Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.  Proverbs 25:11

On November 2, 1863, several months after the battle of Gettysburg, David Wills, a local judge and prominent Pennsylvania citizen, invited Abraham Lincoln to make a “few appropriate remarks” at the consecration of a cemetery for the Union war dead.  Edward Everett, then the young nation’s foremost northern orator, had been invited to speak on September 23, but Everett needed more time for preparation so fate put both of the men on the same program on November 19, 1863.

Edward Everett spoke first.  He droned on and on for more than two hours.  Then the tall and lanky, backwoods American president spoke.  He began, “Four score and seven year ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”   He spoke only 266 words, about three minutes in length, yet the world has long since forgotten Edward, but Lincoln’s words will live as long as does civilization.  Why?  They went to the heart of what people felt–a deep, personal loss.  They were brief and concise.  They spoke to the need of the hour.

Everett’s remarks made front-page news while Lincoln’s were on the inside pages of newspapers that didn’t have a clue to what was really important.  But Edward Everett knew!  He sent Lincoln a note the day after the dedication, writing, “I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”

A statue of Everett stands on the Boston Common, and as pigeons roost there, children ask, “Who was he?” and parents are uncertain.  But all over the world Abraham Lincoln is revered as an unlikely candidate for success who changed history–a great hero who dared to take the narrow road.

Dallas Williams, speaking to a National Religious Broadcaster’s conference, asked the question, “One picture worth a thousand words?” and answered it saying, “You give me 1,000 words and I can have the Lord’s Prayer, the twenty-third Psalm, the Hippocratic oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and I’d have enough left over for just about all the Boy Scout oath – and I wouldn’t trade you for any picture on earth.”

If you are average, you will have some thirty conversations every day.  Learning to express yourself clearly will help move you up the ladder of success, make you a more loving, caring husband or wife, and more effective in sharing your faith, so what lessons are there for us when it comes to concise and clear communication?

First–think before you speak.  Put your brain in operation before you put your mouth in gear.  Once you have said it, you can clarify it, you can retract it, but you can’t erase the initial impression of the one who may respond, “Yes, but that’s what you said.”

Then–strive to express clearly the message that you intend to deliver.  Blunt words create blunt responses.  Tender words, tender responses.  You can be absolutely honest and factual without being unkind or abusive.  Instead of exaggerating or stretching the truth, Paul said that we should speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

Finally–once you have said something, mentally ask, “Is this what I really intended to say?”  If not, clarify what you intended to say but didn’t get across.  But remember that Mark Twain once commented that the longer the sermon, the fewer become converted – and he may well have a point.  Often the more we say, the deeper we dig the hole that we find ourselves in.  Well does Proverbs say, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).  It is as true as it was 3,000 years ago when Solomon and his men complied the Proverbs.

Resource reading:  Matthew 4:11-16