Today on the Evangelist Podcast we're discussing the power of illustrations.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelist Podcast. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivler.
SPEAKER_00I I don't think we need any introductory music today. That's it. Welcome back. And now and now I'm supposed to do it seriously, right? Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Or for the first time, if you're a first-time listener.
SPEAKER_00Or for the first time. Yeah. Thank you again. Sit down.
SPEAKER_01Alright, I've had three cups of coffee. Too many.
SPEAKER_00We've been going through the uh a series on power evangelism.
SPEAKER_01Power evangelism. Yes. Yeah, emphasis on the power. Um but yeah, where is the power in evangelism? And um and actually it's in ordinary stuff. Ordinary Christian living, the power of the church, uh, the power of preaching, the power of words in season. Uh and we're we're just seeing that actually the ongoing life of ordinary Christian witness is God's power uh for salvation as we proclaim the gospel in the midst of that. So yeah, that's the idea behind the series.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay, well we're gonna be looking this time at the power of illustrations. Just before we do that, tell me uh tell me how's uh fatherhood going.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, I have I haven't dropped her again since about day ten, so uh you drop her on day ten. Yeah, don't don't all fathers drop no. No made me feel bad. No, I was w walking down the steps. I well I I stumbled down two steps as I carried her and I fell in my bum. And um and uh and she had a bit of a cry, but uh you're not gonna call social services any. Um no, a good a good little uh reminder that underneath of the everlasting arms that uh yeah, if Ruby's relying on my arms to be for all her safety, then uh we're both in trouble, but no, it all went okay, and uh yeah, she's doing fine, but yeah, like she's just nocturnal. Just nocturnal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And uh we're still working on the video for Easter. Can't do it.
SPEAKER_01Cannonball.
SPEAKER_00Um Alex Webb Peplo is uh animating this uh video.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we've got a great little tie-in now with um his book, The Third Day, um, which I don't I I think we might have mentioned on the podcast before. Um it's a great graphic novel that takes um just the the words of Luke 22 and 23 to explain the Easter story. Not embellished, the words aren't embellished, but obviously the the uh illustrations are fantastic from Alex Webpepler, and we're gonna offer that as a freebie for for those who are inquir inquiring about the true meaning of Easter. So that's a good little tie-in, and uh we're yeah, working on the animation, working on the music. Yeah, it's coming together. I it's it's my f it's my favourite video that we've that we've ever worked on, and uh yeah, I hope I hope people like it.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. Good. Okay, but we'll let you know when it becomes live. Oh yeah. Good. Okay, Glenn, well we're looking at uh the power of illustrations. Um often uh I've noticed that people pick out the illustrations of uh a sermon, you know, if they're talking about it afterwards or something.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that's a good thing? Hmm. Why do you think people discuss the discuss the illustrations mostly?
SPEAKER_01I think it's it's true, like you you preach on something and you spend hours you know looking at the Greek and the Hebrew and looking up commentaries and all this sort of stuff, and then everyone just remembers this the you know the funny story you told about your mother-in-law. And I you know, is it a good thing or is it a bad thing? It is a thing that is that is worth taking note of. The fact that we respond to visual imagery, the fact that we respond to likening likening one thing to another thing. Um we just seem to be wired that way. And and I've certainly had the experiences as a preacher, you're sort of preaching along and you're saying truthful things, one after the other, after the other, after the other. But then you say, the other day I was walking through the shopping centre, and like everyone looks up and suddenly you've got them. And like it's something as banal as just uh you know, or you know, various illustrations. It's a little bit like if you've ever played football and and suddenly well you've got half the congregation, perhaps at that point.
SPEAKER_00Like a connection, isn't it? It's kind of connects with people.
SPEAKER_01It it is, and it's a thing that we ignore to our peril because actually the Bible is is kind of full of it. Um, as we're gonna see, the but the Bible is always likening one thing to another. Jesus is always likening the kingdom of heaven. Um I don't have the sort of statistics in front of me, but a phenomenal number of times Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like he tells a story about I don't know, farming or animals or a father and his son or a wedding banquet or whatever, always likening one thing to another thing. Um he knows how people tick, so we ought to as well, I think.
