“He was professional, cut, chiseled. His slacks had a crease in them that could cut weeds if he walked through a field of tall grass, not that he did this very often. His one idiosyncratic feature was that he always looked like he was chewing beef jerky whenever he talked, but most people who even noticed it thought it made him look masculine in that jaw-jutty way that you see in Eddie Bauer catalogs.”
No, Not at All
“Every preacher must be constantly on the lookout for illustrations. Not that we read books and listen to people only to collect sermon material!”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 65
Brim Full
“Radavic couldn’t quite catch what he was saying, but Bradford could see the prosecutor’s neck get bigger. He had never seen a neck so full of righteousness” ().
Making Illustrations Walk on Their Hind Legs
“Illustrations transform the abstract into the concrete, the ancient into the present, the unfamiliar into the familiar, the general into the particular, the vague into the precise, the unreal into the real, and the invisible into the visible” ().
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 63
With a Big Spatula
“The judge told the bailiffs to get a medical spatula crew, scrape Mr. Warner off the floor of his courtroom, and take him somewhere else.”
Use All the Crayons in Your Box
What we put in words we must always supplement with images or illustrations. The word ‘illustrate’ means to illuminate, to throw light on a dark object, and this is what our sermon illustrations should do. People find it very difficult to handle abstract ideas; we need to convert them either into symbols (as in mathematics) or into pictures.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, pp. 62-63
Demeanor AND Outlook
“And then, as if in response to someone throwing a big breaker somewhere. Robert P. Warner slumped, shumped, and fell to the floor. He assumed the demeanor and outlook of a beanbag chair and ceased cooperating with the world.”
Simple, Vivid, Honest
“We must search for simple words which our listeners will understand, vivid words which will help them to picture what we are saying and honest words which tell the plain truth without exaggeration.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 62
Which Sometimes Happens
“Tears ran down her cheeks. Her eye makeup was seriously blurred, and she looked out the twin smudges at the camera. Staring at this very spectacle on the screen, John Mitchell told Cindi, who was standing behind him, that News Babe looked like a sensuous and emotionally worked-up raccoon.”
And Neither Can They Preach Them
“An unstructured sermon is like a jellyfish, all flesh and no bones. However, a sermon whose structure is too noticeable is like a skeleton, all bones and no flesh. Neither jellyfish nor skeletons made good sermons.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 60