Skip to main content

Epic Courage

At my church right now we are doing a series called “An Epic Life”. This past Sunday(1/17/16) my pastor preached a sermon titled “Epic Courage” about having courage modeled after that which David has in the Bible. In this sermon my pastor began by talking about how he was going to talk about a story that everyone knew, no matter if they were a Christian or not. In this way he was already relating to the audience. He then captured the audience by telling a story about three young men stopping a terrorist on a train and preventing him from killing dozens.

He then went over the story of David & Goliath to talk about how little David rose up above all others and killed the giant with just a sling and a stone. His point here was that though we are small, God gives us his courage to go out and do things for him. That Jesus is our unshakable anchor and we are able to rely on him. I believe my pastor did a fantastic job of both making valid points and delivering his message.

His points were all logical; he demonstrated how the Bible story related to our everyday lives by giving different life examples and he backed all of his points up with Scripture. I believe his Rhetorical technique was very effective as he used Pathos, Ethos, and Logos. He was using scripture for his points, relating to the audience constantly to build a connection with them, and he made very clear syllogisms. He used some humor as well to engage the audience more. One final thing that was effective is his structure was very well laid out, he had an introduction, the main story, the message, and then gave applications for the message. It was a very well done presentation that I and many others benefited from.

Comments

  1. This sounds like a powerful sermon. It is always uplifting and helpful to hear the
    'David and Goliath' story every once in a while. I wish I was there to hear it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think it is good that the preacher used all the rhetoric techniques to get his point across. It is always good to use humor to engage your audience and make them want to listen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's great that he used Pathos, Logos, and Ethos in a proper way. It is always good to use the right amount of each so that you can get the proper point across.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Happiness

While at the movie theaters to see The Maze Runner , I saw a commercial that featured rhetoric. The commercial begins with a young woman named Jess purchasing two Coca Cola drinks in a convenience store. One has her own name on it, and one has the name of her friend Alisha on it. The cashier watches her forlornly as she leaves, hinting that he has a crush on his customer. Jess gives the Coke with Alisha’s name on it to her friend, and together the two friends drink them. Later, Jess, Alisha and two other friends come back into the store to buy more Coke, then leave and have a good time together. Jess keeps coming back to the store with more and more friends, each time purchasing Coca Cola with their names printed on the labels. The cashier smiles and watches, but it is clear that he wishes he was with Jess.  Finally, as the cashier is closing the store for the night, Jess shows up at the door with a Coke that has the name Chris on it. She smiles and hands the drink to the ...

Wiener Stampede

In this Heinz condiments commercial, aired during the Super Bowl this past year, a group of dachshunds are shown in hot dog costumes running towards humans in Heinz ketchup and mustard costumes who end up catching the dogs as they leap into the humans’ arms and lick their faces. This commercial is a specific appeal to pathos as the dogs are dressed up and are meant to be cute. The phrase at the end of the commercial is “it’s hard to resist great taste” and this is stated while the dogs are licking the humans implying that the dogs like Heinz and that humans should buy it as well because the cute dogs in costumes did.

You're Not You When You're Hungry

During a Super Bowl commercial in 2010, Snickers aired their commercial featuring Betty White, a 5-time Emmy nominee. She is portrayed as a football player playing with other middle aged grown men, but she is not herself. They are playing on a mud-covered field so they are all wet and dirty. They start playing and the ball is thrown to her, but she is tackled and thrown into a pile of mud. She gets up and walks back to the huddle all angry, covered in mud, and with a limp. One of the guys criticizes her for her poor performance and she chirps back with a sarcastic response. Then one of her friends brings over a snickers bar and says, “Eat a Snickers.” Immediately after this Betty White turns back into a middle aged man and is able to play football again. Snickers ends the commercial with, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” In my opinion this commercial uses Ethos. Betty White is a 5 time Emmy nominee and one of the all-time best female actresses. She is a lovable 95 year-old lad...