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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 Airport Gate That Became a Church

In December 2022, a massive winter storm stranded over four thousand travelers at Denver International Airport for three days. Strangers who would never have spoken...

2 Corinthians 13:11-13Universal

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Sermon Illustration

The Morning the Bridge Appeared

On February 6, 2023, residents of Hatay Province in southern Turkey woke to devastation. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake had leveled entire neighborhoods overnight. Rescue worker Elif...

Mark 16:1-8Universal

Sermon Illustration

Corrie ten Boom's Hidden Room of Mercy

In February 1944, the Gestapo raided the Beje, the narrow Dutch watchmaker's house where Corrie ten Boom and her family had been hiding Jewish refugees....

Psalm 25:1-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

Eric Liddell and the Call He Almost Mistook for Guilt

In 1924, Eric Liddell was the most famous athlete in Scotland. After his Olympic gold medal in Paris, universities and speaking platforms competed for his...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Garden Behind First Baptist

For twenty years, the congregation of First Baptist in Baton Rouge prided themselves on their Wednesday night prayer meetings. They fasted twice a month, sang...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Clearing After the Summit

In 2019, Keisha Dawson stood on the stage at Howard University's School of Divinity, diploma in hand, her mother weeping in the third row. Three...

Mark 1:9-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Mountain Lion on the Pacific Crest Trail

In 2019, hiker Kyle Burgess was jogging a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail near Slate Canyon, Utah, when a cougar began stalking him. For...

James 4:7Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Bee Sting That Lost Its Power

In 2019, a beekeeper named Sarah Mapelli stood on a stage in Portland, Oregon, with twenty thousand honeybees crawling across her bare skin. The audience...

1 Corinthians 15:55-57Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Stradivarius That Still Sings After Three Centuries

In 1716, Antonio Stradivari pressed his hands against a spruce top in his Cremona workshop and shaped what musicians now call the "Messiah" violin. Three...

Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Firefighter Who Found His Name on the Prayer Wall

In 2019, Marcus Delgado transferred to a firehouse in rural East Tennessee, skeptical that a small-town station could offer him anything after twelve years in...

John 1:43-51Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Astronomer Who Mapped Stars No One Had Seen

In 1786, Caroline Herschel stood in the cold garden of their home in Slough, England, sweeping the sky with a telescope her brother William had...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Potter of Burslem

Josiah Wedgwood opened his first pottery works in Burslem, Staffordshire, in 1759. He became the most celebrated potter in English history — but what made...

Jeremiah 18:1-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

Pandita Ramabai and the Temples That Breathe

In 1889, Pandita Ramabai opened the doors of Sharada Sadan in Pune, India, a refuge for child widows and girls rescued from temple prostitution. Ramabai,...

1 Corinthians 6:12-20Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Tree on Riverside Drive

Every morning for thirty-seven years, Margaret Chen walked the same half-mile stretch along Riverside Drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She knew every tree on that path....

Psalm 1Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Seeker From Punjab Who Burned the Book

Sundar Singh was fifteen years old in 1904 when he tore a Bible apart and burned it page by page in his village courtyard in...

Matthew 2:1-12Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Pardon No One Expected

In 2019, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was convicted of murdering her neighbor Botham Jean, a twenty-six-year-old accountant and worship leader she shot in...

1 Timothy 1:12-17Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Man Who Kept Two Mailboxes

In 1943, a Norwegian farmer named Halvor Knudsen maintained two mailboxes at the end of his lane outside Trondheim. One bore a small Norwegian flag...

1 Kings 18:21Universal

Sermon Illustration

More Than Stardust

In 1957, astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and his colleagues published a landmark paper explaining how the elements inside our bodies were forged inside dying stars. The...

Universalidentity

Sermon Illustration

The Night Fire Broke Through

On the evening of November 23, 1654, Blaise Pascal sat alone in his room in Paris. He was already famous across Europe — a mathematical...

Mark 1:4-11Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Empty Chair at Table Nine

Every year, the Rotary Club of Decatur, Georgia hosts its annual awards banquet at the old Courtyard ballroom on Ponce de Leon Avenue. The front...

Luke 14:1, 7-14Universal

Sermon Illustration

The Translator They Burned at the Stake

In October 1536, William Tyndale was led to a stake outside Brussels, strangled, and burned. His crime was translating the Bible into English so that,...

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24Universal

Sermon Illustration

Lessons from Compassion - Quote

There once was a small fishing village nestled along a rugged coastline, where storms frequently battered the shores. The fishermen of this village had learned to respect the power of the sea, and every evening as the sun dipped below...

Jeremiah 29:11Traditional

Sermon Illustration

Buying the House on Detroit's Hardest Block

In 2009, a Detroit schoolteacher named John George did something his neighbors called foolish. While families fled the city by the thousands, while foreclosure signs...

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15Universal

Sermon Illustration

Fortified by the Fracture

In 1892, German anatomist Julius Wolff documented something remarkable about human bone: it doesn't just endure stress — it grows stronger because of it. When...

Universalperseverance