Preachers Or Lawyers?

Titus 3:9 But avoid foolish controversies, arguments about genealogies, quarrels, and fights about the Law. These things are useless and worthless.

With this backdrop can I just tell you that God loves arguments and the book of Acts is the most argumentative essay in preaching ever written by a Christian and also the book of Romans is the most systematic argument of the Christ idiology.

Many people and preachers say "we are not to argue about Scripture" when what they want to say is "I don't know Scripture enough to discuss it with you". Preaching, teaching, evangelising is argumentative. They are argumentative in the sense that as you talk to people you should foresee what they would answer to you and make suitable answers before they even voice it out. Back in marketing I remember my Communication lecturer telling the class that customers will always have objections and a good marketer answers it all in the first pitch - the same goes for all kinds of preaching or teaching or evangelising.

Many at times you only have the chance of a one time pitch and if you fail to answer obvious objections to the Gospel you may fail in reaching the person. Look at every message preached by the Apostles of our Lord and you'll either see them arguing with people or themselves - they raise objections that people will obviously raise and then answer them.

The idea of preaching itself conveys arguments. Convincing another person with different idealogies and beliefs to accept what you're saying to be truthful is nothing short of arguments. Accept that biblical preaching is argumentative and you will spare yourself from the trouble of having a back and forth argument with those you're trying to reach.

Allow me give an example. You've read a Scripture on salvation therefore want to preach it but you don't argue over Scripture therefore you only present one side of salvation - come to Christ and you'll have eternal life. But not everyone in the congregation needs eternal life for some already have it, what they need is salvation from sickness but you've said nothing about it therefore you lose them to another preacher who has something to say on it (that can explain why members love to visit other Churches). If you had accepted that preaching is an argument with Scripture you'll have known that someone is in need of salvation from joblessness and another from sickness therefore your message will have answered them though your main issue is eternal life. I don't fully agree that you need to know the individual problems of people to reach them with the Gospel but I believe that if you are human and live in this world as you prepare you can know most objections that would be raised and would answer them in your message.

The Bible says avoid arguments and it told us to avoid discussing the names of the angels, the sex of God, the name of the person who tempted Lucifer, the number of times Adam & Eve had sex before giving birth, the first day of the week, the name of the men who threw Jonah into the sea, the type of food Jesus used for the last supper and if Kwame is normal. You're free to read the book of Acts and pay particular attention to every message preached by Paul the man who said to avoid foolish arguments and you'll notice that each and everyone of his messages were argumentative.