BEETHOVEN'S PROBLEM Beethoven was not troubled when a performer struck a wrong note, but he was angry when he failed with the spirit and idea of the piece. So with the Great Judge and Artist…
Sermon Illustrations
FACTS ARE MISLEADING The professor in Alfred Hitchcock's film, "The Lady Vanishes," who being confronted with evidence that proves his theory wrong, replies, "Nonsense. My theory is perfectly correct. It is the facts that are…
NO VOODOO CURSE There's an old "Leave it to Beaver" rerun in which Wally, Eddie Haskell and the Beaver are going to a movie. Mrs. Cleaver tells them to go see "Pinocchio," not the other…
LIVING WITH THE LIONS A little girl was showing a friend around her new house. "This is the kitchen, here's my bedroom; here's the den. Do you have a den in your house?" "No, we…
UMPIRE JUSTICE George Will writes in Men at Work: Baseball umpires are carved from granite and stuffed with microchips... they are professional dispensers of pure justice. Once when Babe Pinelli called Babe Ruth out on…
GOD'S COINCIDENCES As someone once said, "Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous." G. Peter Fleck in The Blessings of Imperfection
TWO MONOLOGUES DeNevers' Law of Debate: Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
HALLOWED BE FOOTBALL Our football, which art on television, hallowed be thy game. The fullback run, the passes be flung, in Miami as it is in Dallas. Give us this day our four quarters and…
FOUND SOMEONE ELSE A minister told about a function he attended at his church. His wife was not able to attend. During the function, he struck up a conversation with a woman who was attending…
SO MESSED UP In Discipleship Journal, Don McCullough wrote: "John Killinger tells about the manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with his center fielder's performance that he ordered him to…
EMOTIONAL CLONING Emotional cloning is not Christian. The need is not to subdue personality, but to Christianize it. Jesus didn't try to make twelve carbon copies of the men He chose. The leader who diminishes…
SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common-sense on the ground floor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
EXPRESS PULPITS Perhaps what many churches need is an express pulpit: for preachers with six thoughts or less.
TWO TYPES OF SALVATION Two ways of being born again: 1. Damascus Road: instantaneous confrontation 2. Emmaus Road: realizing he was there all along.
IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDE Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It…
MIDDLE EAST PEACE Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, once said, "Peace will come when Arabs love their children who they send to war more than they hate the Jews." Adapted from a…
NEARER MY GOD A face of grace and a handshake firm escorted me on my initial encounter into Bill's relaxed and pleasant presence. Bill was a mortician in a small Texas town. And as life…
ALL IS IN HER NAME A woman went into the office of a cemetery manager and complained, "I can't find my husband's grave. I know he's buried here." "What is the name?" the manager asked.…
SEAT BELTS & DRIVER'S LICENSES A car headed out of Calgary was stopped by a Canadian Mountie. He told the driver: "Congratulations, you have just won a $100 prize for the 100th car passing through…
SCIENTIFIC FORMULAS Someone once asked a scientist, "Why do scientists revere Einstein?" The answer: "Because he put more formula into one formula than any other scientist." "Well, what's the aim of all science?" came the…
