UPDATED PEOPLE SKILLS 101 (SORRY)

Everyone (especially preachers and parents) ought to read Dale Carnegie’s book "How to Win Friends and Influence people." It needs to be priority reading for every Christian.

Although there’s no specific acknowledgment of it in the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence people," is based on, and constitutes a restatement of biblical principles. Read it as soon as you can with a pencil in hand. Scripture references will come to mind that you may and should want to jot down in the book's margins as you read. In the meantime, ask yourself these three questions:

First, ask: "How do I talk to and about people." Parents and grandparent used to admonish children, “If you can’t say something nice about a person, don’t say anything at all.” This is still good advice." Even better: "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt" and "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (Col. 4:6; Eph, 4:29).

Secondly, ask: "How do I think about people?" Do you think good and not evil about people when they come to mind? People, in time, “pick up” on how we really must think and feel about them. Some of the most powerful and practically helpful cousel concerning this is in Phil 4:8: ""Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,, whatso things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsover things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Thirdly, ask: "How do I treat people?" In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has given us priceless counsel on how to treat others: He said: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12).