SPEAKER_00It's always something I find quite difficult in preparing a sermon. You know, I've got all the background and all the backstory to the passage and everything, and then I've got to sort of fabricate some illustration to sort of make it fit and stuff it in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you see you see on some preachers' bookshelves, you used to be able to get all these massive book encyclopedias of of illustrations and that kind of thing, and now with the internet, you know, those are completely redundant. But yeah, I if we're if we're gonna talk mainly in this episode, I'm gonna talk about just in one-to-one conversation about using illustrations. But if we're talking about preaching, I d I wouldn't go out of my way to, you know, to go to illustrations.com or whatever the website is and spend hours there. I I do sometimes pray for illustrations because I think they are powerful. And I I remember once I was preaching on Daniel chapter seven, this is years years back, and I prayed for an illustration of you know the Son of Man is led into the Ancient of Days' presence in in Daniel chapter seven, and yet the the second half of the chapter is all about how the saints of the Most High are led into God's presence. And and so, you know, it's the this idea of being identified with Christ, and in Jesus I have access to heaven, and I spent the whole week actually praying, Lord, give me an illustration of this, give me an illustration of this. And I and it got to sort of Friday evening, and I didn't have any time to work on the sermon on Saturday, and it and and uh I couldn't racking my brains, couldn't think of a single thing. And then I just remembered that morning a friend of mine worked in the post office and this massive sorting office in central London, and he invited me there for lunch, and and I'd gone and and and John signed me in, and underneath my name he signed his name, and on his basis I got to, you know, go around these massive, you know, conveyor belts full of letters that are going to Bogota and Burkina Faso and Birmingham and you know, really interesting places. Yeah, so Friday afternoon I just remembered, oh yes, God has granted me this illustration, and and I used it, and sure enough, on the Sunday, everyone said, you know, they forgot everything else that I said, but that illustration of being led into somewhere special because John signed me in. In fact, one one guy said it was was very, very significant. He'd he'd kind of just become a Christian and he sort of he suddenly understood what it meant to to trust in Jesus and that kind of thing. So illustrations are really, really powerful, and and you can pray for them. Uh I I wouldn't crowbar them in everywhere I can in my preaching. Yeah, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00And sometimes, you know, the Bible gives its its own illustrations. Yes, you know, illustr the Lamb of God or the Lion, you know.
SPEAKER_01I was I was once in a preaching class, and I was I was meant to be leading these other young preachers in what they were doing, and one guy had uh like his text was John 10, I'm the good shepherd. And um and he sort of went and the and he sort of gave his sermon and it was it was quite dry to be fair. And then at the end he said, I I was just trying to rack my brains to try and think of what an illustration might be for for John chapter 10. Like, shall we read the verse again? I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Is there perhaps for an illustration? Yeah, and and and people want to do then an illustration of the illustration. So using the biblical illustrations is absolutely right, and and yeah, it should give us pause for thought that the Bible uses so many.
SPEAKER_00Do you think we can overuse illustrations?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, definitely. And and especially because I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Is Jesus saying there that he is smelly like a shepherd is smelly? Is he saying there that you know No, by the way. But that's it. But people people want to kind of transfer everything from that illustration into the reality that you're speaking of, um, which would not be legitimate. Um so there's there's always dangers in doing that. And and whenever you say something is like something else, instantly someone says, Ah, are you saying X, Y, and Z? Like, for instance, and and one that I would be very careful to use if I did use, um, I I I think it's helpful in some ways, but in an illustration about uh the homosexuality debate and and what a Christian view of sexuality is and homosexuality is in particular, you know, I I sometimes have likened it to eating disorders. And in the same way that we recognize that there is a healthy way of using food and a healthy way of viewing the body, sometimes that gets out of context and becomes unhealthy. In a similar way, you know, Christians have a view for what sex is and what gender is and how we use our sexuality, and divorced from that context, it starts to become unhealthy. And the reason I use that illustration is because I think it's really helpful to be able to say, look, as Christians, we have all the sympathy in the world for someone with an eating disorder. My wife has struggled with you know with eating disorders in her life at various at various times and has a great ministry to people that is full of compassion for those who struggle in that area. And and so it's it's basically an illustration to be able to say, look, look, we we might think that it's disorder, but that doesn't mean we hate people who are homosexual or have uh those inclinations, and and therefore it's helpful to that degree. But the the big problem with illustrations is people transfer everything from the illustration and they and they try and say, you're saying this means that. You're saying that those who are homosexual also have eating disorders. You know, and I I've gotten that online, I've I've used that online before, and I've had you know angry comments from people saying, Ah, you're you're saying that you know eating disorders lead to or you know, uh homosexuality leads to eating disorders. No, no, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying in one limited regard, this is like that. And if that's helpful, then good, but sometimes illustrations bring a whole freight load of other associations that are not helpful. So you you need to be very careful about how you use them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Are there any other dangers that you can see?
