What Is a Parable?
Let me offer a few thoughts on illustrations. Illustration is an art with three purposes. First, its purpose is to find the listener, and second, to help the listener find the speaker. It is like a bridge. Third, an illustration establishes contact between the listener and the text, so that a participation and a communication occurs in a new way between the listener and the text.
This means that an illustration often transforms the idea content present in a text with a concrete form that is then perceived at a different level than before. Where does the preacher find the right illustration to make use of as a window upon a text or as a bridge between the listener and the speaker?
Palmer suggests there are four basic places to look for illustrations: within the biblical text itself, in life experiences of oneself and friends, within the vast resource of literature, and in the image-building creativity of the preacher’s own imagination.
He says: “An illustration needs the same attention to accuracy that the text deserves, because each illustration from life is close to some listener’s area of familiarity.”
He Doesn’t Cost Me a Dollar
The trouble is, you are always asking for money. You are probably right. But let me tell you a personal story. I had a little boy—my firstborn. He was a delight to our hearts, but he was always costing me something. He needed clothing, shoes, food, and had special needs that I gladly provided, for he was my son. Then one day he died. It was an experience that I hope you will never have. He does not cost me a dollar now.
Every need is an unfailing sign of life and growth. Body, mind, and soul have their needs and they must be met continually. A ministry that is constantly in need of funds is alive and growing and going somewhere. A dead ministry has no need, and will not bother you. –President Pearson, Miami Christian College
Even the Worst of Sermons
An English vicar was most unhappy to learn, after preaching a powerful sermon against betting, that one of his own wardens was a heavy gambler. Immediately, the vicar hurried over to explain that he had not meant for the sermon to come across as a personal attack on him. The warden said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s a pretty poor sermon that doesn’t hit me somewhere.”
In Case of Swelling Head
The young preacher had just announced to his congregation that he was requesting the dissolution of the pastoral relationship in order to accept another call. He was standing at the door after the service and greeting people, as preachers are wont to do, when one of the elderly saints approached him, her eyes swimming with tears. She sobbed, “Oh, pastor, I’m so sorry you’ve decided to leave. Things will never be the same again.” The young man was flattered, but was equal to the situation and took her hands in his and most benevolently replied, “Bless you, dear lady, but I’m sure that God will send you a new pastor even better than I.” She choked back a sob and was heard to say, “That’s what they all say, but they keep getting worse and worse.”
No Urgency
Sign on the desk of church administrator: “Lack of planning on your part does not justify an emergency on my part.”
A Verse for All Occasions
A young pastor had rung the doorbell at the home of one of his parishioners and was waiting to be received but no one came to the door. He sensed that someone was at home, but repeated ringing of the bell brought no response. As a final departing act, he wrote Revelation 3:20 on the back of one of his calling cards and stuck it under the door: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.”
Two days later the pastor received his calling card back in an envelope with a brief note attached that simply contained the text from Genesis 3:10: “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and his myself.”
Designated Giving
The congregation was taking up a special collection to add to the salaries of pastors who received very inadequate salaries because they worked in very small churches that simply couldn’t pay more. On the face of one check was written, “For some inadequate pastor.” Pastor, does your paycheck seem to send you this kind of message? Or are you being paid with the coin of another realm?
Rank in the Clergy
In case you don’t think rank still exists about various members of the clergy—consider this true story that came from the mother-in-law of a former staff member of the large Lexington Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts.
It was summer and the pastor was on vacation. On this particular day the associate pastor also happened to be away. The Christian education director was the only pastor on duty. A phone call came into the office from a nonmember asking to speak to the pastor. The secretary informed the lady that the pastor was not available. She then asked for the associate pastor. The secretary explained that he wasn’t there either, and trying to be helpful, she asked, “Would the director of Christian education do?” The caller paused very briefly and replied, “No, I don’t want to go that low,” and hung up.
How about Your Lasting Impact?
Several years ago a reader of the British Weekly wrote a letter to the editor as follows: “Dear Sir! I notice that ministers seem to set a great deal of importance on their sermons and spend a great deal of time in preparing them. I have been attending services quite regularly for the past thirty years and during that time, if I estimate correctly, I have listened to no less than three thousand sermons. But, to my consternation, I discover I cannot remember a single one of them. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else? Sincerely.”
