The other day I gave you a glimpse of what I’m trying to do: Providing spiritual, relational, behavioral, emotional, and intellectual tools people can use to help themselves and others become more like Jesus.

A friend suggested that I need to add a why. Why would people want to become more like Jesus?

Not a persuasive why, trying to talk people into becoming more like Jesus. Although I understand persuasion pretty well, having a couple of degrees in that area, I’m uncomfortable with selling,  particularly when It comes to Jesus. I’m more of an explainer than a debater.

In one letter, Paul writes, “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

He had gone to Corinth. a city that valued great discourse skills, that knew how to build arguments following the writings on rhetoric by people like Aristotle, Quintilian, Cicero and Plato. And Paul chose to not use those styles. Instead, he explains to his audience in Corinth, he bore witness to his own experience with God and used the plainer styles of discourse he’d learned as a student in rabbinical school.

Intriguingly, when Paul visits Athens, the heart of Greek reasoning, his speech is compelling to me as an example of adapting to an audience, but for people who loved fine speech, it falls flat.

So Paul often writes as a teacher, an explainer, a describer. He says, “Here’s what all that means.” And Paul was very interested in calling people to grow like more Jesus.

Perhaps that is my why. Because some people are nudged to be more like Jesus and don’t know what to do tomorrow, I provide tools.