SPEAKER_01In using illustrations, I I guess one big illustration is okay, God is father. And you think in terms of, okay, when I look at human fathers, human fathers give me a window onto God. And you argue your way upstream to God, when actually the real thing is God has eternally been father, and if fathers ever look like God, it's only because he is the original father, and the fathers are the copy. So I th I think another another danger with illustrations is that we kind of think that God is like the stuff that's in the world, when actually the the resemblance goes the other way. God is originally father and therefore there are such things as human fathers. So yeah, so I I think there are dangers in in in illustrations that way as well.
SPEAKER_00And I suppose we can use you know illustrations in our just general conversation with with folks. You know, from that point of view, they're they're helpful. And I suppose also we we can try and force fit an illustration to to a point that you know it doesn't really fit.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And even just in conversation, someone will say, you know, it's a little bit like, and then they'll go off on you know some random topic for ten minutes and it's and it's not like that at all. Um yeah, so people can piggyback on the power of illustrations without using them in a pointed way. Um and so yeah. Uh so I I would always try and get your illustration to serve the truth that you're trying to communicate, not to be a distraction from that truth and not to be a substitute for the truth that you're trying to communicate.
SPEAKER_00So, how does the Bible encourage us to think of illustrations?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, uh we we've had, you know, one example of Jesus saying he's the good shepherd, but he's also the door and he's the true vine, and he's the bread of life, and and he's all these things. Um so Jesus communicates to us in saying and you know, interestingly there, he doesn't even just say I'm like. I'm like the door. I'm like the way, the truth, and the life. You know, he is the way, he is the um he is all those things. And and so, you know, God communicates to us in in these kinds of ways. And I I was just um reflecting the other day in in Genesis chapter four. Isn't it interesting that when Cain sins, the Lord comes to him and and says, you know, why is your face fallen, Cain? Um if you do right, will it not be accepted? But sin is crouching at your door and desires to have you. You know, the Lord doesn't at that point say, you know, um sin is uh a great force in your life and you need to master it. But sin is crouching at your door. Um, you know, here's here's an illustration being used very, very early on um in order for for the Lord to communicate truth to us. And and just the the scriptures are just absolutely full of this stuff. Far more full of this stuff than we tend to be in our in our normal speech. Um Yeah, there's there's all sorts of analogies and illustrations and likenings that go on in the Bible that that we miss uh because we tend to commute in b communicate in bullet point fashion. You know, point after point after point after point. The Bible tends to paint big pictures on a massive scale. And and you know, we we tend to be very uh you know, we're really upset if we start to mix metaphors. And if I start a sentence and I say, you know, Jesus is the good shepherd, and then I go into talking about him as the door, I get really I'm sorry, I'm mixing my metaphors, I ought not to do that. You know. Whereas Jesus does it. He's just he's the he's the door, and then he's the good shepherd. And like I was reading the other the other day, isn't it in M Matthew 10, isn't it, where Jesus says, Um, I send you out as sheep among wolves, therefore be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. There's four different animals in that. You know, wise as serpents innocent as doves because you're sheep among wolves, and like it's just he's he's got a whole menagerie going on in one sentence. So we ni I think we need to be much more visual uh in the images that we build up with our language and communication.
SPEAKER_00I mean, Jesus, you know, you you kind of expect Jesus to explain all the theology in the old testament. Yes. And he comes and he tells stories and qu ask questions and two guys went up to a temple to pray. Yeah. You know, Paul does a lot more theological stuff, but Jesus, you know, tells stories and asks questions and he does do theology, you know. Does Yeah. But um it's it's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So can we go through some examples um of uh illustrations that can help in uh tricky situations?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I thought so if you're in the pub or you're in the workplace and you get asked a tricky question um about the gospel, um very often I sort of use illustrations as as as part of my part of my answer, and to be honest, people don't have a lot of time on their hands to listen to a reasoned argument. People don't have even the the capacity to reason their way through a logical argument. Logic is not taught in school these days. Rhetoric is not taught, these these things are not taught in school. What you know, the way people learn is is through visual imagery and that and that kind of thing. So you you probably don't have the time, even in a one-to-one conversation when maybe you've got an hour, but you probably don't have time to to build up a reasoned point-by-point argument with people. So I what I thought we'd do is just yeah, think about some commonly asked questions, many of which are asked in in the book 321. And uh and yeah, I'll just give you some of my illustrations that I use when I when I answer the questions.
