Quotes about Illustration

The Gospel is a fact; therefore tell it simply. The Gospel is a joyful fact; therefore tell it cheerfully. The Gospel is an entrusted fact; therefore tell it faithfully. The Gospel is a fact of infinite moment; therefore tell it earnestly. The Gospel is a fact of infinite love; therefore tell it feelingly. The Gospel is a fact of difficult comprehension to many; therefore tell it with illustration. The Gospel is a fact about a Person; therefore preach Christ. —ARCHIBALD BROWN

Simple Bible statements, apt illustrations, and pertinent anecdotes, were the more common weapons that he used. The consequence was that his hearers always understood him. He never shot above their heads. Here again is one grand element of a preacher's success. He must labour by all means to be understood. It was a wise saying of Archbishop Usher, "To make easy things seem hard is every man's work; but to make hard things easy is the work of a great preacher.

The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it

But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon - Verily there is nothing new under the sun.

All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so.

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—even a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.

Both of these men had the sentence of death in themselves, and both prayed earnestly unto the Lord for a reprieve: the one wrote: "The Lord would not hear me," and died; but to the other it was said, "I have heard thy prayer", and his life was spared. What an illustration and exemplification of the truth expressed in Romans 9:15!—"For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Both of these men had the sentence of death in themselves, and both prayed earnestly unto the Lord for a reprieve: the one wrote: "The Lord would not hear me," and died; but to the other it was said, "I have heard thy prayer", and his life was spared. What an illustration and exemplification of the truth expressed in Romans 9:15!—"For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Luther used this as an illustration of how even when God reached out to us in love and grace, we are often so suffused with the idea of him as a stern judge bent on punishing us that we tragically shrink from his loving grasp, thus to our own sad detriment denying ourselves the very thing for which we long.

When I teach the formal curriculum, I have the chance to think about it ahead of time. I can rehearse it. I can illustrate it with self-deprecating humor and humble-sounding personal disclosure. I can try to make it comes out just right.

The transfiguration was a physical illustration of what the renewed mind looks like in the spiritual.

A good example is far better than a good precept.