Using Illustrations to Preach with Power (Revised Edition) E-Book

Bryan Chapell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2001

Beschreibung

If the apostle Paul had not punctuated his words with images of the armor of God or the racecourse, would we so easily remember his instruction? The march on Washington might have become nothing more than a ragged hike across a majestic mall if Martin Luther King, Jr. had not led us through a "dream" and onto a "mountaintop." Such is the power of illustrations. They contain a hidden dynamic of living that captures our attention and furthers our understanding in a way that no other sermonic tool can match. Can they be overused and their purpose abused? Yes—and by many they are. But to eliminate them completely would be unwise, maintains Bryan Chapell. Instead, he responds to those concerns by reviewing the theory behind illustrations, sharing why they're important, and demonstrating how you can use them effectively in your biblical preaching. This book clearly affirms that illustrations are integral to powerful preaching—not because they entertain but because they expand and deepen applications in the lives of your listeners. They infuse your words with life without comprising the message, making the truth of the Word ring clearly in people's hearts long after your sermon is done.

Leseprobe

Using Illustrations to Preach with Power

Using Illustrations to Preach with Power

Copyright © 1992, 2001 by Bryan Chapell

Originally published by Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.

Crossway Books revised edition first published 2001.

Published by Crossway

              1300 Crescent Street

              Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture references marked kjv are from the King James Version.

Scripture references marked rsv are from the Revised Standard Version. Copyright© 1946, 1953, 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

Scripture references marked nrsv are from the New Revised Standard Version.

Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

Cover design: David LaPlaca

First Crossway printing of revised edition, 2001

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chapell, Bryan.

Using illustrations to preach with power / Bryan Chapell.—

Crossway Books rev. ed.

          p.      cm. Originally published: Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Books, 1992.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-264-2 (alk. paper)

ISBN 10: 1-58134-264-0

1. Preaching.   2. Homiletical illustrations.    I. Title.

BV4226.C43         2001

251'.08—dc21                                                  00-012628

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

CH    20   19    18    17    16    15    14    13     12    11    10

To my wife, Kathy,

whose love secures our family

with such strength

that I am able to embark on

Acknowledgments

Thanks for this work are extended:

To Covenant Theological Seminary, which has given me the great privilege of teaching others the wonder of preaching the Word of God.

To Mrs. June Dare, whose tireless secretarial efforts enable me to do so much more than I have a right to expect.

Contents

Introduction: Wizened or Wise?11Part One Background and Theory: Deciding About Illustrations1The Art and the Argument192The Path of Scripture373Insights from Learning and Communication Theories494The Genius of Life-Situation Illustrations65Part Two The Method: Making IllustrationsIntroduction to Part Two: Snapshots from Life855Framing the Picture896Filling the Frame107Part Three The Practice: Working with Illustrations7The Character of Illustrations1318Cautions for Effective Illustrations1399Finding and Filing Illustrations167Conclusion: Tell Me a Story175Appendix: The Limits of Narrative177Bibliography193General Index205Illustrations Index207Scripture Index208

Introduction

Wizened or Wise?

I was preaching on the Incarnation from the second chapter of Philippians. I wanted my congregation to understand the rich implications of Christ’s humanity without falling into the ancient trap of diminishing his deity. I waxed long and carefully over the correct understanding of the seventh verse, where the ancient hymn records that Jesus “made himself nothing.” I even got a bit excited about the original language wording. I pounded my fist on the pulpit to emphasize a proper understanding of the Greek term kenosis. But the congregation seemed to share little of my excitement. I went home questioning whether, despite my fervor, anyone knew anything more than when they entered church that Sunday. I had the sneaking suspicion that more than one spouse asked the other on the way home what the pastor was so worked up about that morning—only to be answered by shrugged shoulders.

