Why Use Illustrations?

Preach the Word: Chapter 25

An illustration has been described as a door through which the hearer passes to understanding. While perhaps an oversimplification, it nevertheless captures the essence of the concept. In an illustration, the preacher attempts to relate the truth (the unknown) that he hopes to teach to the hearer’s experience (the known) in a manner that enables the hearer to accept the truth and act upon it. Put differently, an illustration enables the hearers to accept truth because they recognize it in their own experience. For example, Jesus taught the nature of the kingdom (truth) by comparing it with a pearl of great price (the hearers’ experience). In doing so, he neither diminished divine truth nor deified experience. He used experience to demonstrate truth.

Some have suggested as a general rule that if the preacher can’t illustrate a point, he shouldn’t preach it. This does not mean that God cannot or will not use preaching that neglects illustration. Nor does it mean that every point must be illustrated. It does mean that if the preacher cannot think of an illustration of the point that he is preaching, that point may at best be irrelevant. At worst it may be untrue.

Sermons without illustrations do not appeal to the imagination, one of the greatest gifts with which God endowed mankind. Imagination makes the invisible, visible. Illustrations make the abstract, concrete; the ancient, modern; the unfamiliar, familiar; the general, specific; and the vague, unambiguous. Illustrations recognize the nature of the mind – it is not so much a forum for debate as it is a gallery for pictures, in which metaphors, similes, parables, etc. are displayed.

When illustrations are based upon the hearer’s life experience (which is the hearer’s reality), the hearer is convinced (by persuasion, common sense, or logic) that the truth illustrated is also reality. For this reason, illustrations must be true to life. Hearers will not recognize their experience in inaccurate illustrations that do not honestly depict how they act or feel. As a result, the hearers will conclude that the preacher misunderstands them and cannot identify with their experience. Consequently, they will not listen.

In thinking about his sermon, the preacher should ask, “What difference does it make?” If there is no meaningful answer to that question, he will do better to select a different subject that will make a difference. If there is a meaningful answer to that question, he may be close to a good illustration. A good illustration has been likened to a window through which the hearer is enabled to “see” the truth. A preacher who uses too many illustrations creates a glass house (all windows, no walls) that blinds from glare. The preacher who uses too few illustrations creates a prison (all walls, no windows) that no hearer enters voluntarily or enjoys. A wise preacher remembers the Oriental proverb that speaks powerfully to the wisdom of properly illustrating a sermon: “He is the eloquent man who turns his hearers’ ears into eyes, and makes them see what he speaks of.”