Kevin Stilley

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November 6, 2012 by kevinstilley

Rhetoric – select quotes

Rhetoric completes the tools of learning. Dialectic zeros in on the logic of things, of particular systems of thought or subjects. Rhetoric takes the next grand step and brings all these subjects together into one whole.
~ William Blake

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
~ Edwin H. Friedman

The passions are the only orators who always convince. They have a kind of natural art with infallible rules; and the most untutored man filled with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
~ Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld

Filed Under: Blog, Church Leadership, Communication, Philosophy, Politics, Preaching / Teaching

November 2, 2012 by kevinstilley

Hermeneutics / Bible Interpretation – select quotes

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
~ William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.
~ George Bernard Shaw

It’s not what I don’t understand about the Bible that bothers me; it’s what I do understand that bothers me.
~ Mark Twain

We must be on guard against giving interpretations of scripture that are far-fetched or opposed to science, and so exposing the word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers.
~ Augustine of Hippo

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Lectio Divina

Filed Under: Bible Exposition, Bibliology, Blog, Preaching / Teaching Tagged With: Bible, hermeneutics, interpretation

October 21, 2012 by kevinstilley

Effective Communication – select quotes

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
~ Strother Martin playing the Captain in the movie Cool Hand Luke

This communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
~ Francis Bacon

It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”
~ Yogi Berra

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
~ Ambrose Bierce

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.
~ Pearl S. Buck

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
~ Carl W. Buechner

Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
~ Jeff Daly

One can say everything best over a meal.
~ George Eliot in Adam Bede

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
~ Edwin H. Friedman

Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.
~ Robert Greenleaf

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

English is the perfect language for preachers because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say.
~ Garrison Keillor.

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
~ Larry King

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
~ Rudyard Kipling

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Information is giving out; communication is getting through.
~ John C. Maxwell

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
~ Montaigne

“And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”
~ Anne in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables

As a performer there’s nothing better than moments where you feel that you have the option—within the given text—to do exactly as you want, where you’re not worried about what you look like or whether you’ve warmed up enough. You just seem to be involved in a pure expression which is completely appropriate.
~ Mark Morris in “Marvelous Mark Morris,” BBC Music Magazine, special issue, Ballet from Ritual to Romance (1996), page 64

When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking bout what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator.
~ Peggy Noonan, in Simply Speaking (NY: HarperCollins, 1998), page 8

One kind word can warm three winter months.
~ Japanese proverb

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.
~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Brevity is the soul of wit.
~ William Shakespeare

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
~ William Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost

The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades when speaking fails.
~ William Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
~ Character in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion

The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
~ George Bernard Shaw

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
~ Mark Twain

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.
~ Woodrow Wilson

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in picture of silver.
~ Bible, Proverbs 25:11

How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
~ Bible, Isaiah 52:7

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Book Cover

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Preaching / Teaching Tagged With: Blog, Communication, listening, Quotes, rhetoric, speach, syntax, words, Writing

April 27, 2011 by kevinstilley

Scary Pastor Statistics

80 percent believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively.

30 percent say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.

75 percent report they’ve had a significant stress-related crisis once in their ministry.

50 percent feel unable to meet the needs of the job.

90 percent feel they’re inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands.

25 percent of pastor’s wives see their husband’s work schedule as a source of conflict.

Those in ministry are equally likely to have their marriage end in divorce as general church members.

The clergy has the second highest divorce rate among all professions.

80 percent of pastors say they have insufficient time with their spouse.

45 percent of pastors’ wives say the greatest danger to them and their family is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual burnout.

56 percent of pastors’ wives say that they have no close friends.

52 percent of pastors say they and their spouses believe that being in pastoral ministry is hazardous to their family’s well-being and health.

45.5 percent of pastors say that they’ve experienced depression or burnout to the extent that they needed to take a leave of absence from ministry.

70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend

(Source: Pastors at Greater Risk, by H. B. London and Neil Wiseman, quoted in Leading on Empty, by Wayne Cordeiro)

Filed Under: Blog, Pastoral Care, Preaching / Teaching Tagged With: church, Family, Pastors, Preachers, Stress

April 11, 2011 by kevinstilley

The Power of Words

Filed Under: Blog, Preaching / Teaching, Wordplay Tagged With: rhetoric, words

January 11, 2011 by kevinstilley

Discussion Questions from Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Introduction

1.       Is The Rhetoric a reaction toward Isocrates and the sophist?

2.       What is the significance of the The Rhetoric?

Book One

3.       Why is rhetoric the “counterpart of dialectic”? 1354a

4.       Does this definition differ from other ancient rhetoricians?

5.       What is his definition of rhetoric?  1335b.35.

1.)    What are the limitations of this definition?