SPEAKER_00Okay, little plug for the book there. That's it. So, first one then, how do we know that Christianity is true?
SPEAKER_01So that's that's the first FAQ in the book 321, out now from Ten Publishing. Um so I mean the illustration I I use here, which I ripped off from Vaughn Roberts, who ripped it off from somebody else, uh, is you know, imagine that you are kidnapped, and there's men in in in masks who come in with with machine guns, and they say, Right, you're all gonna get onto this these unmarked white vans, and we're gonna tie you up, we're gonna inject you with a serum, and it completely wipes your memory, completely knocks you out. Um you come to in this massive factory space, this big warehouse, you have no idea how you got there, uh, there are no windows, no doors, no entrances, no exits, it's just you and the room and lots of other bleary-eyed people. Um and it's and you know, and there you are, and you want to ask the question, how do we get here? What's on the other side? Is there anything on the other side? What's the meaning of all this? And you can start to to form all sorts of theories and opinions on what might be on the other side, and and maybe one side of the room thinks that outside the outside the room there is a you know, giant giraffe just scorching the the earth with its lasers for eyes, and the other side of the room thinks, no, there are purple penguins swimming through soft cheese, that's what's on the outside, you know. And so you've got the giraffeists and the and the penguincists and and their arch nemesis and and and you know, so you build up this picture, and then you just hear this as you know, bits of sealing kind of seem to be you know floating down, and there's a man who just appears in the middle of the room and he says, I've come from the other side, I'm here to rescue you. And what I say when I, you know, give the illustration is, you know, does his claims about himself, don't don't his claims about himself change the conversation in the room? Before his claims, all you've got is just opinion. Once he makes those claims, you've got something to latch on to, and you can start to ask him, Are you really from the outside? Approve it. And and you can you can start to pepper this guy with questions. But that's who Jesus is. As we, you know, consider what what life is all about. Here is this one figure who towers above all else, stands in the middle of history, and he claims to be from beyond. Now you might think he's a nutter. You might think this is a complete hoax, you might think this is all sort of cabin fever, but his claims about himself change the conversation in the room, and you have to now, he's making it your business, you have to now check out whether he's telling the truth or not. So yeah, so that's that's one illustration that I use. It takes it takes a little bit of time to build up. But um, yeah, I f I find that quite quite useful in in conversation.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Very good. Uh is the Bible trustworthy? What what can how can you illustrate that?
SPEAKER_01So uh that's yeah, that's the second FAQ in the book, 321, out now with tenothose.com. Um so I mean one of the one of the things that always comes up is Gnostic Gospels. Like people are always talking about, uh, there's the Gospel of Thomas and there's the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Judas and all these sorts of gospels that people have are aware of because of Dan Brown. Um and I've I've started to call them fanfiction. Okay, it's it's just fan fiction. We've got this concept of um people who just like the book and who piggyback off the success of the book and they write their own stories, which might end up being incredibly different from the original story. Fifty Shades of Grey is out now, uh began as fan fiction uh about the Twilight series. It's a very different kind of thing to Twilight, extremely different. Um and and I sort of say, well Sorry Glenn, how do you know? I read a Wikipedia entry on it. But but you know, very so so fan fiction, but I would say, you know, even even with the Gnostic Gospels is more like a frenemy, frenemy fiction, you know. Uh appears to be like a friend, actually it's an enemy. These these people from hundreds of years after the facts, writing in this sort of in the style of the Gospels, but were writing for something completely different. And and that helps people wrap their heads around what Gnostic Gospels are, or or you know, another illustration that people use against the Bible is to say it's a bit like the game Chinese Whispers, um, which we're now meant to call the telephone game. Um, where you know one child whispers something to the next child, to the next child, to the next child, to the next child, to the next child. And what's fascinating again when we as we think about illustrations is that captures the imagination of the non-Christian. And so many so many people haven't really thought very deeply about the Bible at all, but they say, ah, it's just Chinese whispers, isn't it? The the communication of the manuscripts down through the generations. Um but again, enter into the illustration and say, No, it's okay, it's a li it's a bit like the the the the game of Chinese whispers, except imagine that you've got six thousand people, okay, and and they're all writing the message. They don't whisper it because that's the thing about you know, you only whisper it once in in the in Chinese whispers. They all write down, you know, the message. And and you know, and then you've got like six thousand bits of paper that are passed to the next to the next person who then sifts and sorts through them and and sees the ones that are all the similar and then you know again passes on a thousand, you know, messages to the next person. That's a little bit different, don't you think? You know, just entering into the the illustration. Or and and sometimes I say, you know, because there are so many manuscripts, um, there are verses where there are more than one option for what that verse might have been in the original. Um but that's not like having a a one thousand piece puzzle with, you know, three pieces missing. It's actually like having a one thousand piece puzzle puzzle with five pieces extra. And when you put the pieces together, it starts to become very very evident which are the five that are extra. You know, they just don't fit. And that's a way of of visually representing the fact that there are so many different manuscripts out there and and that the and that the problem is not that we're lacking the original. We've got the original. It's just there there are a few minor places where there's more than one option. Um but when you put all those pieces together, the one that the odd one out sort of outs itself, if you see what I mean. So those are just some some illustrations I use with the Bible.