About the Book
Jesus never wrote a book, held office, or wielded a sword. He never gained sway with the mighty or influential. He never claimed a political victory. He never took up arms against the governing powers in Rome. Yet, two thousand years after his death, leaders in almost every faith – Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, agnostics – agree that he never preached a word of hate to gain influence with his followers. He did nothing for which those followers must now be ashamed. He was quiet but firm. He used the spoken word to disseminate a revolutionary message that would eventually spread from a small town wedding in the backwoods of the Middle East to the heights of power in Rome, Western Europe, Africa, and the modern United States.
How did he do it? That’s the question we hope to answer, at least partially, with this book. Modern scholars study everyone from Cicero to Hitler with excruciating detail to discover the secrets of their rhetorical success. Laymen reach for books on communications written by professors and CEOs that document the ways in which twenty-first century businesspeople can succeed in negotiations and motivate their organizations. History buffs read the speeches of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln in search of the proper principles of persuasion. But few people – whether Christians or non-Christians – look back to this man, Jesus of Nazareth, as an example of rhetorical excellence. We read The Republic to commemorate the brilliance of Socrates and watch film of Martin Luther King to remember the power of a dream, but we rarely look back to the man whose arguments and speeches in spite of all odds – obscurity, powerlessness, and execution – revolutionized all of human history.
We hope to illuminate Jesus' method in two ways. First we’ll look at the life and words of Jesus and describe the various ways in which he sought – through the spoken word, his life, and his disciples – to reach others with his message. Second, we’ll use the “shared artifact” of Jesus’ life to illuminate some very simple rhetorical lessons that you can use today. A “shared artifact” is something from our collective past that we can all reference intelligently – a story or thing about which we all know something and through which we can communicate our ideas about a concept or ideal. As the story of Jesus is well-known by billions around the world, it presents the perfect opportunity to use his life as a vehicle to explore proper communication techniques.
This is not a scholarly work on rhetoric or communications theory, nor is it a comprehensive account of the message of Jesus or the reasons for its effectiveness in the world. It would be a daunting and nearly impossible task to cover so much ground; and his followers would reject the notion that it was purely the material impact of his communication that spread Christianity (crediting his message in combination with the Holy Spirit, his miracles, and the power of his Divinity, at least). But this is an attempt, from a rhetorical perspective, to analyze Jesus’ method of communication, and the way that method can illuminate our understanding of the subject.
The book is broken into seven chapters. The first three use Aristotle’s framework for the three essential components of effective rhetoric – logos, pathos, and ethos – to illuminate the logical, emotional, and personal components of Jesus’ message. Aristotle was one of the first great explicators of rhetoric, particularly in his book On Rhetoric, and his outline is a remarkably useful way to examine three primary components of Jesus’ communication. This is not meant to imply that Jesus was an ardent follower of Aristotle (or a “follower” of any kind); and the authors sincerely believe that we haven’t “forced” the rhetoric of Jesus into the Aristotelian framework. Rather, we believe that through careful study, Aristotle stumbled upon the same rhetorical truths espoused by Christ – particularly with relation to the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos – and his explanation remains one of the best ways to illuminate the use of those tools in the rhetoric of others. Many influential Christian philosophers (most notably, Thomas Aquinas) have seen parallel truth between some of the philosophies of Greece and the teachings of Christianity; and this is no exception. So rather than dispensing with Aristotle altogether, we’d rather allow the communications of Jesus to further enlighten our understanding of his rhetorical frameworks and solidify the link between those conclusions reached through reason (by means of philosophy) and those reached through revelation (in the person of Jesus).
The fourth chapter, “Narrative and Imagery”, seeks to demonstrate Jesus’ use of stories and visual imagery to make his words beautiful and memorable. The fifth chapter, “Discipleship”, shows how Jesus used the concept of discipleship (or, mentorship) in combination with the concept of cellular organizations and small groups to replicate and sustain his message. The sixth chapter, “Heavenly Heuristics,” gives a few additional rules of thumb for on-the-fly argumentation, persuasion, and debate; and the final section, “Case Studies,” takes these lessons and illuminates them via stories taken from the Politics and Pop-Culture.