Speaking That Is Spiritually Effective

So spake they that a great multitude believed. Acts 14:1

Evidently it is not only what you say, that is of consequence, but how you say it.

Whatever it took to make effective and convincing the voice of Paul and Barnabas, they had met the qualifications.  They spoke in such a way that multitudes believed.  Their words didn’t roll off; they dug in.  These apostolic brethren had earned the right to say what they were saying.  They were able to say it savingly and searchingly.  It is, you know, possible to speak so that nobody believes.

More is implied here than clear diction or eloquence, through certainly anything worth saying is worth saying distinctly and pleasingly.  More was perhaps involved in Moses’ “slowness of speech” than the need for greater fluency of words.  Again, more is here indicated than speaking with physical force.  Then too, the words of these brethren were certainly more than “something recited”-something passing from one mind to another without ever reaching anybody’s heart.  The people accepted from them what they would probably have rejected from others unqualified to speak.  Why?  The answer is not to be over-simplified, but it is worth searching out.

The church needs Spirit-anointed men today to speak up and speak out God’s message to the body of Christ.  We are scarcely able to say as the early Church, “the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7).  The explanation that “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he [Stephen] spake” (6:10) would, as a rule, be an over-statement today.  We need desperately the voice that presses clear through to the heart.  Moreover, grievous wolves, cunning craftiness of men lying in wait to deceive, form without power, ritual without reality, zeal without knowledge, light without love, activity without souls, busywork without burden, Sinai without Calvary-all of these conditions and may more prey upon the flock of God.  The voice of the New Testament priest and prophet must be heard.  The thunderous tone must shake to the foundations houses built upon the sand.  The sharp two-edged sword must glisten where the soothing word has lulled sinners in and out of the church to sleep.  The bold and brassy hardness of men must have the penetrating torch of God’s promised judgments.  For the murderer there must be the voice of an Abel’s blood crying out from the ground.  For the golden-calf followers there must be the decisive question, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”

Who is qualified to thus speak?  Who is willing?  The Church suffers for lack of voices speaking with spiritual maturity, authority, and power.  Many believe they have something to say who have not learned to speak to the Church or to the unbelieving masses.  Others though seemingly filled with words have scarcely the spiritual right to speak at all.  It is relatively easy for the uninformed to be dogmatic.  Few issues in the complex pattern of today’s life have simple solutions.  Moreover, others are silent because their voice would be self-reproving.  Some withhold pronouncements upon basic spiritual issues lest they seem to speak as partisans in self-defense.

The pastoral word must balance the punitive word.  The life-giving note must undergird the voice of correction.  The assuring word of access to Christ and identification with all the God’s saints is necessary along with the word that discriminates.  The bracing word of commendation where merited, the shepherding word of love and concern, are required to qualify for the voice of denouncement when and where needed.

Good men sometimes fall into the “habit of the derogatory” until they are unwittingly regarded as anti-church and in fact almost anti-everything even though they do not mean so to be.  The derogatory note is not redemptive.  Something must be added to it to turn people to righteousness.

So the need is urgent for voices today-voices qualified under God to speak up, speak out and speak on, guiding and grounding the people of God in Truth.  What to say?  That may be relatively easy.  Saying it convincingly and savingly.  That is our challenge-to so speak that multitudes believe.

--General Superintendent Harold K. Sheets  --Dec, 1959