Sermon Illustrations on Images
Background
The Human Heart Bends…
The human heart bends toward what the eye sees. Today’s image makers fling into the world’s digital spectacles of sex, wealth, power, and popularity. Those images get inside us, shape us, and form our lives in ways that compete with God’s design for our focus and worship.
Taken from Competing Spectacles by Tony Reinke, © 2019, p.118. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
A Roman’s View of the Jewish Faith and its Interaction with Egypt
In this excerpt by the Roman historian Tacitus, we get insight into the Jewish faith from an ancient, extra-Biblical account. We also see how the Israelites took the first commandment seriously:
The Egyptians worship many animals and images of monstrous form; the Jews have purely mental conceptions of Deity, as one in essence. They call those profane who make representations of God in human shape out of perishable materials. They believe that Being to be supreme and eternal, neither capable of representation, nor of decay. They therefore do not allow any images to stand in their cities, much less in their temples.
This flattery is not paid to their kings, nor this honour to our Emperors. From the fact, however, that their priests used to chant to the music of flutes and cymbals, and to wear garlands of ivy, and that a golden vine was found in the temple, some have thought that they worshipped Father Liber, the conqueror of the East, though their institutions do not by any means harmonize with the theory; for Liber established a festive and cheerful worship, while the Jewish religion is tasteless and mean.
Stories
Guessing Your Age
Max Lucado shares a funny story about a phone app that was supposed to be able to guess your age. It worked by taking a picture of a person’s face and then spitting out a supposedly accurate result. Lucado’s wife Denalyn tried first, and it guessed her age by fifteen years on the younger side. This made her quite happy. Then Max took the photo and it missed his age by five years on the older side. He tried again. This time it added seven more years. After that, ten. At this point, he figured it best to quit before it told him he was no longer in the land of the living.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing, Thomas Nelson.
Analogies
Like Sorcery
Human spectacle making is like sorcery—an enchantment, a spell, the creation of an image that calls for a response from our inner longings. Idolatry is the original tele-vision, the bringing of a far-off deity close to the eyes.
Taken from Competing Spectacles by Tony Reinke, © 2019, p.118. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
Humor
Guessing Your Age
Max Lucado shares a funny story about a phone app that was supposed to be able to guess your age. It worked by taking a picture of a person’s face and then spitting out a supposedly accurate result. Lucado’s wife Denalyn tried first, and it guessed her age by fifteen years on the younger side. This made her quite happy. Then Max took the photo and it missed his age by five years on the older side. He tried again. This time it added seven more years. After that, ten. At this point, he figured it best to quit before it told him he was no longer in the land of the living.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing, Thomas Nelson.
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