Though it hardly seems possible, I recently completed a quarter of a century teaching homiletics at Southern Seminary. Many things have changed during my tenure, but in hundreds of preaching classes during that time, one thing has remained constant: illustrations have a bad reputation, at least in some quarters.

Every semester, when some students (usually claiming to be deeply, even reverently, committed to an expository model) challenge me, I must explain why good illustrations used well can help their preaching. In fact, I contend that expositors benefit most from good illustrations precisely because they use them to explain the biblical text.

Their objections, which they’ve almost always heard from certain of their favorite preachers, typically fall into three categories.
• Illustrations appeal to the emotions and are inherently manipulative.
• Illustrations deny the sufficiency of Scripture because they are extrabiblical.
• Illustrations are mere fluff and filler and contribute nothing to the exposition of God’s Word.

Before answering these specific objections, I must acknowledge two irrefutable facts about sermon illustrations that can contribute to their bad reputation. First, many preachers use them badly. Second, their use comes with a lot of potential landmines that can derail the sermon even for preachers who believe in their power.

An illustration that is irrelevant and ill-fitting rather than one that explains or applies the point of the text undermines the preaching task. An illustration can overshadow the text because of its length or because the preacher preaches the illustration more than the biblical passage itself. Illustrations that are controversial or even remotely offensive can generate an internal conversation in the minds of the listeners, other than the one the preacher wants them to have. Instead of thinking about the meaning or application of the text, they may begin thinking, “I don’t think he should have said that. How are other people reacting to this? Was that a dig at someone?”

Despite the potential problems from bad illustrations, good sermon illustrations are, as master illustrator and Prince of Preachers Charles Spurgeon noted, “windows of light” on the text. Not only do they hold interest, but they also help an audience understand and apply the Scriptures. Illustrations set a hook and establish a mnemonic connection to the meaning of the pericope.

Emotionalism should never be the goal of an illustration, but emotion itself is neither intrinsically manipulative nor wrong. The same God who commanded “the foolishness of preaching” as the means of proclaiming the Word also designed the human brain and the emotions it experiences. Every text has an inherent emotional content, and the sermon should strive to communicate it along with the intellectual content.

Furthermore, illustrations are not even extrabiblical, so they cannot be unbiblical. Jesus and the prophets heavily sprinkled images and illustrations in their preaching. A bramble bush that ruled over the trees, a potter and his wheel, a king going to war without counting the cost, and branches grew into an olive tree are powerful pictures that communicate a spiritual truth – and emotion! One can hardly accuse Jesus or Paul of denying the sufficiency of Scripture.

Augustine’s City of God is an extended metaphor that illustrates the difference between the divine and the human realms of existence. Did Jonathan Edwards deny Scriptural sufficiency in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” because he used an illustration about a spider’s web? The church fathers and preachers throughout Christian history have almost universally employed illustrations as one means of explaining Scripture.

Finally, illustrations don’t ruin sermons; preachers ruin sermons. They are only u and irrelevant if the expositor chooses or employs them poorly. They may be cliché, irrelevant, or unhelpful, but let’s argue against cliché, irrelevant, or unhelpful illustrations instead of all illustrations.

If the primary task of preaching is to teach the meaning of the biblical text, then any tool that helps the preacher do that well deserves a good reputation.