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2,491 illustrations across all 28 chapters
Joseph Exell's *Biblical Illustrator* identifies three categories of doubt worthy of pastoral attention.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Matthew.
In The Visitor, Walter Vale—a disconnected economics professor—returns to his New York apartment to find immigrants Tarek and Zainab living there illegally. He could call the police. Instead, he lets them stay. Tarek teaches him to play the djembe drum; life enters Walter's gray existence.
This narrative reveals the desperate calculus of faith.
The Jews employed the pipe (*aulos*) for both marriages and funerals—music for joy and mourning alike.
Yet Christ Himself declared He came not with peace, but with a sword.
Exell's *Biblical Illustrator* (1887), the sin of those rejecting the apostles encompassed five grave transgressions: infidelity, disobedience, ingratitude, inhospitality, and rebellion against God—defiance contrary to both natural law and divine grace.
Both old cloth and new cloth share the nature of cloth; similarly, old wine and new wine share the nature of wine.
Why should not the seekers of Jesus fear?
Jesus Christ proclaimed these words knowing the world's deepest moral condition.
This supernatural eclipse during the crucifixion carries five profound theological meanings, as exposited by Dean Stanley and W.
On the night of Matthew 14:24, wind descended with such fury that experienced fishermen-apostles, after nine hours of *ponos* (toiling), had advanced merely three miles against it.
The parable of the wheat and tares reveals a profound truth: the beauty of the righteous man remains hidden in the present age.
To pray is to *ask* (*aiteo*) of God; the more childlike the asking, the better.
Here stands a paradox of human nature: those nearest to salvation often reject it most vehemently.
In Big Fish, Edward Bloom tells fantastical stories his son Will dismisses as lies. Only at his father's deathbed does Will understand: the stories were how Edward loved—transforming ordinary people into giants, witches, and mermaids because that's how he saw them.
The Victorian expositor understood this command as operating on five essential dimensions.
Little sins are peculiarly offensive to God precisely because they are little—we risk offending Him for what we ourselves care very little about and expect insignificant return from.
In The Impossible, the Belon family is separated by the 2004 tsunami. Maria and Lucas are swept miles away; Henry searches with the younger boys. Against all odds, they reunite. What survived the wave? Not their possessions—family, love, determination to find each other.
Christ did not encourage this impetuous declaration but instead checked it—exposing the man's resolution as that of an unreflecting emotionalist and ambitious worldling.
Because all members share identical stakes in eternity.
This is not optical biology but moral vision.
Christ teaches that false messiahs will arise, claiming "Lo, here is Christ" or "There!" yet believers possess sufficient tests to unmask pretenders.
All intelligent creatures act from some consideration—money, pleasure, regard for others—yet Christ calls us to a higher ordering of life itself.
In The Help, Skeeter Phelan writes the stories of Black maids in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. These invisible women become visible; their humanity becomes undeniable. I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.