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Grafting in the Third-Person Illustration (part two)

How to make illustrations that do not come from your own experience into an organic part of the sermon.

Craig Brian Larson

This is part two of a two-part series. To read part one, click here.

What is intended when discerning homileticians scorn " canned " illustrations or when savvy preachers say, " I illustrate only from my own experience " ? What problem have they rightly recognized? A discriminating view of third-person illustrations finds that the problem is not third-person illustrations, per se, nor their medium, but rather the quality of third-person illustrations and the skill with which they are used.

Not all third-person illustrations are aluminum; some are like a tree cutting that we can graft into a bountiful olive tree. Chosen with care and used with skill, these illustrations can bud and flourish and bear fruit like a branch native to the tree.

I see six real problems with some third-person illustrations and how they are used. This final article looks at numbers three through six. For each problem I offer discriminating solutions.

3. Some third-person illustrations have ...