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Friday, October 26, 2012

Effective Communication.....

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (NLT)

Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.
20 When I was with the Jews, I lived like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I too lived under that law.
Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this so I could bring to Christ those who are under the law.

21 When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ.
But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ.

22 When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some.
23 I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.


Here we have one of the great evangelism passages from the bible.

The Apostle Paul is sharing with us how he works to see people saved.

From an evangelism point of view we can take great comfort from the second part of verse 22, in particular the word “some”.
We think to be successful in our evangelism efforts, we must see everyone we share the gospel with.... saved.

This is not the case and Paul knew this.

Not everyone will say yes...... it will be “some”.

Our responsibility is not "their response"; it is that we share the gospel.

But I believe that there is another principle that we can learn from this passage of scripture, and that is a principle surrounding effective communication.

So many things fall down.... fail.... or don’t fully succeed, due to a lack of, or poor ineffective communication.

When God wanted to stop the building of a tower which became known as the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-8) He affected their ability to communicate.

As soon as they were unable to communicate with each other their building came to a halt.

Whether you are building a business, a church, a team, a marriage or sharing the gospel.... the success of that endeavour will be closely tied to your ability to communicate effectively and clearly.

We need to understand that communication is not the answer, effective communication is.
For example, we have a number of nationalities represented in our church some for whom English is their second language.
If I speak English and one of these people speaks their language, which isn’t English, we are both communicating, but it is not effective. When people read the above text, they sometimes misread it..... that Paul was compromising to get people saved....
but this was not the case.
He states “But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ”.
Paul was actually working on effective communication.

Effective communication is not just speaking or even speaking a lot, it is the ability to firstly understand another person’s point of view.....
so that you can then communicate the best way forward.

This is what Paul was doing. He came alongside a person, so he could see what they saw. In doing so he gained understanding into what they saw, which in turn meant he could effectively communicate the truth of the gospel.

He didn’t change or even stray from his message, he just delivered it in such a way that it would be most effective.

What can we learn from this? Effectively communication begins not with speaking but with understanding.
Once you understand what your audience sees...... your communication strategy can be built from there.
It may take a little longer to get to the point where you share your message, but it will give your message greater opportunity for success.

Understand more and communicate effectively.

Scott,.... Elevate Church, www.elevatechurch.com.au

Bless you and thank you Scott...
Yaddy

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