Adventist Biblical Preaching
Based on the Syllabus in
Homiletics by Carl Coffman,
Andrews University
Alfred E. Labadisos
Master of Arts in Religion
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The Sermon Illustration
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Why Use an Illustration?
A. To clarify an obscure matter.
• Requires careful choice of appropriate material.
• An obscure illustration only makes matters
worse.
B. To make a spiritual truth more real and alive.
C. To stir the imagination.
D. To awaken interest.
E. To re-emphasize a vital point.
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Why Use an Illustration
F. To aid audience to remember.
G. To move to direction.
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Sources of Illustration
A. The Bible.
B. Life experience of the speaker.
C. Reading–history, science, literature, biography,
poetry, etc.
D. Books of illustrations often contain valuable gems.
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Tests of a Good Illustration
A. Is it true?
• Do not use illustrations where you are not sure if
they are true in all details.
• If it is imaginary, or if you do not remember a
point or two, that fact should be made clear.
• Are the facts being stated accurately, or will
some of the hearers be thinking, “That is not the
way I remember it!”
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Tests of a Good Illustration
B. Is it interesting?
• Does the illustration clearly increase the
listener’s interest in the point involved?
• Can the audience see the purpose in it?
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Tests of a Good Illustration
C. Is it clear?
• Does the illustration itself need explanation to
the point where the hearer would understand
better without it?
• Is it clearly illustrating the desired point?
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Tests of a Good Illustration
D. Is it appropriate?
• Is it in harmony with the spirit of the sermon, the
occasion, and the desired attitude of the
hearers?
• Is it appropriate in church, and where the Holy
Spirit is present?
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Cautions
A. Is your sermon built around the illustration?
B. Wisdom should be used relative to humorous
anecdotes.
C. Be careful about allusions to persons.
D. Several illustrations in succession can destroy the
effect of all.
E. Be sparing about personal illustrations which the “I”.
F. “Flowery tales, or inappropriate anecdotes do not
convert the sinner.” Gospel Workers, 155.
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Cautions
G. “Too many illustrations do not have a correct influence:
they belittle the sacred dignity that should ever be
maintained in the presentation of the Word of God to
the people.” Evangelism, 209.
H. “The use of long words confuses the mind and eclipses
the beauty of the thought presented. There is need of
teachers who will come close to their students and who
will give clear, definite instruction, illustrating spiritual
things by the things of nature, and by the familiar
events of everyday experience.” Counsel to Teachers, 261.
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The Sermon Outline
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Importance of Sermon Outline
• Helps us to be creative
• Makes our studies profitable
• Keeps the parts proportionate
• It is an aid to style (This is our worship to God, so it
can be beautiful.)
• It is an aid to our and our audience’s memory
• Makes our sermon intelligible, understandable.
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Qualities of a Good Outline
1. Each point has a living force in it.
2. Each point has something characteristic.
3. Each starting have similar form.
4. There is a progress, a movement in each of them
toward a direction. (The sermon is a logical or
persuasive arrangement of ideas.)
5. There is unity in the sermon. The points are not
overlapping but show different aspects or things
that lie beyond the idea).
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Sermons should not be:
• Like an Eskimo house (one idea - driving nowhere)
• Like a dish of pudding (the most important thing is in
the middle)
• Like a rocket (great start, then disintegrates)
• Like a shotgun (going to several directions)
• Like a ski (the good story is just at the end)
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Sermons should be (either of these):
• Like a flower (when the points are equally important,
and their sequence does not matter).
• Like a ladder or a staircase.
• Like signs on a highway.
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Good sermons should always have (this is
the ideal case):
• Something to learn (not just new truths but you can show how
to apply the old).
• Something to think about (questions left unanswered).
• Something to feel (not just thinking materials are needed).
• Something to remember.
• Something to do
– Put the material requiring much thinking to the
beginning and the emotional materials to the end. The
climax of the sermon is always at the end.
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Common Types of Sermon
Topical Sermon
Textual Sermon
Expository Sermon
Narrative Art Form Sermon
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Topical Sermon
• It is a type of sermon whose form grows out of the words
and ideas in the subject. The subject dominates
everything that follows.
• It is a sermonic development of a theme or topic which is
of particular interest to the preacher.
• The points are devised by the preacher after due
reflection.
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Advantages:
• It allows the minister to discuss any subject he thinks
needful.
• It allows breadth of treatment. The preacher feels
free to roam wherever he can find something for his
congregation.
• It enables the speaker to keep moving towards the
goal of the sermon.
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Disadvantages:
• The subject or topic rather than a passage may have
little or nothing to do with Christianity.
• The pulpit turns into a forum for the discussion of
anything.
• The subject sermon may lack human interest
because it grows out of sweeping surveys and
consists in vast abstraction.
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Disadvantages:
• It is merely a logical arrangement of certain ideas in
the preacher’s mind gathered around a figure of
speech suggested by the biblical passage.
• It limits biblical expansion since the subject may
have been presented week-after-week.
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Textual Sermon
• It is a type of sermon whose structure corresponds with
the order of the parts in a text.
• The points of the discussion are found in the text itself.
• The development follows the ideas in the text.
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Advantages:
• It fixes the attention on one part of the Scriptures.
• It is easy to prepare.
• The hearer can follow the textual sermon with ease
and satisfaction.
• It brings the hearer close to the hear of the Bible.
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Expository Sermon
• It is a type of sermon that grows out of a Bible
passage longer than or three verses.
• It differs from a textual one chiefly in the length of the
scripture units.
• An expository sermon is a textual treatment of a long
passage; while a textual sermon is an expository
treatment of a shorter passage.
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Advantages:
• It deals with the message as they were written, with
the book as the larger unit and the paragraph as the
smaller one.
• It enables the preacher to keep growing year after
year.
• It is considered more biblical since the points and
proofs are from the passage.
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