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Excellent. Uh so uh suffering then, this is comes up quite a lot, doesn't it, suffering?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, massively. Um in conversation and in the Bible. And what I'm seeing, especially uh uh Emma having given birth recently, is is just how often in the Bible childbirth is used as an illustration of this suffering age. Um Old Testament, New Testament, Jesus again and again, um, using this image of of of birth pains, which is interesting. You know, Jesus in Mark 13 does not call the suffering of this world death throes, he calls it birth pains. Because he he thinks there's something beyond this that will make it all worthwhile. And that's the thing about birth pain, you know. Horrific, absolutely horrifically painful and ugly and and s blood curdling and s you know. But at the end of it's worth it. Um and that's and that's the Bible's kind of view of suffering, actually. We d we don't minimize the the horrible pain of it all. In our our antenatal class had a um uh a reunion uh after birth, and all the mums were telling the most horrible stories. We did not yeah, they did not minimize those stories of pain and suffering, um, but all of them said it was worth it. It's absolutely worth it. And I I think that as a as a little illustration, well the it's good enough for the Bible. Um perhaps we can use it. And th there's other illustrations that I use with suffering. Um one that um C.S. Lewis used all the time was um he said um the issue of suffering drove him to faith because he realized that the evil was evil and not just unpleasant. Suffering wasn't just ugly and grotesque and painful, suffering was wrong. And he said, Well where did he where did he get this idea of wrong from? He must have had an idea of right. But is he allowed to have an idea of right? He was an atheist after all. And and he gives the the illustration of it is if everything is a wavy line, you never know what a wavy line is. You have to have a straight line in order to know what a crooked line looks like. If everything is just wavy, then okay, life is just wavy, things are just crooked, suffering just happens. If you want to be able to call something evil, then you've got to have the straight line of goodness, and actually the Bible gives you the tools to be able to say there's a good God, and this is a deviation from goodness, therefore I reject it. So, illustrations like that. There's there's plenty more I could say about suffering, but um but yeah, using illustrations just to get the point across.
SPEAKER_00So, what about uh if someone says, I wish I had your faith?
SPEAKER_01Which they do all the time. I wish I wish I had your faith, but I could never be gullible enough to suspend disbelief like you. And and you know, quite often I sort of uh I'll use the illustration of my my mechanic, you know, Ed's my mechanic, he's absolutely brilliant. Um, and you know, I I fully believe that if you had a problem with your car and you took your car to Ed, he'd be able to fix it. And if you then said to me, I wish I had your faith in Ed, you know, I say, You're a fool. You don't need my faith in Ed, you just need Ed. Okay? And you know, when someone says, I wish I had your faith in Jesus, you don't need my faith in Jesus, you just need Jesus. And if you knew Jesus like I knew Jesus, you know to quote the song, um, then you would have faith in Jesus. So let me tell you about who he is, and who he is will inspire faith in you. But again, you you're using a story, you're using an illustration. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and uh you're talking about faith. If you're saying you just have to believe in Jesus and you're safe, doesn't that give people sort of license to sin?
SPEAKER_01License to sin. Um and at that point I I use the illustration of marriage. I I bring marriage in in as an illustration very, very quickly in evangelism, and and I think I would just say, um, those people who love me unconditionally, actually, I want to treat them better, not worse. My mum loves me unconditionally, I want to treat her better, not worse. My wife loves me unconditionally. Which makes me want to treat her better, not worse, you know, and because my wife has made these vows to me and has said, you know, all that I am, I give to you, all that I have I share with you. As she's saying that to me, does that make me then want to say, ha ha you know, now I can, you know, pull the wool over her eyes because she's so blinded by love? No, surely it surely it it makes me think, well, I I don't want to hurt the person who loves me unconditionally. Um so yeah, I I bring in the marriage illustration all the time with with evangelism. But what Jesus is offering is not a license to go and sin or a get out of jail free card or a blank check to to write whatever sins you want and he'll sign it with his blood. It's that's not what he offers us. He offers it himself in a marriage union. And and that communicates well, I think.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And if someone says uh, how can someone else pay for my sin?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00How could you illustrate that?
