Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / How to Write a Good Sentence

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How to Write a Good Sentence · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Every once in a while we talk about writing on the podcast. Several emails
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  over the years have asked if you would coach aspiring writers pastor John, and
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  obviously many Christian writers gravitate to you as a master of the craft, and
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  that's why over the years, APJA episodes have covered the calling to write,
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  how to write poems and write biographies, even down into the details of grammar
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  and punctuation, on the no nose of ghostwriting, and then most popular of
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  all, on productivity, on how it is you create so many books and
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  sermons and articles and APJA episodes and all that with advice for how all Christian
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  creators can maximize their own output. All those topics have been well covered in
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  the past, as you can see in my summary in the new APJ book
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  on pages four eleven to four sixteen. But we've never gotten down into the
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  weeds of how to write a sentence, Sentences change lives. You've said that
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  before on the podcast, But from your perspective, what makes a great edifying
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  sentence? How do you write and rewrite a sentence like this? Now?
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  What would be your five or so pieces of advice for crafting edifying prose beyond
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  all that we've already covered on the podcast, something relevant for book authors and
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  for Christians who just want to send maybe an edifying text message to a friend.
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  What would you say? I start with the conviction that our words,
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  whether spoken or written, really matter. Death and life are in the power
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  of the tongue Proverbs eighteen twenty one. That's powerful. The mouth of the
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  righteous is a fountain of life. How many times have I prayed, Oh
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  God, for my children, for my wife, for my church, for
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  my books, for my podcast. Make my mouth a fountain of life Proverbs
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  ten eleven. Or as James says, the tongue is a fire that can
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  and set a whole forest ablaze with destructive power. So I start there.
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  This is serious. I take all my speech seriously, all my writing seriously,
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  and I thank God that he has spoken. He has used human language
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  to communicate himself and to communicate how to communicate. So when I ask what's
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  a good sentence? I mean, what does God have to say about a
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  sentence? And is it good in view of His word? So here I
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  think I have eight marks of a good sentence. Number one, A good
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  sentence is true, It communicates what accords with reality, that is, it
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  helps people know what is and what ought to be. This is because God
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  himself never lies ty just one. Two. He's a God of truth Isaiah
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  sixty five sixteen. He has given us the spirit of truth. Christians are
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  people of truth. We speak and write true sentences. Number two. A
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  good sentence is clear. It does not indulge in deception or vagueness. It
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  does not settle for undefined ambiguities that encourage people like so many public figures encourage
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  people, not encourage people to believe contrary things while they affirm your sentence.
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  So one person reads it says, oh, it means this, and the
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  other says it means this, and both of them have a good foothold because
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  you've set it up that way. That's not a Christian way to write.
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  Clarity stands in the service of truth. It seeks to help people get the
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  clearest idea of what you believe and are trying to communicate. Paul says in
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  Firse Corinthians four to two. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with
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  God's word, but by an open statement of the truth, we commend ourselves
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  to everyone's conscience. In the sight of God. That is a beautiful goal
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  for every Christian writer and speaker. And just a little qualification here, there
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  is a place for intentional ambiguity at times. For example, a four year
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  old who asks about some sexual scene in the Bible will mean that a wise
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  parent finds an appropriate circumlocution appropriate to the age, not for the sake of
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  deception, but for the sake of helpfulness. And there are certain kind of
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  poetic efforts if you're writing poems or just want to be a poetic in your
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  speech, there are certain kind of poetic efforts and moments in communication where truth
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  can actually be served by coming out of reality in a slanted way rather than
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  a direct way, which is not intended to create confusion but illuminate reality.
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  That a whole nother thing we could talk about is the appropriate place of slant
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  or planned double entendres or ambiguities. We want to help people toward right thinking
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  and right feeling, and it might be that that kind of speech now and
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  then will do that. Number Three, A good sentence is authentic. The
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  difference between a true sentence and an authentic sentence is that a true sentence says
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  what accords with the facts, and an authentic sentence says what accords with your
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  heart, and of course one sentence can do both should do both. We
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  are inauthentic to give the impression with our sentences that we are something we aren't.
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  It's dishonest, it's insincere. And the Bible says that Christians are people
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  of sincerity. Second Corinthians two seventy number four. A good sentence should be
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  thoughtful. The opposite of thoughtful, as I'm using it, is glib,
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  superficial, frivolous, trifling. Many people treat their language as nothing but clever,
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  lighthearted banter fills up sound space. The Bible refers to such people as
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  quote empty talkers Titus one ten. And I don't mean there's no place for
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  humor when I say thoughtful. Life is often humorous. Inevitably humors. You
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  cannot walk through days and not see something that is laughable, both positively and
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  negatively. And those situations can be served well with well placed, thoughtful sentences
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  that might cause a person to buckle over with belly laughter. But what I'm
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  pleading for is that the bread and butter of our communication have substance in it.
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  People benefit from hearing what we say. There's some measure of thinking behind
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  our sentences. That's the goal. Number five. A good sentence is creative.
