by Henry Knapp
One of the more challenging parts of preaching is working to come up with appropriate illustrations to highlight what I believe the biblical text is saying. Pretty much everyone agrees that a good story helps to anchor the point of the sermon, and that people are much more receptive to learning via a story than we often appreciate. Coming up with a good illustration that will model the message is helpful in so many ways; a good story can keep people’s attention, it can provide a different viewpoint, and it helps the congregation apply the text to our daily lives.
The challenge in finding a good story is not so much to come up with examples and/or word pictures (all of life provides a myriad of ideas every day), but to do so appropriately. Of course, sometimes an illustrative story is simply not appropriate material to share publicly. Sometimes it is impossible (or, at least very difficult) to fit a story in the right time frame. Sometimes the illustration might make sense to me but not to the listener.
But, one major problem is that an example or story can sometimes distract from the Scripture and not enhance or illustrate it. The story can be so engaging, so delightful, so “homey” as to distract the listener from the text. One of the great fears in using illustrations in sermons is that the story can often overtake the biblical meaning. After all, the point of using an example is to bring clarity and insight into what God is saying in the Bible. Too much attention on the illustration and the truths of the text can get lost.
This is not, of course, a new problem, or one that is confined to our modern age. Indeed, the overarching biblical narrative struggles with this exact thing—when an illustration overtakes the underlying biblical truths. So much of the Old Testament is intended to point toward the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ. While there was plenty of value in having a king, the ultimate function of the kings of Israel was to highlight the coming of the ultimate King. While Old Testament worship was honoring to the Lord and drew the worshippers toward their God, the intent was to anticipate Christ’s sacrifice. While the Old Testament prophets communicated God’s will to Israelites, they were part of a larger goal of revealing the Word of God to the world.
But, all too often, for the Jewish people, the model or illustration began to dominate. The focus on the Old Testament law, or prophets, or nation, blurred the ultimate intent of the Old Testament—to draw us to Christ. The New Testament authors warned that getting lost in the Old Testament forms would lose Jesus Himself. The book of Hebrews is intended to show the supremacy of Jesus above and beyond all the Old Testament foreshadowing. Jesus is the greater Priest; He is the greater King; He is the great prophet. The failure to connect the Old Testament shadow to the New Testament reality in Christ leads to a distortion of the entire biblical record. If the illustration (the Old Testament examples) becomes the focus of attention, then the New Testament reality (Jesus Christ) is in danger of being lost.
This Advent, we will look at the Old Testament illustrations of the prophet, priest, and king, and how they are intended to point to Jesus; like any example, the Old Testament stories clarify the biblical witness of Christ, show us more who He is and tell us how to live in His light.
Join us this week in worship as we celebrate the beginning of Advent, and the coming of our Savior.
- Read Hebrews 8. How does verse 4 follow naturally from the preceding verses? It is hard to understand the author’s intent here without following his logic as well.
- The “tent” of verse 5 is the tabernacle, the place of worship for God’s people. The author’s idea is that Israel’s worship is connected to what Moses saw on Mt. Sinai. Go back and read Exodus 19 and 20. What a great picture!
- In verse 6, the “excellency” of Christ is maintained over the Old Testament ministry. Why? What is distinctive about the different ministries here?
- Why is the new covenant in Christ superior to the old? What reasonings are given? How persuasive are they?
- Skip to verse 13. What is the meaning of this verse? What is being obsolete? How do we handle something that is obsolete?