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121 illustrations — Vivid stories and real-world analogies for sermon use
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters finally receded from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, residents returned to find almost nothing standing. Houses had...
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Genesis.
In 2018, the Hernandez family lost nearly everything when an electrical fire swept through their home in suburban Houston. Their two daughters, ages six and...
When the Great Fire of London consumed Old St. Paul's Cathedral in September 1666, Christopher Wren walked through the smoldering ruins surveying the devastation. Amid...
A few springs ago, I found myself kneeling in the garden, fingers buried in the rich, dark soil. I was planting seeds—tiny, unassuming things that held the promise of life and beauty. As I pushed each seed into the earth,...
As the sun peeked over the horizon one early morning, I found myself standing by the edge of a tranquil lake, the surface mirroring the soft hues of dawn. The stillness was profound, as if creation was awakening to the...
In 386 AD, a brilliant young professor sat weeping beneath a fig tree in a Milan garden. Augustine of Hippo had spent sixteen years running...
In 1798, at the age of sixty-six, Franz Joseph Haydn began composing what many consider his greatest work — *The Creation*. The oratorio opens with...
In 1679, the Great Plague swept through Vienna, killing an estimated 76,000 people in a matter of months. Emperor Leopold I, who had fled the...
In early twentieth-century Japan, Tokichi Ishii sat in a prison cell awaiting execution. He had been convicted of multiple murders, and guards considered him one...
In a world grappling with divisive politics and social unrest, the call to cultivate a Better Political Imagination feels as urgent as ever. Imagine a small community nestled in the heart of Appalachia, where the rugged landscape is both beautiful...
In 2019, Marcus and Diana Chen were settled. He managed a thriving dental practice in suburban Atlanta. She ran the children's ministry at their church...
In 1943, British officer Eric Lomax was captured by the Japanese army and forced to labor on the Burma-Thailand railway. When his captors discovered he...
In 2019, a young National Guard sergeant named Marcus Rivera drove through the night after spending three grueling days helping evacuate families during Hurricane Dorian...
In the winter of 1844, George Müller sat at the head of a long table in his Bristol orphanage, surrounded by three hundred children and...
In downtown Oklahoma City, an American Elm stands in the northwest corner of the National Memorial. Before April 19, 1995, nobody paid it much attention...
In a small coastal village, there lived a fisherman named Mateo. For decades, he had cast his nets into the shimmering waters that had sustained his family for generations. But in recent years, the tides had changed—fishing seasons grew erratic,...
On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb tore through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. The blast shattered glass...
On May 8, 1945, Winston Churchill stood on the balcony of the Ministry of Health in London and addressed a crowd of thousands packed into...
In 2019, seven-year-old Marcus Thompson of Decatur, Georgia, shattered his grandmother's antique vase while throwing a football in the living room. His father, DeShawn, came...
On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall stood before Harvard's graduating class and made a quiet, extraordinary promise. Europe lay in ruins —...
In April 1916, Ernest Shackleton stood on the rocky shore of Elephant Island and made a promise to his twenty-two stranded men: "I will come...
In our rapidly changing world, where the dialogues between science and faith often feel like a tug-of-war, we find ourselves in a place not unlike the biblical figures who grappled with their own understandings of truth. Think of Noah, standing...
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee walked into the parlor of Wilmer McLean's farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Civil War had...
On a cold November evening in 2019, thirteen-year-old Marcus slipped out of his grandmother's house in Memphis and didn't come back. He'd broken her antique...