The Truth we communicate is a Person, not a system of th...

The Truth we communicate is a Person, not a system of thought. … While we know this very well, it is often our practice to speak as if we were engaged primarily in an intellectual combat. We waste a lot of gunpowder shooting down people’s ideas, but spend very little time in understanding why they have come to such ideas. It is possible to answer a question brilliantly without having truly interacted with a person’s need. A whole universe lies behind a person; a whole story behind a question. … People are rarely persuaded by the abstract symmetry of ideas. Contry to current propaganda about the power of ideas, the mass of men live by things they feel and see.

—Melba P. Maggay The Gospel in Filipino Context (Manila: OMF Literature, 1987), 21-22. Quoted by Tom Steffen, Reconnecting God’s Story to Ministry: Cross-cultural Storytelling at Home and Abroad (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, 2005), Ch. 5.