Book Review: Persuasive Preaching

Persuasive Preaching

A Biblical and Practical Guide to the Effective Use of Persuasion

By: R. Larry Overstreet

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Romans 12:1. Paul gave his life to preaching the gospel and calling men unto salvation and to follow Jesus Christ. He declared the truth and then he urged, and pleaded for men to obey. Persuasive Preaching is a book calling men who stand behind the pulpit to not just give information, but persuade men to believe and follow Jesus. What does this mean and what does this look like? This book attempts to give that answer. It is theology that forms the basis of our methodology and if the foundation of theology is off the methodology and practice will be as well. Before addressing the theology of the book, let me give you a brief overview.

The book is separated into four parts and in part one, Overstreet addresses the problems modern preachers face in trying to reach people with a post-modern view of the world. As Christians, we believe in ultimate truth in a society whose ultimate truth is, there is no truth. He hits the nail on the head here. Persuasive preaching faces an uphill battle in our society where people are raised to think they are the key of their own ultimate truth and reject outright any claim to absolute truth. Part two is not for everyone, and Overstreet lets us know this up front. This is a scholarly treatment, and unless you have a proficiency in Greek, you may not get a lot out this section. Overstreet offers Biblical support for persuasion in preaching and uses Paul’s preaching as an example of how the message should be declared with the desire that people believe what is being preached and act on that message. The third sections provides examples of how to put this information together in a sermon outline and provides different ways a sermon can be persuasive with both positive and negative examples. The last chapter, Overstreet tries to apply some application in the book dealing with what persuasive preaching looks like in action and covers the dangers of manipulation.

The prologue sets the tone with a story of how Mr. Overstreet was saved in a church that gave a closing invitation and laments that some churches do not continue in this practice. He closes the book with a plea for the public invitation. Theology matters.  Overstreet’s definition of persuasive preaching is “the process of preparing biblical, expository messages using a persuasive pattern, and presenting them through verbal and nonverbal communication means to autonomous individuals who can be convicted and /or taught by God’s Holy Spirit, in order to alter or strengthen their attitudes and beliefs toward God, His Word and other individuals, resulting in their lives being transformed into the image of Christ.”

Here lies my problem with the book. Who is autonomous? Who out there has an absolute autonomous free will? What Biblical texts are provided to prove this assertion? The underlying presupposition of the book is that man's will is autonomous and that he is free to choose with the ability to choose Christ on his own. With this view of man as a foundation for the book, the persuasion takes on a whole new meaning and the preachers goal and task takes on a whole new dynamic. This is why the insistence on the invitation is out of place in Biblical preaching. While he goes to the text to prove that Paul was persuasive in his preaching, the presupposition of autonomy leaves us with a pragmatic plea for the invitation, not a Biblical case for one. God the Holy Spirit is the one who makes preaching effectual, and when a person is born again, they will find the preaching persuasive, whether there was an invitation or not. So while there are many worthwhile points and good thoughts in the books, I did not agree with the premise, that men can be persuaded unto salvation or that a man dead in trespasses and sins and be persuaded to be born again by an effective delivery or style, or sadly, an invitation. Ironically, I was not persuaded.

Thanks to Cross Focused Reviews for the review copy of this book.