“Choose & Use”*

Again — watch how Tony Evans sets up the parts at the beginning of his illustration WHICH he is going to call up in the second part.

 

FOOTBALL BOUNDARIES:

In football, there are sidelines and goal lines.

Those are sovereign boundaries;

they do not move.

You can’t negotiate them, and

you can’t make them wider or narrower.

They are fixed standards by which the game of football is played and

they’re non-negotiable.

If you step on the side lines, you’re out of bounds.

But within the boundaries, you are free to call your own play. You can call a bad play and lose yardage. You can call a good play and make yardage.

You are free to call the play, but the play has to be within the lines.

In other words, the sovereign boundaries of football restrict how free you are without denying your ability to be free.

— Tony Evans, The Detours of Providence

 

All that time spent on restating and repeating is what sets up the simple (yet complex  — sovereignty & freedom), next two sentences which follow!

 

God is sovereign. He has created boundaries, but He’s also created freedom. That freedom allows you to make a good play or a bad play—to be right or wrong. Just don’t cross the boundaries.

— Tony Evans , The Detours of Providence

 

Evans is providing this illustration in a shortened form for the purpose of publication.

There is more that could be said by a preacher-teacher-speaker who uses the imagery which has been created.  You can run with the established and designed initial imagery beyond the two sentences of application which are provided in his publication.

The rhetorical technique that we have highlighted over the several examples we have provided is what is important.  Evan’s ability to purposefully set up the elements and the wording in the beginning, is what makes it simple to then pull them down to the part which is the spiritual application.

In his mind, Tony Evans is thinking ahead.  From the beginning, he is setting up the elements and wording to match where he knows he wants to be!

Evans takes more time in the beginning to build the imagery that he knows he is going to play with and apply at the end.

 

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*Refer back to the rhetorical technique called “Choose and Use” to read about this technique, of which Dr. Tony Evans is a master at using!