Julf Rhetoric

769 Words2 Pages

Using Rhetoric in Defending the Christian Faith”
Rhetoric has been used as one of the top argumentation strategies for hundreds of years. There are three rhetorical appeals that can be easily identified in most argumentation, these appeals are called Ethos, Pathos, and Logos (“The Argument’s Best Friend”). Ethos is the use of one’s own credibility for persuasion, “I will make America great again” is an excellent example of this specific appeal. The second rhetorical appeal is Pathos. Pathos is the use of one’s emotions to win an argument, such as “People are starving and you are wasting your food!” Logos is defined as the use of logic or reason to persuade someone or to win an argument. For example, “All men are mortal, Socrates is man, therefore …show more content…

God calls Christians to share his word with all the inhabitants of earth throughout the Bible, the verse listed above is just one of many verses found in which God calls all Christians to share his word or “witness” to nonbelievers. Witnessing is mentioned again in the Bible “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15, New King James Translation). When sharing the gospel with those who are not receptive to the idea of God, Rhetoric can be an immensely useful tool in changing hearts. Billy Graham, one of the most well-known evangelists in the world, uses rhetoric in his book “The Reason for My Hope: Salvation”. In Graham’s book, Chapter one is started off with testimonies of surviving plane crashes, floating at sea for forty-seven days, and medical miracles, all of which were near death experiences to say the least (Graham, 2013, pg. 1-4). The way that Graham started off chapter one of his book exhibits a use of pathos, all the stories referred to were meant to appeal to the emotions of the reader in question. Graham used the heart-changing story of Louis Zamperini’s life as part of

Open Document