On Saturday August 28 2022, Miss Lois Mensah of Chemu Senior High School won the overall best orator at the second edition of the National Public Speaking Competition (NPSC). 28 selected good speakers were selected from 14 public and private high schools including Achimota School, Presbyterian Boys School, Mfantsiman Girls School, Legacy Girls School and Chemu School. They competed in three areas including prepared and impromptu speeches on contemporary local and international subjects.
The point of this piece is to dichotomize speech from mere oration, as it were, and urge us to make good meaning of what we say. We must speak, and not just be smooth professional talkers.
Of all God’s creation, man is the only that can speak. We have voice, with which to express intentions and can give out words to communicate motive and desires. The ability to speak is a divine gift that endorses our likeness to our source of life. It is a privilege we must be always grateful for.
When a man speaks, you expect reason, logic, sense, and feeling. When speech is devoid or germ, sanity is threatened. This is the power of oration: verbal communication so lucidly delivered as to carry an audience along, until they at least, find pleasure in listening, if they don’t find reason for immediate action.
In the Bible, the twelfth chapter of Acts, we find instructive references to oration that would engage reflective minds: the Herod who murders the Apostle James and looked forward to killing Peter after Easter. It is recorded, this king so spoke to his beneficiaries of Tyre and Sidon in an oration that made them hail him as the voice of a god and not a man. His end was an immediate consumption by worms, that betrayed is fallacious humanity. The lesson is that oration can come with a flamboyance that tempts the orator to assume a divine rather human capacity. The other orator we find in the New Testament is Tertullus, who was hired by the Jews to overpower with words, the convicting power of Apostle Paul’s submission before the joint council of Pharisees and Sadducees; in Acts chapter 24. He too failed.
Here is the point: mere oratory prowess has no virtue unless the heart of the orator is captured by a sincere love for truth and humbled by the worthlessness of human ability without God. Unless the smooth talker is regenerated by the grace of God, his oratory power has no value. Call it what you may: religion, sentiment, superstition; the evidence of our debauched generation, under the bondage of pseudo liberties, enforces our stiff necks.
Two other public speakers mentioned in the Bible, Moses and Jesus, show as more excellent ways today’s gifted orators should pursue to save their souls from this two-edged natural talent. The gift of oratory has often been misused to the peril of followers.
Many could be orators with cunning hearts and subtle lips who deceive the masses to have access to resources for their selfish gains. This has virtually destroyed the trust people have in what others tell them. Because oration is much about talk and less about speech, we may have the luxury to permit orators to tell us things they really don’t care about in real life. This is not the case for public speakers. Good public speakers would be orators but much more do they do beyond their words; they walk the talk.
Moses, God’s word tells us, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds (Acts 7:22). His actions were as effective as his words. He spoke powerful and acted powerfully. He was not a smooth but vain talker. We have to groom our young orators to be speakers rather than talkers. We should help them connect their words to their action. We should not allow them to fall into the trap of thinking that ability to talk is independent of the capacity to do; no it is not.
PR professionals are paid because they talk about what their companies actually do or will actually do and not what they wish but will never get to do. When public speakers speak well about what they have actually done or will surely do, their words are not merely passionate, they convict; they don’t just impress our feelings, they inspire our souls. They don’t just excite our hearings senses, they prick our conscience. They don’t just trigger our intellect, they commit our wills. True public speakers would be the best catalyst to transform society. That’s why Jesus, the Christ, transforms humanity.
He was an encouraging voice to the repentant sinner, tough metric to the religious hypocrite and dependable Lord to the obedient follower. The record in John 7:46 states; “The officers answered, never man spake like this man’ That was the back to office report when the Pharisees sent officers to go get him. Jesus spoke with conviction, not mere passion. His words had evidence of action that constitutes proof beyond reasonable doubt. This is why till today His words prick our conscience and convict our hearts to repent. So for every public speaker, the Master speaker, Jesus, should be the standard.
By Emmanuel Kwame Mensah