Audience Awareness: Stephen vs. Paul

A recent lecture in my 'Biblical Backgrounds of English Literature' class brought up an interesting topic in the form of two speeches given, both in the book of Acts, one by Stephen (who ended up being stoned to death for it) and one by the apostle Paul (here - verses 22-34). Please stop here and read those now, 'cause if you do, what I'm about to say will make a lot more sense.

In essence, both their speeches are very much alike. Both are cutting to the quick with their audiences and telling them what they needed to hear. But that's where the 'alike-ness' ends.

   Stephen's speech is rather little long-winded, but he knew what held the attention of his listeners and boy howdy, did they listen. Like I said before, he got killed for what he said. But before that happened, he held the captive the attentions of his audience - the Jews - as he gave them a rundown of their long and storied history, drawing on knowledge they had probably had since childhood, and used that assumed knowledge to drive home his point.

   Paul, on the other hand, is addressing a crowd of people who couldn't be more different from the pious Jewish elders: Gentiles, Greeks more specifically. He couldn't assume any prior knowledge of his chosen topic - salvation through Christ - with a bunch of people who had never heard of the guy. However, he took the fact that they had an altar dedicated 'to the unknown god' and used that fact as a jumping off point for introducing them to the unknown god they were so curious about.

Neither of these men were specially trained to say what they did, but both had a passion for their topic and an acute awareness of the audience they were addressing. And that's what got people to listen. What you say to whom really does matter.