A few weeks after my kenosis sermon, our church hosted a missions conference. Paul and Carolyn London from Sudan Interior Mission were our speakers. To my horror, on the first Sunday morning of the conference Paul announced that he would be preaching on the same passage of Philippians I had so recently expounded. I feared the congregation would be frustrated at this redundancy since I had just explained the text so thoroughly. My fears initially seemed to be confirmed. The missionary began his message by emphasizing the continuing divinity of Christ just as I had. He narrowed his exposition to verse 7 just as I had. Then, however, his preaching took a different turn. Instead of concentrating on the Greek translation, the experienced missionary explained the text this way:

Where Carolyn and I minister in Africa the strongest man of the tribe is the chief. You might think this is because the chief must wear a very large headdressand heavy ceremonial robes,but there are other reasons, as you shall soon see.

Water is very scarce where these people live, so they have to dig deep wells. These are not wells as we know them—with brick walls, a pulley, and a bucket at the end of a rope. The African people sink a narrow well shaft as much as 100 feet into the ground. Even though the well is deep, the ground water of that dry land seeps very slowly into it and there is never a drop to waste. If the water were too easy to reach, the people might not use it sparingly, or an enemy might steal the next day’s supply at night. So, the tribesmen cut a1ternating slits into the wall of the well all the way down to the water. By alternating his weight from one leg to the other, a man can use these slits as steps to walk down the shaft to the water. Only the largest, strongest men can make the arduous climb down the well and back up again with a full water skin for the whole tribe.

One day a man carrying water out of the shaft fell and broke his leg. He lay at the bottom of the well. No one dared to help because no one had the strength to make the climb carrying another man. The chief was summoned. When he saw the plight of the injured man, he doffed his massive headdress and discarded his ceremonial robe. Then the chief climbed down into the well, took the weight of the injured man on himself, and brought the man to safety. The chief did what no one else could do.

This is just what Jesus did for us. He came down to rescue us by taking the weight of our sin on himself. He put aside his heavenly honors, just as the chief put aside his headdress and robe, in order to save us. But let me ask you a question, friends. When that chief took off his headdress and robe, did he stop being the chief? No, of course not. In the same way, when Jesus “made himself nothing” and put aside his heavenly glory, he never ceased being God.

I stood beside Paul London as he shook hands with the people leaving church that morning. Almost everyone said something about the story he told. The most common comment was, “I never understood that verse until you explained it that way.” No one was trying to insult me. Probably not one in fifty even remembered my kenosis epic. But now they not only remembered the Scripture, they understood it. The missionary’s illustration had more than entertained. It had communicated biblical truth effectively—more effectively than my propositions.

The experience shook me because it challenged some of my basic assumptions about preaching. Only a few weeks earlier I had nodded in agreement when a wizened visiting professor leaned back in his armchair in our den and began a ten-minute complaint against the faults of current preaching—chief among them the use of illustrations. “All we do is entertain people,” he said. “It is not enough just to preach. Now we must tell stories and be comedians. It’s all because of TV. People just cannot sit and think anymore. We have to parade illustrations before them like hosts of a variety show. I will sprinkle some illustrations in my sermons because I must in order to make people listen, but how I hate it.”

I had heard this attitude expressed many times. I accepted its validity in part because it was often expressed by those I respected. I also adopted the attitude because I could identify with this eminent scholar’s discomfort over pandering to an audience’s weaknesses in order to hold attention on God’s Word. I have sensed the inappropriateness of my own calculated use of illustrations and have looked down on those who seem to rely on them without shame. Still, something wonderful had happened when Paul London spoke. The truth I valued had rung clearly in the hearts of my people, and I could sense no compromise in the man or the message.

My mind began to whirl with questions I previously had not dared to ask. I expected the scholar to be right, yet I witnessed my congregation sharing little of his antipathy for illustrations. The church seemed to reflect attitudes common among evangelicals. Unless the preaching degenerates into “just telling stories,” people do not complain about the illustrative content of sermons. In fact, congregations seem to think illustrations are often the most memorable, informative, and moving portions of many sermons. Is this because laypeople just do not appreciate good preaching? Is it, as the professor suggested, because television dominates the expectations and diminishes the capabilities of the modern mind? Or, could it be that illustrations contain a hidden dynamic of living truth that captures attention and furthers understanding in a way that no other sermonic tool can match? Such was my dilemma: Should I believe my colleague or my experience with the Londons?

