Using Repetition to Make a Point

In the second century before Christ the great rival to Roman power in the Mediterranean world was Carthage, the Phoenician city-state located on the north African coast. It had been founded in 822 B.C. and had become so powerful that for years it threatened the supremacy of Rome. 

What was to be done about Carthage? One Roman senator, Marcus Porcius Cato the elder, thought he knew—Carthage should be overthrown. From the time he arrived at that conclusion, it is said that he never made a speech before the Roman Senate on any topic that did not end with the warning: Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”). 

At last the warnings got through, and as the outcome of the third Punic War, Carthage was annihilated. Cato’s technique in dealing with the threat of Carthage is not the only time in history a point has been won by repetition. We think of Hitler repeating his lies against the Jews until seemingly the whole of Germany believed them; or, in quite a different way, of Winston Churchill telling the boys at the public school where he had been educated, “Never give up! Never give up! Never, never, never give up!” The Lord Jesus Christ used repetition, too, and nowhere is it more evident than in the parables of the kingdom recorded in Matthew 13.