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HomeIllustrations

10,079 Illustrations

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Sermon Illustration

The Bridge Builder Who Never Abandons a Project

In 2011, engineer Linda Figg stood before skeptics in St. Petersburg, Florida, as construction began on the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge approach. Midway through the...

1 Corinthians 1:3-9Universal

230 words

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Sermon Illustration

The Counter-Signal

In 1978, Dr. Amar Bose boarded a transatlantic flight and slipped on the airline-provided headphones. The roar of the jet engines drowned out every note...

Universalfaith

223 words

Sermon Illustration

The Smallest Hands

In Tolkien's *The Lord of the Rings*, the fate of Middle-earth doesn't rest on the shoulders of warriors or wizards. It rests on a hobbit...

Universalhumility

219 words

Sermon Illustration

The Compass They Never Learned to Read

Every autumn, monarch butterflies leave southern Canada and fly nearly three thousand miles to a small cluster of oyamel fir trees in the mountains of...

Universalobedience

235 words

Sermon Illustration

Written Into Your Very Cells

Every day, without your knowledge or effort, each cell in your body sustains roughly one hundred thousand DNA lesions — damage from sunlight, metabolic byproducts,...

Universalrestoration

224 words

Sermon Illustration

The Nurse Log

In the old-growth forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, hikers often notice something remarkable: perfectly straight rows of towering Western hemlocks and Sitka spruces growing in...

Mark 10:45Universal

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Thread Through the Dark

In George MacDonald's *The Princess and the Goblin*, young Princess Irene receives a gift from her mysterious great-great-grandmother who lives in a hidden tower room:...

Universalobedience

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Wisdom of Bones

Orthopedic surgeons know something about patience that most of us would rather not hear. When a bone fractures, the body initiates a healing process that...

Universalpatience

251 words

Sermon Illustration

The Man Who Knew He Would Lose

In Harper Lee's *To Kill a Mockingbird*, Atticus Finch takes on the defense of Tom Robinson — a Black man falsely accused of a crime...

Universalcourage

225 words

Sermon Illustration

The Forest That Stands on Fungi

In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard published a groundbreaking discovery in the journal Nature. She found that the tallest, most majestic trees in British Columbia's forests...

Universalhumility

235 words

Sermon Illustration

Love That Makes Us Real

In Margery Williams's *The Velveteen Rabbit*, there is a conversation between two nursery toys that contains one of the most profound descriptions of love ever...

Universallove

234 words

Sermon Illustration

The Fingerprint That Stopped a Lecture

Dr. Sarah Chen was halfway through her forensic science lecture at Johns Hopkins when she paused mid-sentence. She had projected a magnified human fingerprint on...

Psalm 139:14Universal

238 words

Sermon Illustration

The Letters at the Bottom of the Page

Johann Sebastian Bach composed over a thousand works in his lifetime — soaring cantatas, intricate fugues, delicate chamber pieces. Some were performed for royalty. Others...

Universalpurpose

239 words

Sermon Illustration

Faith Without a Map

In J.R.R. Tolkien's *The Fellowship of the Ring*, there comes a moment at the Council of Elrond when the great and powerful have spent hours...

Universalfaith

232 words

Sermon Illustration

The Route That Makes No Sense

If you have ever used Waze, the crowd-sourced navigation app, you know the experience. You are heading somewhere familiar — a route you have driven...

Universalobedience

242 words

Sermon Illustration

The Gentle Cartographer of the Congo

In 1913, a young British missionary named Arthur Banks arrived in the Belgian Congo, where King Leopold's brutal rubber trade had left entire villages shattered....

Isaiah 42:1-9Universal

237 words

Sermon Illustration

The Blind Woman Who Said Thank You

Fanny Crosby was six weeks old when a country doctor applied a hot poultice to her inflamed eyes. The treatment was wrong. The damage was...

Universalforgiveness

230 words

Sermon Illustration

Stronger at the Break

In 1892, German anatomist Julius Wolff published a discovery that still shapes orthopedic medicine today. Known as Wolff's Law, it describes how bone tissue remodels...

Universalhealing

227 words

Sermon Illustration

The Courage to Begin Already Licked

In Harper Lee's *To Kill a Mockingbird*, Atticus Finch offers his children a definition of courage that has echoed through generations. After the death of...

Universalcourage

236 words

Sermon Illustration

The Moment Frederick Douglass Found the Key

In his *Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass*, Douglass describes a pivotal moment from his childhood in slavery. His slaveholder's wife, Sophia Auld, had...

Universalfreedom

239 words

Sermon Illustration

The Nerve Endings of the Soul

In the mid-twentieth century, British surgeon Dr. Paul Brand made a discovery that changed how the world understood leprosy. Working with patients in Vellore, India,...

Universalfaith

252 words

Sermon Illustration

The New Testament Under the Pillow

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's *Crime and Punishment*, Rodion Raskolnikov is a brilliant young man who convinces himself he stands above moral law. He commits murder, believing...

Universaltransformation

240 words

Sermon Illustration

The Path Only One Could See

In C.S. Lewis's *Prince Caspian*, the four Pevensie children are lost in the wilderness, trying to find their way to the rightful king. Then Lucy...

Universalobedience

243 words

Sermon Illustration

The Body's Humblest Messenger

Dr. Paul Brand, a British orthopedic surgeon who spent decades treating leprosy patients in Vellore, India, made a discovery that changed modern medicine. Leprosy, he...

Universalhumility

214 words