Loading...
10,045 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
In the prophet's day, the Jewish leaders had cast off their wives for heathen women, then taught their followers this transgression was no sin.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions.
In the winter of 1940, a Jewish woman knocked on the door of a stone presbytery in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small Huguenot village tucked into...
With the remaining timber, he carves a god and falls before it in worship.
In 1944, the men of the 332nd Fighter Group arrived in the European Theater carrying a burden no white squadron ever bore. Trained at Tuskegee...
In June of 1752, Benjamin Franklin walked into a gathering thunderstorm outside Philadelphia with a silk kite, a hemp string, an iron key, and a...
When we deduct thirty years for Joshua's leadership, thirty for Samuel's judgeship, and forty for Saul's reign (Acts 13:21), we arrive at 140 to 160 years for the events of the Book of Judges.
The Acts of the Apostles overflows with language of "disputation," "conference," and "reasoning." The apostles "came together to consider the matter"; "It pleased the apostles and elders and the whole Church"; they assembled "with one accord." This pattern reveals how...
Maclaren observes that these two apostles, 'principal members of the quartet which stood first among the Apostles,' needed each other precisely because they were unlike.
Removing thirty years for Joshua, thirty for Samuel, and forty for Saul's reign (Acts 13:21)—totaling 100 years—leaves 140–160 years for the events recorded in Judges.
Such an errand would contradict God's character—He cannot morally compel His messenger toward wickedness.
Christ Himself warned, "I came not to send peace on the earth"—and this miracle proves it.
In the autumn of 1937, a thirty-one-year-old German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat at his desk in Finkenwalde, a small town in Pomerania, putting the...
Isaiah's indictment of Judah's rulers cuts to the heart of institutional decay: "Thy princes are rebellious . . . every one loveth gifts." The prophetic diagnosis identifies two fatal disorders. First, *mercenary ambition* replaces duty. These magistrates pursued salaries, fees,...
On March 9, 1841, the marble halls of the United States Supreme Court fell silent as Justice Joseph Story delivered a verdict that would echo...
By the autumn of 1943, Noor Inayat Khan was the last British wireless operator still transmitting from Nazi-occupied Paris. Her Special Operations Executive network had...
On August 29, 1831, Michael Faraday sat in his basement laboratory at the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street in London, hunched over a simple iron...
"Pictures of silver" refers to the creamy-white flowers that frame the golden harvest.
Sin is a tyrant usurping dominion where it was never meant to rule.
In a cramped workshop on Mainz's Quintinsstraße, sometime around 1455, Johannes Gutenberg lifted a freshly printed sheet from his wooden press and held it to...
Yet Maclaren perceives a profound paradox: both the flatterer and the oppressed knew in their hearts what those honeyed words *ought* to have described.
Delilah exemplifies this rottenness through calculated treachery masked as love.
The essentials of a righteous man's character remain constant across all ages.
Yet these pilgrims did not cast off their festive spirit with their holiday attire.
In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stepped off a ship in New York Harbor with a lifeline in his hands. Friends at Union Theological Seminary had...