“You are not allowed to use one-arm swimmers in a sermon,” my pastoral mentor said. I gave the only appropriate response to such a declaration, “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Sermon illustrations that have no point,” he answered. “Just like a one-arm swimmers, you are doing a lot of work and just going in a circle. Only illustrate something that needs illustrating.”

Ne’er a week goes by in sermon prep when I don’t think about one-arm swimmers. What is the proper place of illustrations in preaching? Is there any place at all?

LET THE MASTERS SPEAK

Recently, after conversing on the place of illustrations with a church member I decided to hit some influential preaching books and see what the masters say about my mentor’s conviction and the overall value of illustrations.

I know Bryan Chapell wouldn’t agree with my mentor’s one-arm swimmer sentiment. In Christ-Centered Preaching Chapell writes, “The primary purpose of illustration is not to clarify but to motivate. Preachers who fail to undersand this will assume that when the point they are making is clear, they do not need an illustration. Preachers who grasp the true power and purposes of illustration know that the most clear points often deserve the best illustrations to make the truth as significant to the hearer as it is in Scripture.” If you’ve ever heard Chapell preach you know he teaches what he practices. The good doctor loves illustrations.

In his Faithful Preaching Tony Merida “agree[s] with Chapell’s rationale” that sometimes the thing that most needs illustration is that which is clearest.

So say the captains of the “Pro One-Arm Swimmers Club.”

There are a group of professors and practitioners who commend wise use of illustrations and don’t really care about whether or not the point is already clear enough from Scripture. Haddon Robinson is one of them. He says the best illustrations “work with argument to gain acceptance.” His sentiment can be summarized as: judiciously illustrate wherever and whenever.

In his magisterial Between Two Worlds Stott is his typically – and gloriously – plain self, writing, “I cannot help agreeing that a Christian has no possible excuse for neglecting illustrations, for there is ample divine [and historical] precedent to encourage him.” Scatter ’em throughout the sermon is Stott’s standard.

I’m sure many seasoned preachers would agree with Alex Motyer who says, “Illustrations in a sermon don’t help me, and I have to keep reminding myself that they do help other people, and must therefore be thoughtfully used. When listening to a sermon, if I sense an illustration coming on, I want to call out to the preacher, ‘Yes, yes, we know all that. Please get on with the job!’ But I know that my attitude has been formed by enforced listening regularly to a (very kindly and effective) preacher who abounding in what he called ‘little stories’. . . . To tell you the truth, I have come to the conclusion that the chief usefulness of illustrations is to give our hearers a little rest!”

I couldn’t agree more with Motyer myself.

Then there are a few who seem to agree with my sagacious mentor.

A BALANCED [AND MAYBE RELUCTANT] APPROACH

In their co-authored volume Preach Mark Dever and Greg Gilbert admit that illustrations have a place, but they point out a significant problem illustration can bring. Dever recalls “hearing a sermon some years ago in which a preacher gave a ten- or fifteen-minute illustration in a half-hour sermon. In all honesty it was a good story that he told well and convincingly. I remember the details of it even now. I remember the plot line of the story. In fact, I even remember some of the names of the people involved, and that’s highly unusual for me. But here’s the rub: I could not begin to tell you the passage of Scripture this brother was preaching on, or what his points were, or the spiritual impression of the text. I don’t even remember the point he was illustrating with the story. All I remember is the story.”

What Dever is getting at is something The Doctor makes even more explicit in his timeless ruminations Preaching and Preachers. He says, “Stories and illustrations are only meant to illustrate truth, not to call attention to themselves.” Many of us are familiar with that fine line. I recently told someone I had to rewrite the end of my sermon because it concluded with an illustration that, although likely to powerfully move the congregation’s heart, wasn’t really incontrovertibly tied to the text. Should I have used it Lloyd-Jones would freely accuse me of “professionalism” and playing “the art of the harlot” for it would have paid “too much attention to, and is too much concerned about, enticing people.”

MLJ would seem to go against Chapell on this point. For Chapell says illustrations are all about “motivating” people and I think his definition of motivation is exactly what The Doctor would call enticement.

One paragraph from Lloyd-Jones on this issue is worth quoting in full:

As the result of listening to preachers for many years, preaching myself, and discussing these matters, and considering them constantly, I am prepared to go so far as to say that if you use too many illustrations in your sermon your preaching will be ineffective. To do so always means loss of tension. There is the type of preacher who after saying a few words says, ‘I remember’ – then out comes the story. Then after a few more remarks again, ‘I remember.’ This means that the theme, the thrust of the Truth, is constantly being interrupted; it becomes staccato, and in the end you feel that you have been listening to a kind of after-dinner speaker or entertainer and not to a man proclaiming a grand a glorious Truth. If such preachers become popular, and they frequently do, they are popular only in a bad sense, because they are really nothing but popular entertainers.”

Safe to say The Doctor would be against one-arm swimmers in your sermon? No doubt.

SOMETHING THAT LASTS

The final sentence in that paragraph above strikes a chord I often feel. Masters of illustration are almost invariably popular, but how many have stood the test of time? None that I know of. Rattle off the names of those preachers mightily used by God throughout the centuries and you will find many common denominators. Sparseness in illustration would be one of them.

This is not to say they would be, ipso facto, against illustration. I mean, The Prince himself gave an entire lecture extolling the virtues of “Illustration in Preaching.” But read his sermons and tell me I doubt you’d say his use of illustration looks anything like what we commonly see and hear today.

To return to where we began, “What is the proper place of illustrations in preaching?” My answer would be, “Their place is to provide an undeniably subordinate, yet colorful, hue on the truth of sacred Scripture.” So I probably stand in the strange chasm between Dever/MLJ and Motyer.

Illustrations are dangerously valuable. They can help and they can harm. Remind yourself often, there is power in the Word, not in your stories. Your people will never feel that if you don’t feel it yourself.

Pull out your sermon notes for this coming weekend and ask, “What will they remember from this sermon? My illustrations? Or the clear and bold exposition of Scripture?” It’s possible they will remember both, but with fervor and love aim for the Spirit to write God’s word, not your stories, on your congregation’s heart.