7 Tips to Help You Preach Persuasively

# Why persuasion matters

Jeremy Meeks frames persuasive preaching as a responsible way to honor Scripture. The goal is not public-speaking showmanship or coercion but to teach the Bible clearly, engage people where they are, and help move them toward following Jesus. Meeks summarizes persuasion as speaking the text in a comparably beautiful way so hearers can understand and respond.

# A concise guide: practical tips that help

1. Aim for clarity over cleverness

2. Get interested to stay interesting

Treat the text like something fresh. Meeks compares rote repetition to a paleontologist staring at a familiar skeleton. Instead, ask lots of questions: what surprised you, where does the story or argument go differently than expected, why are particular images or metaphors used? That curiosity shows up in the pulpit. If you genuinely engage the text, your interest will make the sermon more engaging.

3. Pull them into the box

Use the text to create a short-lived immersive world for the congregation. Meeks uses the metaphor of a diorama: a well-made presentation pulls the audience into the scene. Persuasive preaching invites listeners to inhabit the world of the original recipients for a time so they can see how those people acted and then consider the application to their own lives.

4. Talk with them often

5. Take objections seriously

# How to use these tips

• Make clarity the organizing principle of outline, illustrations, and applications. Remove material that obscures the main point.
• During exegesis, record questions the text raises and answer them in the sermon to model your curiosity for listeners.
• Design openings that plant listeners inside the text's situation and transitions that keep them there until application.
• Use eye contact, rhetorical questions, and small interactive moments to maintain a conversational tone.
• Identify likely objections in advance and fold their answers into the sermon rather than saving them for the end.

# Bottom line

Meeks invites preachers to pursue persuasive preaching as a disciplined craft rooted in solid exegesis and characterized by clarity, curiosity, contextual imagination, conversational delivery, and honest engagement with objections. These practices help the congregation understand the Bible and consider its claims seriously.