ILLUSTRATE THE GOSPEL

Jesus taught in parables ... word pictures to add clarity to His teaching. He explained the unknown in terms of the known ... the uncommon in terms of the common ... the eternal in terms of the temporal ... the spiritual in terms of the secular. Parables (illustrations) can help non-believers understand spiritual truth. Follow the example of Jesus ... use illustrations. Keep your parables simple and to the point. Expand the following illustrations ... put them in your own words.

Sin and imperfection.

Adding up my sins. Think about my life ... let's say that I have been accountable before God for my bad thoughts and actions for the past 20 years. And let's say that I have had three bad thoughts or commit three bad deeds every day (actually that would be a good day for me). That's 1,000 bad marks against me in just one year ... 10,000 in ten years. By age 65 I could have more than 50,000 bad marks ... far from perfection. If the quality of my sins doesn't get me, the quantity will.

A pile of rocks. Imagine that I throw a small rock into the middle of the room every time I do something wrong. Then the quality of my life could be measured by the size and rate of growth of the pile. Early in my life, I would have had to move the pile out into an open field. Then one day I decide to improve my life ... I cut down on my sins per day. Let's say down to 10/day. And later to 7/day ... 5/day ... and so on until I plateau at one or two per day. All of this was done with great effort and sincerity. However, the only thing that I accomplished was to make the pile get bigger slower. I can do no more than that on my own. What I really need is someone to take the pile of rocks away. No matter how hard I try, I cannot improve my record ... I can only make it get worse slower.

A picture window. Imagine that you hired a contractor to install a picture window in your living room ... one that will give you an unobstructed view of the mountains. As he pounds the final nail into the wood trim, the hammer slips from his hand and hits the window. Small cracks spread out from the point of impact covering 5% of the window. He then turns to you ... and hands the bill to you. Would you accept it? No! The imperfect window is not acceptable. He states that it is 95% perfect. You tell him that imperfect is imperfect. Anything less than perfect is imperfect. In the same way, a little amount of sin causes imperfection.

An unexpected pregnancy. A variation of the window illustration is that of an unexpected pregnancy. A young couple decided to wait four years to begin their family. However, 12 months after the honeymoon she tells the good news and bad news to her husband. The bad news is that she is pregnant three years ahead of schedule. The good news is that she is only a little pregnant. He responds that pregnant is pregnant.

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Disciplemaking 2, copyright 2003, is available free from www.MyDisciplemaker.org where you can study online or print free copies. You may copy this course, any any part of it, for free or at-cost distribution ... without change to the content ... and with this copyright policy attached. Published by www.ActsOneEight.org.