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  I don't mean that everybody becomes a poet. I mean that we aspire,
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  over lifetime to grow in our ability to select words and arrange words in
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  fresh and striking ways that have the greatest impact for good on others. When
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  Jesus referred to himself as a thief in the night, are you kidding me?
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  Who would dare? Who would dare to do such a thing? That
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  was risky, striking, creative, utterly memorable. Mark Twain said, the
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  difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the
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  lightning bug and the lightning. That's a good sentence right in it Not only
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  is a good sentence, it captures the power of the right word at the
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  right time. Part of being creative is using cadences that sound pleasing. And
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  I'm shifting gears from choosing the words to choosing the rhythm and the cadence.
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  I once told an audience at our conference here that the title of our conference
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  was with Calvin in the Theater of God. It was not with John Calvin
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  in the Theater of God because the word John ruins the I am pentameter cadence
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  with Calvin in the the of God. You can't stick John in there.
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  It wrecks the sound, and a lot of people think, what in the
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  world. No, no, no, pastors talkers. You should give thought
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  to whether your sentences have cadences rhythms that are pleased to the ear, so
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  there are ten syllables five beats in that sentence or that title, and just
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  wrecks it to put John in there. It doesn't work. When you get
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  a feel for cadences and what sounds pleasing, you don't even have to think
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  about it anymore. Over time, if you school yourself in trying to be
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  thoughtful in your rhythms and cadences so that they sound pleasing, then it'll become
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  natural. Part of being creative again is concreteness. Generalizations and abstractions are boring.
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  They're not as effective as particularities and specifics and concreteness. For example,
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  say peach, say Georgia peach rather than fruit. Say dog rather than animal,
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  dusty rather than dog. Say rain rather than weather, say neptune rather
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  than planet. Say basketball rather than sports, say bacon, rather than breakfast.
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  Say brown woolen pull over sweater rather than clothing. Say rusty socket wrench
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  on the oily bench rather than tool over there in the corner, say John
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  and David rather than friends. Abstractions and generalizations tend to be boring. Concrete
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  language tends to be arresting. When Paul says in Colossians four to six,
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  let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, I take him to
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  mean, at least partly that our speech should not be bland and tasteless.
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  Number six. A good sentence is well timed. Proverbs twenty five twenty.
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  Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a coat
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  on a cold day. And like vinegar on soda. That's another good sentence.
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  Like it just full chock concrete language, Take off a coat on a
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  cold day, put vinegar on soda, it goes, makes a little smoke.
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  And even more specifically, Proverbs fifteen twenty three says, to make an
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  apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season.
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  How good it is, so timing really matters. Number seven. A good
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  sentence is clean. The apostle Paul said, let there be no filthiness or
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  foolish talk or crude joking, which are out of place for the Christian.
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  But let there be thanksgiving, thankful hearts. Don't speak or write dirty sentences.
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  Our sentences do not have to be sinful in order to take sin seriously.
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  There are powerful and creative ways to speak of the corruption and wickedness of
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  the world without participating in it. Finally, number eight, and I would
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  add, I guess this over it casts a net over all seven of the
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  others. The aim of the good sentence is to love people and glorify God.
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  Yes, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all
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  to the glory of God. And I think that would mean whether you eat
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  or drink or write sentences, do all to the glory of God. And
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  in addition to that, Paul says, let everything be done in love.
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  We want people to be helped, We want to help people toward their eternal
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  happiness, and we want to make God look great. That's what good sentences
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  are for. That's really good. And it seems like you're poetry training too,
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  has really trained your ear for the cadence and prose? Is that true?
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  I think it is? Yes, Yeah, And I think it's good
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  that everybody just have a little bit of exposure to that kind of language where
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  the author a poet has given serious thought to the cadences, and a lot
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  of modern poetry doesn't work at that. Yeah. Right, So you've got
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  to go back a few centuries to see how it's done, because those guys
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  from three hundred years ago, they didn't do that because it was boring.
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  Alexander Pope wrote the way he wrote in Iambic tech Trameter and these couplets page
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  after page, like hundreds of lines, because it was being eaten up that
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  people read it. People don't read poetry today, but they did in those
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  days. So yeah, totally. I think that the lost art that helps
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  us with pros. Yeah, I think so. Thank you pastor John again
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  for a summary of APJA episodes on the Calling to write, how to write
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  poems, biographies down to and into the details of grammar and punctuation, on
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  the no nose of ghost writing in them, and most popular of all,
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  on productivity. All those episodes I summarized in the new APGA book on pages
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  four eleven to four sixteen. Well, our Bible reading plugs away in the
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  Navigator's Bible reading Plan. If you're reading along with us, and next time,
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  we need to address an awkward reality in parenting, sobering reality and parenting
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  that comes up in the first four chapters of for Samuel and our reading to
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  come. It's in our reading, and it's up next time. On the
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  podcast, I'm your host, Tony Ranky. We'll see on Monday.