“If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clanging” (I Corinthians 13:1). A veteran of forty years as a…
Sermon Illustrations
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). With more than a little imagination, someone has written a little scenario about what took place when Jesus said to His disciples: “I give you a…
“…so behave like free men and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness” (I Peter 2:16). C.S. Lewis has pictured Satan presiding over a meeting of all of Hell’s lesser-devils in order to…
“My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune” (John 7:6). There is a wonderful story about a tiger. The mother and father tiger had been killed and the baby was brought…
“So you should pray like this, ‘Our Father’…” (Mt. 6:9). In a first-grade religion class, the teacher had spent the entire session teaching the youngsters The Lord’s Prayer. After class, little Billy went skipping down…
“In all, Methuselah lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. Then he died” (Genesis 5:27). Methuselah ate what he found on his plate, And never, as people do now, Did he note the amount of…
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty empty; the woman which is wise is the one to praise” (Proverbs 31:30). In an anthropology class, the teacher was groping for an example of how our ideas about beauty…
“They all ate as much as they wanted, and when the scraps remaining were collected they filled twelve baskets” (Luke 9:17). After telling her class of six-year-olds the story of Jesus miraculously feeding thousands of…
“…praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 1:20). A bishop was presiding over the liturgy in a large cathedral. He sensed that the microphone wasn’t working properly, and he was ready to begin the traditional “The…
“Sing to Yahweh, sing to the music and to the sound of many instruments. To the sound of the trumpet and horn acclaim Yahweh the King!” (Psalm 88:5-6). A young writer was interviewing a symphony…
“To retort without first listening is folly to work one’s own confusion” (Proverbs 18:13). In a high school literature class, the teacher called on a day-dreaming student to read aloud a paragraph from an essay.…
“My Son, pay attention to My words... They are life to those who grasp them” (Proverbs 4:20, 22). The noted Howard University Scholar, Charles T. Copeland, was once approached by a student who asked, “Why…
“…those who know God, listen to us” (I John 4:6). In a book called “Letters To My Son,” the author describes the life-enriching rewards of being a good listener. “If you like people first,” he…
There is an old oriental saying that goes like this: Consider the worm; his day is two feet long. Meaning, I suppose, just as a worm can do only so much, travel so far, given…
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5). In a fantasy story called “A Wizard of Earthsea,” a young man named “Ged” is learning to become a wizard.…
“All that came to be had life in Him, and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark” (John 1:4). Once upon a time... There was a little boy…
“God is light; there is no darkness in Him at all…if we live our lives in the light, as He is in the light, we are in union with one another” (1John 1:5,7). Mel Ellis,…
“‘Walk while you have the light, or the dark will overtake you,’ Jesus said to His disciples” (John 12:35). A New York City pastor recalls what happened one fateful Sunday morning as the choir took…
“. . . but the man who lives by the truth comes into the Light” (John 3:21). In the “Metropolitan Diary” feature of the New York Times, a reader recalled an amusing incident that took…
“I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5). Twenty-seven hundred years ago, King Ezechia had a real problem because Jerusalem’s water supply was outside the city’s walls. This made the people of Jerusalem very…