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Home›Browse by Type›Stories & Illustrations

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Stories & Illustrations

7,545 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 Gut That Thinks Before You Do

In 2004, neuroscientist Michael Gershon at Columbia University published research confirming what he called "the second brain" — a network of over 500 million neurons...

Universalobedience

224 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Relay That Couldn't Be Run Alone

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Jamaican 4x100 meter relay team — Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Usain Bolt, and Asafa Powell — shattered the world...

Universalcommunity

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Git Repository of Grace

Every software developer knows the power of Git — the version control system created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 that transformed how people build software...

Universalcommunity

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Universe Behind a Grain of Sand

In 1995, astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at what appeared to be an utterly empty patch of sky — a tiny dark spot no...

Universalhumility

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Stars That Shine in Darkness

In 2012, marine biologist Edith Widder solved a mystery that had eluded scientists for decades. She captured the first footage of a giant squid in...

Universalgrace

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Deepest Roots You Never See

In 2012, a team of researchers in South Africa's Echo Caves discovered something astonishing: the roots of a wild fig tree had penetrated over 400...

Universalhumility

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Long Defeat and the Final Victory

In *The Lord of the Rings*, Tolkien gives us a phrase that has haunted readers for generations. The elven queen Galadriel speaks of fighting what...

Universalpatience

255 words

Sermon Illustration

The Donor's Blood Running Through Your Veins

In a bone marrow transplant, something medically astonishing happens. After the donor's marrow engrafts, the recipient's blood type can actually change to match the donor's....

Universalgrace

231 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cell That Remembered

In 2006, Japanese scientist Dr. Shinya Yamanaka made a discovery that would earn him the Nobel Prize. He found that a fully specialized adult cell...

Universalidentity

273 words

Sermon Illustration

The Song Nobody Wanted

In 1984, Leonard Cohen finished a song that had consumed him for nearly five years. He had filled notebook after notebook with draft verses —...

Universalpatience

229 words

Sermon Illustration

Standing Before the Stone

On Easter Sunday, 1939, Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. Seventy-five thousand people stretched across...

Universalcourage

251 words

Sermon Illustration

The Music He Could Not Hear

In May of 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood before an orchestra in Vienna to conduct the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He was almost entirely...

Universalhope

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Far, Far Better Thing

In Charles Dickens's *A Tale of Two Cities*, Sydney Carton is a man who has wasted his life. Brilliant but dissolute, he drinks too much,...

Universalsacrifice

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The Password on the Sticky Note

In 2017, a cybersecurity firm called Keeper reported that the most common password in the world was still "123456." Millions of people — people with...

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Artesian Well on Ballarat Road

In 1851, miners flooded the goldfields near Ballarat, Australia, desperate for fortune. They dug frantically into hard rock, often finding nothing. But scattered across that...

Hebrews 4:16Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters from Tegel Prison

In the spring of 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and locked in Tegel military prison in Berlin. He had every reason to...

1 Corinthians 1:3-9Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Day the Words Became Real

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger stepped onto a balcony at Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No. 3 aloud...

Luke 4:14-21Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Last Flight from San Juan

On September 30, 1972, Roberto Clemente lined a double off the wall at Three Rivers Stadium — his three-thousandth career hit. He was thirty-eight years...

Universalsacrifice

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Boy Preacher of London

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was nineteen years old when the deacons of New Park Street Chapel in London invited him to become their pastor in 1854....

Jeremiah 1:4-10Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Faithful Witness of Smyrna

On a cold February day in 155 AD, the Roman proconsul gave the elderly bishop Polycarp one final chance. "Swear by the genius of Caesar,"...

Revelation 1:4-8Universal

226 words

Sermon Illustration

Churchill's Voice in the Darkness

In May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was trapped at Dunkirk, France was falling, and Hitler's armies seemed unstoppable. Parliament debated whether to negotiate peace...

Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40Universal

248 words

Sermon Illustration

The Hymn That Started with a Father's Challenge

In 1690s England, a teenage Isaac Watts sat fidgeting in the pews of Above Bar Congregational Church in Southampton, miserable over the flat, joyless psalm-singing...

Universalobedience

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Pipe Organ That Played Without Power

In 1944, Allied bombs had reduced much of Coventry, England, to rubble. The medieval cathedral lay in ruins, its famous pipe organ nothing but twisted...

Zechariah 4:6Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Orchestra That Almost Wasn't

In 2019, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra nearly canceled its entire spring season. A labor dispute had divided musicians from management, and for weeks, silence filled...

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13Universal

228 words