time when you have to give someone else’s talk. I’ve had someone do this for me twice. One time, I was guest speaking at another youth group and none of my leaders had the time to prepare a talk at this particular time of the year. The other time, I tested positive to COVID hours before I was to give the talk. In both situations, I wrote the talk and got the leader to deliver it, stating up front that I had written it. I think that this was a good call in the situation. It was better than no talk at all.
Secondly, while you might not give someone else’s talk word for word, you might ask for a great deal of hand-holding. In the past, I’ve helped people write their talk from the point of praying and reading the passage (for the first time) to discerning the big idea, the main points, and application and composing the final slides and script. In these cases, it was their first or second time ever giving a talk, and they probably would have struggled without my help. You might need this level of help, you might not. Whatever the case, it’s ok to ask for help.
