I was recently asked the difference between persuasive preaching and manipulative preaching. I responded by saying, “The difference lies in the means we use to persuade.” The Word of God is the only legitimate means of persuasion. Legitimate persuasion is cognitive—stirring the mind with reasonable truth. Attempting to convince people with tear-jerking stories or guilt trips takes an unfair advantage and wrongly muddles their thinking. That does not mean we cannot use all the communication skills available to us, but we should avoid playing on people's emotions. These are artificial and should be avoided because they bypass the reason.

The goal of preaching is to motivate people to choose change because it is reasonable and right before God, not because they have been manipulated into some momentary feeling or action. We persuade them from the Scriptures to choose the right course of action.

In 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul writes to Timothy, "Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching." What he tells Timothy is to read the text, explain the text, and apply the text. That verse is a call to persuasive, expository preaching.

Paul himself was a very persuasive preacher, but he never tried to manipulate emotions to move people artificially. At the end of one of his messages, King Agrippa exclaimed, "In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian" (Acts 26:28). Agrippa clearly understood the message. Sadly, he made a wrong decision in spite of his understanding.

Ultimately, however, our sermons will only be as persuasive as our lives. A traveling speaker who does not remain in one place long enough for people to get to know him may be able to "fake" it without a consistent life to back up his message, (though this is regrettable). Those of us who preach to the same people week after week, however, cannot do that. Our people know us, and our persuasiveness depends on the quality of our lives.