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Home›Browse by Type›Stories & Illustrations

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Stories & Illustrations

9,837 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use

Browse Stories & Illustrations by Book

Psalm (82)Luke (49)Matthew (42)John (36)1 Corinthians (31)Romans (29)Isaiah (29)Genesis (25)Acts (24)Hebrews (17)Ephesians (16)Revelation (14)Jeremiah (14)Galatians (10)Colossians (10)Mark (9)Philippians (8)Deuteronomy (8)2 Corinthians (8)Proverbs (8)

Sermon Illustration

The Dragon Skin We Cannot Shed Ourselves

In C.S. Lewis's *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader*, the selfish boy Eustace Scrubb falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes to discover he...

Universaltransformation

225 words

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Sermon Illustration

When a Coach Could Barely Stand

On March 4, 1993, college basketball coach Jim Valvano stood at the podium of the first ESPY Awards. Cancer had ravaged his body. He needed...

Universalhope

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bone That Bears the Weight

In 1892, German surgeon Julius Wolff published a remarkable discovery about the human skeleton. What became known as Wolff's Law reveals that bone is not...

Universalperseverance

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Deaf Man's Anthem of Joy

In 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood on stage in Vienna for the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He had spent years composing it, pouring every...

Universalfreedom

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Art That Refused to Be Silenced

In 1933, the Nazi regime expelled Käthe Kollwitz from the Prussian Academy of Arts and banned public exhibitions of her work. Her offense? She drew...

Universalcourage

253 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Music Itself Seemed Lost

In the summer of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. His operas had flopped. Creditors circled. Four years earlier, a stroke had paralyzed...

Universalperseverance

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Satellite That Only Tells Time

Each of the 31 GPS satellites orbiting Earth does one remarkably simple thing — it broadcasts a time signal. That is its entire job. It...

Universalpurpose

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Price of a Free Album

In 1979, Christian musician Keith Green made a decision that stunned the music industry. At the height of his popularity, with albums selling briskly and...

Universalsacrifice

243 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Shadow Is Only a Small and Passing Thing

In J.R.R. Tolkien's *The Return of the King*, there is a moment that has quietly ministered to readers for over seventy years. Sam Gamgee lies...

Universalhope

217 words

Sermon Illustration

The Telescope That Had to Trust Its Own Unfolding

On Christmas morning 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope on a journey one million miles from Earth. But here is what made the...

Universalfaith

236 words

Sermon Illustration

Harriet Tubman and the God Who Parts the Waters

In the winter of 1851, Harriet Tubman stood at the edge of the Choptank River in Maryland, ice forming along its banks, slave catchers somewhere...

Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20Universal

229 words

Sermon Illustration

The Algorithm of True Greatness

In 1998, two Stanford graduate students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented the algorithm that would become Google. Their breakthrough was deceptively simple. Every...

Universalhumility

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Version History God Never Keeps

When you work in Google Docs, every edit is automatically saved in the version history. Click "File," then "Version history," and you can scroll back...

Universalforgiveness

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Weight We Carry Through

In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, there is a scene that has haunted readers for over a century. Jean Valjean, the ex-convict transformed by grace, must...

Universalperseverance

230 words

Sermon Illustration

The Anatomy of Brave

In 2010, neuroscientist Yadin Dudai at the Weizmann Institute of Science set out to study courage itself. He placed volunteers who were terrified of snakes...

Universalcourage

218 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bone That Bends Grows Back Stronger

In 1892, German anatomist Julius Wolff published a discovery that changed how we understand the human body. He found that bone is not static —...

Universalperseverance

221 words

Sermon Illustration

The Barrier That Wasn't There

In 1967, psychologist Martin Seligman conducted experiments at the University of Pennsylvania that revealed something startling about captivity. Dogs that had experienced inescapable shocks eventually...

Universalfreedom

221 words

Sermon Illustration

Eastern Orthodox Lens Perspective: Sermon Illustration

Anna sat on a worn wooden bench in the bustling center of her city, a cup of coffee warming her hands against the early morning chill. Just last week, she had received the news that her mother’s health was declining...

John 3:16Eastern Orthodox

256 words

Sermon Illustration

The Night a Nation Held Its Breath and Then Roared

On October 13, 2010, a steel rescue capsule broke through two thousand feet of Chilean rock and delivered the first of thirty-three trapped miners back...

Psalm 98Universal

221 words

Sermon Illustration

Walking Again at Merion

On February 2, 1949, Ben Hogan's car collided head-on with a Greyhound bus on a foggy Texas highway. He threw himself across his wife to...

Universalrestoration

238 words

Sermon Illustration

Ask App Not to Track

In 2021, Apple rolled out a small but revolutionary feature in iOS 14.5 called App Tracking Transparency. Before it existed, hundreds of apps on your...

Universalfreedom

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Man with Guts Enough Not to Fight Back

In August 1945, Branch Rickey sat across from Jackie Robinson in the Brooklyn Dodgers front office and spent three hours hurling insults at him. He...

Universalpatience

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Morning After the Fire

On November 8, 2018, the Camp Fire swept through Paradise, California, reducing nearly fourteen thousand homes to ash in a single day. Among them was...

Psalm 30Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Reroute You Didn't Ask For

If you have ever used Google Maps on a long drive, you know the moment. You are cruising along the highway, making good time, and...

Universaltrust

254 words