I’m currently reading the introduction to David A. deSilva’s
volume on Galatians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament
series (Eerdmans, 2018). In an excursus on rhetoric and letter-writing in
antiquity, he writes, “Speakers must have our trust and confidence if they are
to persuade us to do anything; conversely, doubts about credibility prove the
quickest and most effective means to undermining a particular speaker’s message”
(p. 68).
I have often noted in the past that if a teacher or preacher can’t get the raw facts (characters, locations, basic order of events) of a biblical story correct, then it becomes much more difficult for those hearing the message to accept the speaker’s interpretation and application of that text.