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Home›Browse by Type›Stories & Illustrations

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Stories & Illustrations

6,717 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use

Browse Stories & Illustrations by Book

Psalm (81)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)2 Corinthians (8)Proverbs (7)James (7)

Sermon Illustration

The Sinking Skyscraper

In 2016, residents of San Francisco's Millennium Tower noticed something unsettling — their doors wouldn't close properly. Engineers discovered the 58-story luxury high-rise had sunk...

1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17Universal

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Sermon Illustration

The Theologian Who Chose to Go Back

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat in a New York apartment with every reason to stay. Friends had arranged a teaching position at Union Theological...

Luke 13:31-35Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Watchmaker's Prayer That Began Decades Too Early

In 1844, Casper ten Boom began a weekly prayer meeting in his Haarlem watch shop, interceding for the Jewish people. His neighbors thought it eccentric....

Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Threshold of Everything

In the 1950s, British scientists Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley inserted tiny electrodes into squid nerve fibers to study how electrical signals travel through the...

Universalcourage

Sermon Illustration

The Bridge That Almost Wasn't Built

In 2015, the city council of Greenville, South Carolina faced a problem. The Swamp Rabbit Trail — a beloved walking and biking path — needed...

1 Corinthians 1:10-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Artist Who Traded Fame for Unsearchable Riches

In 1888, Lilias Trotter stood at a crossroads in London. John Ruskin, the most influential art critic in England, had told her she could become...

Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Bodyguard Who Became a Reformer

In the winter of 1546, the Scottish preacher George Wishart traveled from town to town proclaiming the gospel against fierce opposition. At his side walked...

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

Singing Through the Storm

In January 1736, the ship Simmonds pitched violently in the North Atlantic as a winter gale tore its mainsail to shreds. Seawater poured across the...

Isaiah 12:2-6Universal

Sermon Illustration

When Freedom's News Finally Arrived

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No. 3 aloud...

Luke 2:10-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Murderer Who Wept Over Matthew

In 1918, Tokichi Ishii sat in a Tokyo prison cell awaiting execution. He had murdered at least three people — including a woman and her...

1 Timothy 1:12-17Universal

Sermon Illustration

John Newton and the Relentless Pursuit of Grace

In 1748, John Newton was a slave trader sailing the West African coast, a man so profane that even hardened sailors flinched at his blasphemy....

Hosea 1:2-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

Wired for the Journey

Every autumn, monarch butterflies undertake one of the most remarkable navigational feats in all of nature. From milkweed fields as far north as Canada, they...

Universaltrust

Sermon Illustration

The Pilot Above the Clouds

In 1929, Jimmy Doolittle climbed into a biplane at Mitchell Field, New York, pulled a canvas hood over his cockpit, and flew entirely by instruments....

Colossians 3:1-4Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Mother on Montrose Avenue

In 2019, a Chicago journalist profiled a woman named Denise Williams who had spent eleven years standing on the same corner of Montrose Avenue every...

Luke 13:31-35Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Radio Dial Between Stations

In 2019, a retired teacher named Margaret Chen sat in her kitchen in Portland, Oregon, fiddling with her late husband's old shortwave radio. She twisted...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Man Who Saved His Enemy on the Ice

In 1569, a Dutch Anabaptist named Dirk Willems sat locked in a prison tower in Asperen, Holland, awaiting execution for the crime of being rebaptized...

Romans 5:5-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

Corrie ten Boom's Empty Hands

When the Gestapo raided the ten Boom home in Haarlem, Holland, on February 28, 1944, Corrie ten Boom lost everything in a single afternoon —...

Hebrews 13:5-6Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Hundred-Year Watch at Herrnhut

On August 27, 1727, twenty-four men and twenty-four women in the small German village of Herrnhut made a quiet commitment. They divided the day into...

Psalm 121Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Cellar on Remembered Street

In September 1940, the German Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs across London for fifty-seven consecutive nights. Margaret Braithwaite, a schoolteacher on Albion Road in Lewisham, described...

Nahum 1:7Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Blacksmith's Son Who Became a Preacher

In 1725, the elders of Epworth, England, fully expected young Samuel Wesley Jr. to carry on the family's clerical legacy as the firstborn son. But...

Luke 1:57-66, 80Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Acorn That Became a Cathedral

In 1823, a schoolboy named Johann planted an acorn in his family's garden outside Dresden, Germany. He wanted a climbing tree — something to swing...

Ephesians 3:20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Garden on Burnside Avenue

In 2011, Ron Finley stood staring at a neglected strip of dirt between the sidewalk and the curb on Burnside Avenue in South Central Los...

Isaiah 55:10-13Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Elder Who Bowed to Dmitri

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's *The Brothers Karamazov*, there is a moment that shocks everyone in the room — including the reader. The aging elder Zosima, revered...

Universalhumility

Sermon Illustration

The Father on the Bridge

In 1937, a drawbridge operator named J.P. worked along a rail line in New Jersey, bringing his young son to work on quiet summer days....

John 3:13-17Universal