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28 illustrations for sermon preparation
The upright man bequeaths his heirs three precious gifts: (1) His example—a living testimony that sons and daughters may trace throughout their own success.
Some possess remarkable skill in dwelling exclusively upon dark things: black aspects, wintry phases, deprivations, bereavements, losses.
Exell's commentary on Proverbs 20:17, the love of pleasure stands as "the secret of the failure of nine-tenths of our unsuccessful young men." The wise man identifies pleasure—particularly when pursued as *hedone* (self-gratification)—as fundamentally opposed to material and spiritual prosperity.
The present is intimately related to the future, and the future will faithfully reflect the character.
Exell identifies four formidable obstacles by which mortals attempt resistance to the Almighty's purposes.
Religious instruction must uphold God's law as supreme, though these three need not contradict one another.
Clean hands may indicate abstinence from visible transgressions, yet a clean heart—*katharos*—concerns the inward disposition, the bias of the will, and the affections themselves.
This proverb exposes the merchant who deprecates goods to negotiate a lower price, then brags of his shrewd bargain once the transaction concludes.
First, the physical: Yahweh fashioned our sensory organs, yet some men deny His authorship, attributing ear and eye to gradual evolutionary development.
This breath infused intelligence in the brain and vitality in the heart, making man a moral being capable of virtue and responsible for his actions.
Under the Levitical dispensation, tithes, firstfruits, and firstlings were consecrated to the Lord.
Boundaries were marked by corner-stones placed at the edges of fields.
One such truth concerns a child's early accountability.
— Christianity does not shield disciples from misfortune and calamity; rather, it requires trouble for spiritual maturation.
The book of nature and providence lies open to all humanity, yet the heathen philosophers shamefully wandered from it, erring grossly in their pursuit of vile affections.
Fear here is a comprehensive notion encompassing all duties owed to Elohim principally, and to the king subordinately.
Solomon commands: "Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them." The wise are least likely to covet such company, yet this counsel applies universally.
The "wheel" is not primarily an instrument of torture, but a threshing tool.
Exell's Victorian exposition distinguishes between two essential dimensions of this strength, each indispensable to true manhood.
Just as plants have evolved defenses against harmful insects, the soul requires vigilance against those who deceive through honeyed words.
This is no superficial cleanliness but a composition free from wrong admixture.
They have beaten me and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. (Proverbs 20:35) Joseph S. Exell's 1887 illustration draws a striking parallel between surgical anaesthesia and moral corruption. Just as modern medicine...
We are shaped irrevocably by our mothers in that far-off time of childhood—we become what our homes made us.
The Acts of the Apostles overflows with language of "disputation," "conference," and "reasoning." The apostles "came together to consider the matter"; "It pleased the apostles and elders and the whole Church"; they assembled "with one accord." This pattern reveals how...
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