rhetoric

I am reading Ben Witherington's book The Living Word of God and he talks about this idea of biblical rhetoric. I was really stuck by his unpacking of Paul's persuasion techniques in the letter to Philemon. He shows how Paul's rhetoric would be considered manipulative and arm-twisting in our 21st century culture but in Paul's cultural context it was the norm as far as persuasion goes. Then Witherington mentions the fact that all preaching and evangelism is based on persuasion, however, our rhetoric needs to change based on the culture. We cannot compromise the truth of the message, we just have to present things in a culturally sensitive way that uses a type of persuasion that the current culture can respond to. I was thinking about this in context of evangelism. In most high schools, English classes read Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Now this sermon uses a rhetoric that is considered to be very manipulative by post-modern standards. Most preachers today realize that preaching hell and damnation is not something people respond well to. However, in Edwards' context, people really could relate to what he was saying and his preaching was very effective. So knowing all this, it is the job of the preacher and the evangelist to find a rhetorical style that speaks to their specific cultural context.