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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 Coach Who Limped Every Mile

In 2019, cross-country coach Brad Holloway of Shelbyville, Indiana, watched his runner Jenna collapse at mile two of the state qualifier. She had trained all...

Isaiah 63:7-9Universal

242 words

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Sermon Illustration

Breakfast After the Worst Shift of Your Life

In 2018, a young ER nurse named David Chen walked out of Mercy Hospital in Sacramento after losing his first patient — a teenager from...

John 21:1-19Universal

259 words

Sermon Illustration

The Lead Climber's Rope

In 2013, mountaineer Conrad Anker led a team up the treacherous southwest face of Lunag Ri in the Himalayas. The route had never been completed....

1 Corinthians 15:20-27Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

When the Testimony Walked Into the Room

Before Frederick Douglass ever stood on a platform, abolitionists in the North had heard plenty about slavery. They read pamphlets and printed testimonies. They studied...

Hebrews 1:1-4Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Mother Who Prayed While Her Son Read the Tract

In June 1849, seventeen-year-old Hudson Taylor wandered into his father's library in Barnsley, England, looking for something to pass the time. He picked up a...

John 1:43-51Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Roommate Who Came Back Different

In 1987, Marcus Chen dropped out of the University of Michigan halfway through his sophomore year. His roommate, David Okafor, woke up one Tuesday to...

Philemon 1:15-16Universal

236 words

Sermon Illustration

Florence Nightingale and the Voice She Could Not Yet Name

On February 7, 1837, a sixteen-year-old girl sitting in the garden of Embley Park in Hampshire, England, heard something she could only describe as "God...

1 Samuel 3:1-10Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

Moravian Love That Changed the World

In August 1727, a fractured community of religious refugees gathered at Herrnhut, a small estate in Saxony owned by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. These...

John 13:31-35Universal

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Moment Augustine Put On the Light

In the summer of 386 AD, a thirty-one-year-old rhetoric professor sat weeping in a garden in Milan. Augustine of Hippo had spent years chasing ambition,...

Romans 13:11-14Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Bishop Who Knew the Alpha and Omega

In 155 AD, the Roman proconsul in Smyrna — one of the very churches John addressed in Revelation — dragged an elderly bishop named Polycarp...

Revelation 1:4-8Universal

247 words

Sermon Illustration

The First Harvest at Davis Bend

In 1864, along a bend of the Mississippi River, formerly enslaved men and women walked rows of cotton and corn they had planted with their...

Joshua 5:9-12Universal

261 words

Sermon Illustration

The Cricketer Who Counted It All Loss

In 1884, C.T. Studd was the most celebrated cricketer in England. Captain of the Cambridge team, national sporting hero, heir to a vast fortune —...

Philippians 3:4b-14Universal

233 words

Sermon Illustration

The Soup That Kept Showing Up

When Marcus Chen was diagnosed with ALS in 2019, his neighbors in a small subdivision outside Raleigh, North Carolina, didn't organize a single grand fundraiser...

John 13:34-35Universal

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Tracker Who Read Footprints Like Sentences

In the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, a San tracker named !Nate can identify every member of his community by their footprints alone. Not just...

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The GPS Said You've Arrived

In 2018, a paramedic named Rachel Torres responded to an overdose call in a Tucson apartment complex. She had been on dozens of these runs,...

Acts 9:1-6Universal

241 words

Sermon Illustration

The Load-Bearing Wall

In 2019, a couple in Charlotte, North Carolina, hired a contractor to open up their cramped kitchen. They wanted the wall between the kitchen and...

1 Corinthians 15:12-20Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The First Word Spoken Over the Clay

In 1987, master potter Magdalena Suarez stood in her workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico, at four in the morning. The kiln had gone cold overnight. No...

Genesis 1:1-3Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

Basil's City of Mercy Outside Caesarea

In 369 AD, a devastating famine swept through Cappadocia. Bishop Basil of Caesarea watched the wealthy of his city continue their feasting while peasants collapsed...

Isaiah 58:1-12Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The River That Brought a Desert Back to Life

In 1935, the Tennessee Valley was dying. Decades of poor farming had stripped the soil bare. Rivers ran brown with erosion. Families abandoned homesteads where...

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon's Blade That Heals

In 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, surgeon John Collins Warren made the first incision using ether anesthesia. Before that breakthrough, every patient who lay on...

Hebrews 4:12Universal

246 words

Sermon Illustration

The Fire That Already Burned

In August 1949, a crew of fifteen smokejumpers parachuted into Mann Gulch, Montana, to fight what seemed like a routine wildfire. But the blaze turned...

1 Peter 3:18-22Universal

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Symphony Inside a Single Cell

In 2003, when scientists finally mapped the entire human genome, Dr. Francis Collins — the director of the Human Genome Project and a devout Christian...

Psalm 139:14Universal

235 words

Sermon Illustration

The Surgeon Who Operated Without Power

In 2010, when a 7.0 earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dr. David Vanderpool arrived at a makeshift clinic with almost nothing. No electricity. No sterile operating...

1 Samuel 17:45Universal

227 words

Sermon Illustration

No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets

In 1904, sixteen-year-old William Borden graduated from a prestigious Chicago prep school as heir to the Borden dairy fortune. His family sent him on a...

John 12:1-8Universal

246 words