Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, Not too long ago, while preparing a sermon, I was reminded of linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin’s book How to Do Things With Words, where he expresses the conviction that you know the meaning of a word or sentence not by what it says (our usual assumption), but by why what it does, by what impact it has on you. For instance, imagine that I say, “The door is open.” Is that simply a statement of fact? Maybe. But what if you had just asked a question about why it was so warm inside even though the air-conditioning was on, and I said, “The door is open.” Then I’m not simply...