ArticleBlog | Personal experience too personal? The risks and rewards of preaching from experience
Personal experience too personal? The risks and rewards of preaching from experience
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.06.18
The word ‘illustration’ is from a Latin root meaning ‘light up’ or ‘illuminate’. A picture – an illustration – is a visual representation of an actual thing. To illustrate is also to compare – it’s a way of understanding one thing by relating it to another.
When we preach, we aren’t just retelling the ideas we find in the Bible. If we were, we’d just be lecturers, conveying information from our own minds into the minds of our hearers. Instead, we’re engaging with our congregations in all the rich and fascinating variety of what makes them human. They are, like us, creatures of flesh and blood, with loves and hates and fears. They have known their personal triumphs and disasters, and they have dreams for their future.
How does the preacher bridge the gap between the words and world of the Bible and the world of these believers today? That’s where illustrations come in: they illuminate, they represent and they compare. And since it’s human lives that are the target of the sermon, what better way of illustrating the Bible than with the rich and fascinating life of the preacher?
