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29 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use
In 1709, a fire destroyed the Epworth rectory in Lincolnshire, England, and Susanna Wesley nearly lost her three-year-old son John to the flames. She had...
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with 2 Samuel.
By 1741, George Frideric Handel was a ruined man. The composer who had once dazzled London with Italian operas now faced mounting debts, empty concert...
In 1940, when Nazi forces swept into Norway, a small congregation in the village of Rjukan found themselves trapped between occupation and despair. Their pastor,...
Samuel Wesley spent forty years as the rector of Epworth, a small parish in the marshlands of Lincolnshire, England. He labored faithfully, wrote theological treatises...
In 1987, a carpenter named Earl Watkins spent his Saturdays rebuilding the rotting front porch of Calvary Baptist Church in rural Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He measured...
In 1989, Hurricane Hugo barreled toward Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, with 140-mile-per-hour winds. Most residents evacuated. But the old Charleston Light — a triangular steel...
Johann Sebastian Bach signed nearly every manuscript the same way: "S.D.G." — *Soli Deo Gloria*, "To God alone be the glory." In the dim candlelight...
In 1722, a twenty-two-year-old German nobleman named Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf offered a corner of his family estate in Saxony as refuge for a small...
In 1248, Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden laid the foundation stone for the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. He envisioned a soaring Gothic masterpiece that would house...
In 1722, a twenty-one-year-old German nobleman named Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf made what seemed like a modest gesture. A band of persecuted Moravian Christians needed...
In 2019, retired carpenter George Hammond of Tupelo, Mississippi, announced to his children that he wanted to build them something — a family gathering hall...
In 1929, Joseph Strauss submitted his final design for the Golden Gate Bridge, but he never saw traffic cross it. He died just months after...
In 1952, a young minister named Will Campbell sat in a segregated diner in Nashville, laughing with his white colleagues while a Black seminary student...
In 1248, Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden laid the foundation stone for Cologne Cathedral in Germany. He envisioned a magnificent house of worship that would dwarf...
In 1882, Antoni Gaudí took over construction of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, convinced he was building something magnificent for God. He poured forty-three years...
In the early 1800s, a barefoot man named John Chapman walked hundreds of miles across Ohio and Indiana, planting apple nurseries in clearings he would...
In 1856, British surveyor Andrew Waugh sat at his desk in Dehradun, India, staring at calculations that defied every mountain he had ever measured. Peak...
In 1806, John Chapman — better known as Johnny Appleseed — planted a small nursery of apple trees along the banks of Owl Creek in...
In 2019, Habitat for Humanity volunteer Marcus Chen showed up at a build site in rural Georgia with his own architectural drawings. He'd spent weeks...
In 1956, a young carpenter named Earl Palmer saved up enough money to buy land outside Asheville, North Carolina. He had one dream: build a...
In 1987, a cardiac surgeon in Portland named Dr. Raymond Kelley made an error during a routine bypass that left a forty-year-old mother partially paralyzed....
Marcus Torres spent three years saving to renovate his father's crumbling barbershop on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. The ceiling tiles sagged. The plumbing groaned. Every...
In 1248, Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden laid the foundation stone for a new cathedral in Cologne, Germany. The design was breathtaking — twin spires reaching...
In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller spread a massive woodcut across his workshop table in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France. He was attempting something audacious — a complete...