The letter kicked up quite an editorial storm of angry responses for weeks. The pros and cons of sermons were tossed back and forth until, finally, one letter ended the debate. This letter said, “My Dear Sir: I have been married for thirty years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals—mostly of my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered that I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I received nourishment from every one of them. I have the distinct impression that without them I would have starved to death long ago. Sincerely.”
The Distaff View
When the pastor of a conservative small-town congregation received the gift of a white suit from a friend, he was a bit reluctant to wear it. But since it was so attractive and a perfect fit, he decided to put it on one warm Sunday. As he was leaving for church, he asked his wife what she thought of his attire. After giving him the once-over, she replied, “It depends. Are you going to preach or sell chicken?”
Fact and Faith
A pastor was speaking to his people on the relationship between fact and faith. He said, “That you are sitting before me in this church—is fact. That I am standing here, speaking from this pulpit—is fact. That I believe anyone is listening to me—is faith!”
Stay Alert
The easiest way to stay awake during a sermon is to deliver it.
Reaching to Heaven
A farmer asked the district superintendent to assign a pastor to his community. “How big a man do you want?” asked the superintendent. “Well,” the man replied, “we’re not overly particular, but when he’s on his knees, we’d like to have him reach heaven.”
The Sound of My Voice
I overheard two laymen discussing the direction that my sermons for several weeks had been taking.
Apparently, one of the men felt quite satisfied with himself and where he was in his walk with the Lord. “I suppose the pastor will give another altar call next week, calling for further commitment of our lives. I’ll sure be glad when he finds something else to talk about.”
The other’s reply sent me on my way with a song.
“Well, I hope our pastor keeps preaching the deeper walk with the Lord. I want more and more of Him. When I get to heaven, I don’t want to have to pull out my wallet and show the Lord my driver’s license to prove who I am. I want Him to know me by the sound of my voice.”
Ministerial Malady
Never trust someone who has to change his tone to ask something of the Lord. –Robert Everett
Body Language
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was sharing with a class of ministerial students about the importance of making the facial expression harmonize with the sermon. “When you speak of heaven,” he said, “let your face light up, let it be irradiated with a heavenly gleam, let your eyes shine with reflected glory. But when you speak of hell, well, then your ordinary face will do!”
Summer Perils
In a small church during the summer, a pastor was preaching with gusto. Due to the warmth of the evening, the windows were open and bugs of all sizes were attracted to the sanctuary lights. As the pastor was making an energetic point, a large moth flew into his open mouth. The congregation was silent, awaiting some reply after the ingestion of the fluttering creature. After some coughing and throat clearing, he responded, “Ladies and gentlemen, with some difficulty, a moth has entered the ministry.”
Descent into Mediocrity
The church is filled with fifty-year-old men who started brilliantly, who worked in places of real prominence and in the process have lost the very ways of doing their work that give them some insight as to what to do with their power. They are just holding on and frantically trying to survive. –John Claypool
Getting Down to Cases
There was once a young preacher who had just landed his first congregation. Now this church was rather a small one and was composed entirely of the population of a small logging town. Everyone in town worked for the town’s lumber mill, which was its only business and was involved in fierce competition with the mill just upstream. The preacher wasn’t in town long before he had an experience that shook him up a bit. He was taking a walk through the woods and chanced to see the workers at the town mill pulling logs branded for the other mill out of the stream, cutting off the branded ends, and running them through their own mill. The preacher was very distressed with this and so worked the rest of the week on a powerful sermon. That Sunday, he got up and preached his sermon entitled “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Property.” The sermon seemed to go over well. Everyone told him, as they went out the door, just how much they loved his preaching. “You really moved me preacher” and “Best sermon I ever heard” were some of the remarks they made. But that next Monday morning, it was business as usual at the mill. They were still stealing logs. So the next Sunday the preacher delivered a real “pulpit pounder” called “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” “Fantastic!” the people told him. “Wonderful!” they cried. But on Monday morning, the other company’s logs were still being swiped by the town mill. Enough was enough! There’s only so much a man can take and then he’s got to act—this time he wasn’t going to hold anything back. The following Sunday he got up and preached on the topic: “Thou Shalt Not Cut the Branded Ends Off Someone Else’s Logs!” They ran him out of town!
