Perfect Illustration

The 5 C’s of the perfect illustration

1. Concreteness. You need to be concrete with your words. An abstract illustration is a contradiction in terms, yet dreadfully common. Use nouns that your congregation can picture. Don’t say, “big smile,” say “teethy grin.” Don’t just say “house.” What kind of house is it? A cottage, a Victorian, a Cape Cod, a tri-level?

2. Connotation. Getting a picture in their minds is not the goal, it’s a means to another goal: emotion. Start with the head in order to work toward the heart. Which sentence has more powerful connotation: “The little girl prayed reverently,” or, “The little girl softly folded her hands and bowed her head.” Which description makes you feel something?

3. Conflict. If a story is to be a story, it must have a problem. Your vivid descriptions and sentimental movements will float aimlessly without the gravity of a conflict that demands to be resolved. The more closely the conflict of your story corresponds to the issue in the passage you are illustrating, the more effective your illustration will be.

4. Conclusion. This will state how the problem of story was solved. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can never use tragedies for illustrations. The idea is to communicate the redemptive aspect of your story, which even tragedies have.

5. Connection. Here you unambiguously say how the illustration relates to your sermon. Surprisingly, too many preachers forget this part. How many times have you heard an illustration that pertained not a lick to the passage or the sermon? (I won’t ask how many times you’ve told such an illustration!)

An illustration that doesn’t relate to your lesson– no matter how funny or entertaining or interesting – is a waste of the precious minutes.

Bible Memory

Our journey began at Genesis through Exodus. On the way, we saw Leviticus recording the Numbers of people at Deuteronomy, while Joshua was waiting at the beautiful gate for Judges to see Ruth calling loudly "Samuel, Samuel". At a stage, the first and second Kings of Chronicles were coming to visit Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther for the misfortune of Job, their brother. Then they noticed that Mr. Psalms was teaching his children Proverbs concerning Ecclesiastes and Songs of Solomon. This coincided with the period that Isaiah and Jeremiah were engaged in Lamentation for Ezekiel and Daniel their friend. By that time, Amos and Obadiah were not around. Three days later, Hosea, Joel and Jonah travelled in the same ship with Micah and Nahum to Jerusalem . More also, Habakkuk visited Zephaniah who introduced him to Haggai a friend of Zechariah whose cousin is Malachi. Immediately after the old tradition, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John got involved in Acts with the Romans who were behaving like the Corinthians, who were also always at loggerhead with the Galatians. At that time too, the Ephesians realising that the Philippians were close to the Colossians, suggested to the Thessalonians that they should first of all see Timothy who had gone to the house of Titus to teach Philemon his younger brother how to read and write Hebrew. On hearing, James asked Peter to explain to him how the three Johns have disclosed to Jude the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.