Persuasion Strategies

[NeoPatriarch]

Jealousy seems like a poor foundation for influence

Okay.

I suppose that would depend on the usage of the word you employ. Paul didn't mean, petty jealousy, but rather one that would drive the Jews to repentance.

This is very much the way God talks about Israel in the old Testament.

Isaiah 49:6
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

 

[rockfox]

Ya, one need only look at history to see how well that tactic worked. Sounds like a desperation ploy to me.

 

[NeoPatriarch]

Ya, one need only look at history to see how well that tactic worked. Sounds like a desperation ploy to me.

I'm sure it worked as planned, considering the planner. God has always used a remnant.

The flood, only eight are saved.
Abraham, only a people are given a promise.
Isaiah only 1000 don't bow the knee to Baal
New Testament only some follow Christ.

While, I might like a surefire persuasion method, perhaps that's just not the plan.

But then there's Peter that converts thousands...so there is still hope.

 

[Patricia C]

A lot of time is spent online arguing for, explaining, or defending one position or another.

It seems to me persuasion face to face, is fundamentally different than online.

Face to face, I tend to take a guided questioning approach, in an effort to use points upon which we already agree to make the point. A la the Socratic method.

Online, this method doesn't work so well. Mostly, because it's easily overcome by a shotgun response that now has to be unwound.

So what strategies, if any, do you use online and in person?

My approach isn't often.... I tend to keep my beliefs to myself where Pologny is concerned when I do I usually pose questions and share scriptures and then leave it alone and let individuals marinate in facts. Then let Yahweh take over. Once the seed is planted it is no longer my job to convence anyone that it is right just pop holes in their belief system and get them to question...
Only the really important people (well most of them) in my life know what I believe and why.

 

[NeoPatriarch]

My approach isn't often.... I tend to keep my beliefs to myself where Pologny is concerned when I do I usually pose questions and share scriptures and then leave it alone and let individuals marinate in facts. Then let Yahweh take over. Once the seed is planted it is no longer my job to convence anyone that it is right just pop holes in their belief system and get them to question...
Only the really important people (well most of them) in my life know what I believe and why.

Thank you Patricia. This was exactly the type of response I had hoped to foster.

I use a similar approach in person. I ask leading questions until I see the aha moment. This lets me know the seed is planted. Then I politely excuse myself, to let them ponder. Occasionally, that works great. If instead, I just try to grind through that usually feels like a fail.

Online, not so much. My questions get ignored and the discussion seems to grind out. Perhaps, online and public discussions are more about the audience than the participants. If so, then it's just a matter of how you represented the position. I try to be well reasoned and graceful.

Thanks again Patricia.

 

[DeathIsNotTheEnd]

It definitely, in person, depends on feeling out the person.

But I have also found that the Holy Spirit works in ways I never would expect.

I have had those I trusted the most, who I thought were some of the most open-minded people I know, reject it and me.
I have had those I barely knew or whom I thought fixed in their feminist or marxist ideologies suddenly turn on a dime and realize the truth.

So who knows? I go in to every conversation with little expectation, but trying to keep the feelers out in case a verbal door opens. Usually I can tell within the first few questions whether we will get anywhere. For instance, my father and I are on the same page but he has not shared this with my mother. My mother was visiting at Christmas and she made a comment offhand about how some guy she knew had fallen in love with a woman besides his wife and wanted to keep her as a mistress, which she bemoaned as the 'end of Christianity'. I asked her what she thought about the Patriarchs and their multiple wives, very gently, and she started ranting about how a real Christian man only gets one woman. Her tone, approach, and the overall timing told me she wasn't ready to talk more, so I dropped in. In contrast, I have a close friend who over the years has become quite the liberal, supporting gay marriage and proudly proclaiming to be more of a feminist than his wife (who berates him frequently). One day out of left field he asked me to tell him my views on male leadership. In the end he totally switched his argument and was supporting me. So I dunno.

 

[FollowingHim]

I think on such matters people will understand if the Holy Spirit leads them, and will not if He is not involved. We are there to participate in the conversation, but ultimately it's not about our persuasion technique or eloquence, but whether He is moving or not. So the results can be the opposite of what we anticipated in our human logic.

 

[Mojo]

I think on such matters people will understand if the Holy Spirit leads them, and will not if He is not involved. We are there to participate in the conversation, but ultimately it's not about our persuasion technique or eloquence, but whether He is moving or not. So the results can be the opposite of what we anticipated in our human logic.

Same to be said of salvation, conversion...whatever you prefer to call it.