Application Is Almost Everything
A soap manufacturer and a pastor were walking together down a street in a large city. The soap manufacturer casually said, “The gospel you preach hasn’t done much good, has it? Just observe. There is still a lot of wickedness in the world, and a lot of wicked people, too!” The pastor made no reply until they passed a dirty little child making mud pies in the gutter. Seizing the opportunity, the pastor said, “I see that soap hasn’t done much good in the world; for there is much dirt, and many dirty people around.” The soap manufacturer replied, “Oh, well, soap is only useful when it is applied.” And the pastor said, “Exactly, so it is with the gospel.”
Waiting for Guidance
Do you ever step up to the pulpit on Sunday morning knowing you are not as well prepared as you should be? My friend Ken Johnson shared a story with me that he heard Ian Pitt-Watson tell at Arcadia Presbyterian Church. Pitt-Watson said: “Because I’m leaving on Tuesday for Korea, I am not as well prepared as I ought to be. And I am reminded of the pastor who thought, when he had difficulty preparing a particular sermon, ‘Perhaps the Holy Spirit will tell me what to say on Sunday morning.’ This thought returned to him several times during the week, and when at last he stood silently before his congregation, he turned to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and a celestial voice said to him, ‘Tell the people you are unprepared!’”
Putting Forth Effort
A sermon is something a pastor would drive five hundred miles to deliver but wouldn’t walk across the street to hear.
We May No Understand
In an age in which time is more and more limited and valuable, why do millions return to our sanctuaries week after week to listen to sermons? Though there are multiplied reasons, for many it is the desire to hear an authentic word from God. In lives that are torn by stress, puzzled by ethical questions, filled with anxiety about the future, they come to you as God’s messenger to be reminded that their lives matter, that God cares, that there is hope. They come, as the Greeks came to Philip, saying, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”
One young preacher expressed feelings of frustration about his place in the pulpit. He wrote: “I wish I did not hate preaching so much, but the degradation of being a Brighton preacher is almost intolerable. The pulpit has lost its place.”
The writer was F. W. Robertson, who—within a few years of his premature death in 1853—was being called one of England’s greatest preachers. Perhaps more important than the accolades of historians are the words of one of his church members:
“I cannot describe the strange sensation, during his sermon of union with him and communion with one another which filled us as he spoke. Nor can I describe the sense we had of a higher Presence with us as he spoke—the sacred awe which filled our hearts—the hushed stillness in which the smallest sound was startling—the calm eagerness of men who listened as if waiting for a word of revelation to resolve the doubt or to heal the sorrow of life.”
People of a Cause
Some pastors are crusaders. They have a cause that is larger than life. And occasionally, they touch home base and do some nitty-gritty pastoral work. I’m sure we’ve seen them on all sides of the ecclesiastical spectrum—the public figures like William Sloane Coffin popping up in Iran, Jerry Falwell crusading for morality. Don’t get me wrong—there are many good causes. History tells us of the Henry Ward Beechers who stumped against slavery and Martin Luther Kings crusading for civil rights. I don’t mean to be critical, but there is a potential trap as well as an appeal in this kind of ministry. It is possible to get a Richard the Lion Heart fixation. You know, he was king of England for ten years, but only spent six months of that time at home. He was busy off crusading to rescue the Holy Land. It is possible to see yourself as some sort of heroic and legendary figure—sort of a theological “Bear” Bryant.
Church Staff Job Descriptions
Pastor: Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. More powerful than a locomotive. Faster than a speeding bullet. Walks on water. Gives counsel to God.
Associate Pastor: Able to leap short buildings in a single bound. As powerful as a switch engine. Just as fast as a speeding bullet. Walks on water when the sea is calm. Talks with God.
Minister of Music: Leaps short buildings with a running start. Almost as powerful as a switch engine. Faster than a speeding BB. Is occasionally addressed by God. Walks on water if she knows where the stumps are.
Minister of Youth: Runs into small buildings. Recognizes locomotive two out of three times. Uses a squirt gun. Knows how to use the water fountain. Mumbles to himself.
Church Secretary: Lifts building to walk under them. Kicks locomotives off the track. Catches speeding bullets in her teeth. Freezes water with a single glance. When God speaks, she says, “May I ask who is calling?”
