Marks of Good Preaching - Avoiding Illustration Delusion
To the Reader: If you have not already done so, please read the introduction to this series, ”Thoughts on Sermon Criticism”, before reading this article.
This is the next article in a series. The previous article: “Don’t Avoid Growing Pains”.
It is not uncommon to start studying a text of the Bible and soon the passage reminds us of something else — a story, thing, or process. That’s often the birth of a sermon illustration.
I once had a traveling evangelist tell me that he preaches mostly in stories and illustrations because that’s how Jesus preached. While that’s not entirely accurate, it’s not entirely false. Jesus used parables and illustrations often. But be careful, his reasons for doing so are not the same reasons why we preach. Matthew 13:10-16 makes it clear that Jesus purpose for preaching this way was to obscure truth from specific people. In this he had a sovereign purpose. Our preaching is not his. To use this to turn all of our preaching into story-telling is to mistake Jesus’ purpose in his preaching. His style is not a green light to preach in stories. But what’s so bad about stories and illustrations?
If we’re not careful, our study can become completely colored by illustrations. Before long, a subtle shift occurs. We begin to work backwards from the illustration until we see ideas in the text whether they really belong there or not. This happens so subtly and quickly that we have likely all done it, myself included. If we’re not careful, good illustrations can lead to delusions. Another way to say it is that we should not build doctrine from illustrations.
Consider a common example. We begin with passages that deal with casting bread upon the water and it returns after many days (Ecclesiastes 11:1). Or perhaps we read about the liberal/generous soul being made fat (Proverbs 11:25). These are general passages about the value of Old Testament generosity.
We read passages like this, and it's not hard to derive an illustration about aggressively investing for retirement. There are similarities of course. In other words, being generous with God is like investing and getting monetary returns on our investments. Then, we begin to think about all of the good principles of investing in the stock market, and next, we start working backwards from that to the Bible. For example — It's good to invest early in life. It's good to invest consistently and liberally. Maybe it's good to invest with automatic withdrawal from your pay, pre-tax of course.
Thanks to chain or cross-references, all of those principles start getting applied to the concept of first-fruits giving, robbing God, and percentages like the tithe in Malachi 3. Then, we end up in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, and so on.
But notice the fallacy: The text led to an illustration. The illustration led to principles of investing. The principles led to passages about tithing. Then we end up in the New Testament “grace giving” passages. And they all get mixed together to suggest that tithing is a New Testament mandate that comes with unspoken promises that God will make you prosperous because you gave the tenth.
Don’t miss the problem. We started with a text, thought of an illustration, and then preached from the illustration back into other texts. And that caused us to conflate simple generosity which the Bible teaches, with New Testament tithing which the Bible doesn’t actually command.
The passages mentioned in this article all teach that God can and does bless generous, even sacrificial givers. He will take care of your needs generally speaking. But there is no promise that if you give intrinsically you will get intrinsically each time. That simply isn't always the case. Sometimes we are generous, and it hurts throughout this life. You may give sacrificially and the only thing you get in return is the joy of having been a blessing and future reward in Heaven. You may end up materially poor as a result of giving sacrificially. And if you do, God gives grace for you to be content and joyful in that. That is grace giving! His promise to meet your needs could be entirely fulfilled with white bread, water, a single change of clothes, and a tent. He never promised that sacrificial giving will allow you to maintain your current standard of living or higher.
With this particular illustration delusion, you can end up with some church members giving out of a desire to get more, and other believers who give out of fear of ending up poor. Selfishness and fear should never be the motivation for giving, and unfortunately the investing illustration leads the people to both of those motives. The illustration delusion makes the preacher and the people think the Bible is what is being preached, when it's really the illustration that is being preached. I don't think preachers always do this knowingly as an intentional manipulation. Many simply have never given the subject much deeper thought than what they've always heard (see Hanlon’s Razor).
By removing the investing illustration in the case of New Testament giving, the only motives left to preach are the correct ones — gratitude and love to the Lord, faith in the Word regarding heavenly reward, a desire to be sacrificial like Christ, and a desire to care for brethren in need.
There are many other illustrations that can lead to delusions. Perhaps some have come to your mind as you’ve read this. Of course, I am not suggesting we should not use illustrations at all. They can be amazing teaching tools. However, we must put the Bible above any illustration we think of, not make the Bible subject to them.