The more I considered the contrast in my own recent experience and the scholar’s assessment, the more questions I had. The use of illustrations has persisted through nearly two thousand years of Western preaching. My mailbox still overflows weekly with advertisements for periodicals, card catalogs, and computer services that market sermonic illustrations. Preachers as well as laypeople seem to have an almost insatiable appetite for this material. Have so many abandoned solid preaching, or do they instinctively know illustrations make their preaching more effective? As a conscientious preacher I recognized that, while responsible, biblical preaching must never pander to worldly pragmatics, neither must it reject an age-old tool without fully evaluating its usefulness. My search for some answers about the value of illustrations led to some unanticipated conclusions, which are the foundation of this book.

I discovered that today’s congregations are not necessarily more dependent on illustrations than their historic Christian predecessors. Television has certainly changed our public-speaking expectations, but it does not seem radically to have changed the way the human mind functions and processes information. The mind yearns for, and needs, the concrete to anchor the abstract.

To say that illustrations aid the intellect, however, does not mean that they are merely a cognitive crutch. Illustrations are not supplemental to good exposition; they are a necessary form of exposition in which biblical truths are explained to the emotions and the will as well as to the intellect. Illustrations will not allow mere head knowledge. They exegete Scripture in the terms of human experience to create a whole-person understanding of God’s Word. By framing biblical truths in the world in which we live and move and have our being, illustrations unite our personalities, our pasts, our present, our affections, our fears, our frustrations, our hopes, our hearts, our minds, and our souls in the understanding of that which is divine. They are integral to effective preaching, not merely because they may entertain or clarify, but because they expand and deepen the applications the mind and heart can make.

The purpose of this book is to demonstrate why and how illustrations can be used in biblical preaching. My motivation is twofold: (1) I want to share an appreciation for the ways in which the effective use of illustrations can reach the people of God with the truths of his Word; and (2) I love the truths of God’s Word more than illustrations. The complaint of my senior colleague is not without basis. Illustrations can be, and often are, used for all the wrong reasons. If this book can help provide insight into the proper use and development of illustrations in biblical preaching, then perhaps we can avoid the uses that damage our messages and preach with greater clarity of content and purity of purpose.

The charge to do no harm with illustrations has created an added obligation since I first wrote this book a decade ago. In the intervening years the narrative principles that underscroe the importance of sermonic illustrations have enjoyed a flowering influence that has swept across the homiletics landscape. Now we speak about narrative sermons as much as we speak about narrative illustrations in sermons. The shift from illustrating propositions in expository messages to substituting narrative for propositional truth in entire messages has been pronounced and pervasive. Lest preachers make this shift without an awareness of what may be sacrificed in the rush to satisfy our culture’s thirst for “personal experience” and antipathy for “Scriptural authority,” I have included new material in the appendix on “The Limits of Narrative.” My goal is not to deny the power of narrative but to keep it functioning according to biblical principles.

My goal is to keep occasions such as when Paul London spoke so effectively from being isolated or rare. The power and integrity with which he expressed the Word of God can be duplicated. This does not diminish the wonderful impact of his words. It gives us hope that our words can be just as effective when we understand the illustrative tools he so masterfully employed.

PART ONE

Background and Theory:

DECIDING ABOUT ILLUSTRATIONS

1

The Art and the Argument

crisis in Preaching

Widespread dissatisfaction with preaching cuts across our churches. The disenchantment began to boil to the surface almost a generation ago. Young and old alike complained of preaching that was lost in abstraction, buried in jargon, and frozen in formula words incapable of firing the courage or of forging the answers needed for an age of unprecedented change. Thoughts too lofty to touch the realities of life precipitated criticism, the like of which American preachers had not endured since battles over slavery eroded public reverence for pulpit robes. Preachers cried for answers. Experts studied, surveyed, and assessed.

Clyde Reid offered the perspective of religious professionals:

(1) Preachers tend to use complex, archaic language which the average person does not understand; (2) most sermons today are dull, boring, and uninteresting; (3) most preaching today is irrelevant; (4) preaching today is not courageous preaching; (5) preaching does not communicate; (6) preaching does not lead to change in persons; (7) preaching has been overemphasized.