Communications Feedback
William Barclay, world-famed Scottish Bible scholar who died in February of 1978, claimed that his unique ability to communicate the gospel was due to an old Scot lady who lived alone in an humble house when he was a minister of Trinity Church, Renfrew. During her illness one winter, Barclay visited her regularly until she recovered. On his last visit, she remonstrated, “When you’ve been here, talking to me, and sometimes putting up a wee prayer, it’s been grand, and I’ve understood every word you said. But man, when you’re in yon pulpit on the Sabbath, you’re awa’ o’er ma head!”
What Makes the Difference
Two pastors’ wives sat mending their husbands’ pants. One of them said to the other, “My poor John, he is so discouraged in his church work. He said just the other day he was considering resigning. It seems nothing goes right for him.”
The other replied, “Why, my husband was saying just the opposite. He is so enthused, it seems like the Lord is closer to him than ever before.”
A hushed silence fell as they continued to mend the trousers; one patching the seat and the other the knees.
Back to Basics
It’s about time we gave up all the theological grand opera and went back to practicing the scales. –Vance Havner
The Real Thing
A man had to fill in at the last minute for Billy Graham who was scheduled to preach in a big old church. He was a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of such a substitution. As he was sitting and thinking about playing this role, he thought of a way to tie into the situation. So, as he got up to speak, he alluded to his problem of having to substitute for such a celebrated preacher. He pointed out, “As I was sitting here, I looked up at your large stained glass window and I noticed that one of the small sections of glass is broken out and a piece of cardboard has been substituted. I’m like that bit of cardboard. Not the real thing, but better than nothing.” Then he launched into his sermon.
At the close of the service, he was greeting people at the door. One little old lady came up to him and said, “Preacher, I just wanted you to know that you mustn’t see yourself as a cardboard substitute. You’re a real pane!”
The Previous Pastor
The previous pastor had been a paragon of virtue. He lived up to all the people’s expectations and was willing to live on a very low salary to boot. He loved to work around the manse and keep both house and grounds in repair. But the new pastor wasn’t that type. He hired someone to do a lot of these chores, including the mowing of the manse and church lawns. Naturally this cost more money. This change of pattern was of concern to some of the elders of the church. One day one of them approached the new pastor and tried to bring this up tactfully. He said to the new pastor, “You know, our previous pastor mowed the lawn himself. Have you considered this approach?” The new pastor came back, “Yes, I’m aware of this. And I asked him, but he doesn’t want to do it anymore!”
Faithful Preaching
There is an incredible hunger for the things of God in our day. Only a clear proclamation of biblical truth can assuage that need. Many a preacher has discovered that when he taught the Word with exegetical accuracy and expository excellence, he was applauded for his creativity and originality. The reason is obvious—most moderns do not know the Scriptures. What a privilege to be “Servants of the Word” and “Heralds of God.” Good preaching must not only be biblical, but also must be present tense. In 1928, Fosdick said that people are not interested in coming to church to hear about the Jebusites. Of course! They want a Word from God that has a distinct point of contact with the here-and-now. A sermon exists at the intersection of the Eternal Word and the life in the spirit today. Every sermon worthy of the name addresses us in the midst of the throbbing nowness of life. It also must be interesting. It is a sin to be boring. The gospel is never dull, only teachers and preachers are. This is where the preacher must stretch—he needs to develop the art of storytelling, to frame his thoughts with poignancy, to be creative in structure, and to maximize the preaching event through appropriate, enthused delivery. When a sermon is biblical, present tense and interesting, it passes the essential tests. Most other homiletical norms are superfluous. –J. Daniel Bauman
Valued Pet
The minister preached a very short sermon. He explained, “My dog got into my office and chewed up some of my notes.” At the close of the service, a visitor asked, “If your dog ever has pups, please let my pastor have one of them.”
Stern Interviewing
A young minister was being interviewed by a church board for the position of pastor. One old hard-working Irishman who was on the board looked at the young man sternly and asked, “Young man, did God send you here?”
He replied, “Well, I don’t know if God sent me here. I am here trying to find the will of God and find out if you would like me for your next pastor.”
The board member replied, “Young man, did God send you here?”
The young minister was somewhat at a loss for words and came back again, “Well, I just stopped by to talk with the board.”
The board member interrupted again and said, “Young man, did God send you here?”
Finally, he screwed up his courage and said, “Well, I guess God didn’t send me here. I just stopped by to see about whether we could get together.”
The old board member leaned back in his seat and said, “That’s good. The last four said that God had sent them, and we have had nothing but trouble with all four of them!”