2.)    Has this definition changed in the culture; in the academy?

6.       What are the three types of rhetoric? 1358b5.

1.)    What is Deliberative (Political) Rhetoric?

2.)    What is Epideictic (Ceremonial) Rhetoric?

3.)    What is Judicial (Legal/Forensic) Rhetoric?

Book Two

7.       Discuss Aristotle’s triad of rhetoric.  Why would this be helpful in the evaluation of current speeches?  What is the liability of its use with speeches/sermons?

1.)    Pathos

i.      It is advisable pedagogy to arouse emotion (anger/fear/indignation) without its resolution?

ii.      It is advisable pedagogy to teach without pathos?

2.)    Ethos

i.      What is his understanding of Ethos?

ii.      Is it limited to character, or broadened to encompass credibility/ability.  (Return to 1356a5).

3.)    Logos

i.      Was his emphasis the content of the speech or the development of logical argumentation?

8.       Are these criteria by which we could evaluate our own classroom rhetoric?

Book Three

9.       What stylistic choices of speech delivery would seem appropriate/inappropriate for contemporary rhetoric?

10.   How applicable, in a contemporary context, is his warning against bad taste in rhetoric? 1406a

Applications

11.   What influence does this work have on the contemporary pulpit?

12.   How could it be used to train pastors?

13.   How could it be used to train professors?

A Suggested Chart of Relations between ancient Rhetoric and the Contemporary Pulpit

Cicero De Oratore 55 BC

Governor of Cilicia 51-50 BC; would have resided in Tarsus

Apostle Paul  II Cor. 2:1-5 AD 55-56

Warns against “persuasive words of wisdom”

Paul influenced by Cicero or sophistic rhetoric?

Augustine’s Book IV of De Doctrina Christiana 426 AD

Dependent on Cicero

Fenelon’s Dialogue’s 1715

Example of revival of ancient tradition and a dependence upon Cicero and Augustine in a modern homiletic

Contemporary Pulpit

1. The ancient tradition is more alive than one may realize.

2. Paul’s  warning against the abuse of rhetoric directly “anticipates” present rhetorical schemes.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Philosophy, Preaching / Teaching Tagged With: Aristotle, Preaching, rhetoric

November 10, 2010 by kevinstilley

Continuing the Discussion of Aristotle’s Rhetoric

The following are supplemental resources for the students in my Early Western Civilization seminars:

Thinking Of Rhetoric As More Than Language


The Rhetoric of Interactive Music Gaming

Fun With Rhetorical Analysis Using Cereal

Filed Under: Bible Exposition, Blog, Evangelism, Front Page, Missions, Philosophy, Preaching / Teaching, Worldview Tagged With: Aristotle, Communication, Dialectic, Persuasion, rhetoric

December 5, 2009 by kevinstilley

Above Reproach?

Twice in the last week I have turned on the television to see once prominent television evangelists who had great moral failures and have now returned to preaching (and begging for money).  One of these characters was guilty of stealing millions of dollars from contributors and having an extra-marital affair with a co-worker.  The other confessed to having frequent trysts with prostitutes.

Now I hear that Ted Haggard is starting a church.  What was originally only  a Bible study that met in his home is now organizing into a church with him serving as Pastor.  It seems like only yesterday his face, and that of his distraught and embarrassed family, was plastered across the television news for having been discovered having sexual relations with a male prostitute (and sharing his drugs).

I believe in redemption, but it seems that there are all to many people who confuse restoration with reinstatement.  Forgiveness does not mean that someone should return to their previous position or a similar one.

What do you think?

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Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Preaching / Teaching Tagged With: forgiveness, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Restoration, Ted Haggard

November 7, 2009 by kevinstilley

Homiletics – select quotes

You want me to make the Bible come alive? I didn’t know that it had died! If fact, I never even heard that it was ill…. No, I can’t make the Bible come alive for anyone. The Bible is already alive. It made me come alive.
~ R.C. Sproul, in Knowing Scripture

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Filed Under: Blog, Preaching / Teaching, Quotes Tagged With: homiletics, Preaching, quotations, quote

October 22, 2009 by kevinstilley

Women Preachers – select quotes

Sir, a woman’s preaching in like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
~ Samuel Johnson, in a letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, July 31, 1763

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Filed Under: Blog, Church Leadership, Preaching / Teaching, Quotes, Theology Tagged With: Leadership, Preachers, Quotes, women

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