SPEAKER_01I th and that that's quite it's that is quite a common sort of uh argument, especially from anti-theists who think that it not only is Christianity foolish and wrong, but that it's that it's wicked. Um, because you've got this horrible doctrine of vicarious atonement that somebody else pays for your sins. You're not taking responsibility for yourself, how dare you? Um So how you know, how can somebody else pay for my sins? It depends who that somebody else is. If if somebody from nowhere just volunteers and and says, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna pay your penalty somehow and get you off the hook, um, there's a certain arbitrariness to it. But we all have this understanding that uh, you know, in an organization, for instance, something goes wrong, and occasionally the head of that organization might do the right thing and they might carry the can for the rest of the people. And they might say, Well, look, I didn't make that mistake, but it happened on my watch and I'm resigning. It doesn't happen very often. And usually when it does happen, we're very suspicious that there's been a golden handshake, you know, somewhere somewhere, and he's taken the hit for for for his own personal gain. But sometimes we recognise there's a nobility to people who are in in authority taking responsibility even when it wasn't their responsibility. Um and and that's what we see with Jesus. Jesus is the head of the corporation who comes and takes responsibility. It wasn't uh it wasn't his sin, but it happened on his watch and and and he took it. And so, you know, so it's more than appropriate for him to carry carry the can for him to take our sins.
SPEAKER_00Okay, um why isn't being good good enough for God?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So and that's that question is behind so much that happens in evangelism and and so much of what people misunderstand about Christianity. And and sometimes I I I use this illustration, which I think I picked up from Paul Little in uh his great little book uh whose name escapes me, we'll have to put it on the show notes. Um yeah, anyway, he he he talks about um imagine, I'll I'll I'll contextualize it to Eastbourne. Imagine um all of Eastbourne lines up on the on the beach, and uh we've got we've got a swim a swimming competition, um, and here's here's the standard, we've got a swim to America. And off we go, the gun goes dive in the water, swim to America. That's the standard. Now at that at that stage, you know, some people will swim a couple of miles out to sea. Amazing, amazing athletes. Some people will drown in six inches of water. At the end of the day, everybody is dead. Everybody. And swimming instructions are not gonna help you. And I sort of say, well, actually the rest of the you know, the the religions of the world are like swimming instructions to the drowning, you know, and and perhaps they can help you to improve your stroke, but they're not gonna get you to America. And in in in biblical terms, we've all you know sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3.23. But what the the real issue is that there's a rescue rope dangling above your head. And what you gotta do is stop swimming and take the rope. Trust. Trust in Jesus, this rescuer. Um but at the end of the day, we want to divide the world into good swimmers and bad swimmers. Actually, the the real difference, isn't it? The real difference is those who keep swimming and drown, those who stop and get the rescue. That's that's the difference. And in and and and I f I find that that, you know, again, that communicates if if people are sort of inhabiting the the story, um, it helps them to grasp it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and isn't it that uh Paul in Romans uses the word sin because it's an archery term that means not not even reaching the target. Not reaching the target. So that was why, you know, it was Exactly So there's a falling short. His his archery uh illustration.
SPEAKER_01And and as we're thinking about illustrations, in Romans three, I mean he just piles it on top of each other, isn't he? He he he talks about um the propitiation for our sins, which is a temple term, and then he runs that into justification, um, which is a law court term, and then he runs it into redemption, which is a slave market term, and then he uses the sin language, which is the the archery thing, and like literally in one sentence, he's packed in the temple, the the archery range, the law courts, the slave market, you know. Actually, the Bible's full of this stuff, we need to be better at it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh how would you illustrate to answer the question, are Christians homophobes?
SPEAKER_01Well, we've uh we've done a few episodes on uh the evangelist podcast about that that that issue, and so there's there's loads to say on it. But but just uh as a really introductory level thing to say on the topic, I just want to get people to a point of saying, Christians are different. Can it can we at least be respected for our difference and not just labelled as homophobes? Um so in the service of that very limited aim, I would I would sometimes say, you know, a Buddhist is weird because they are vegetarian, and most most of them are. Um and weird or vegetarian Most of them are vegetarian. And in that they are vegetarian, we in the West tend to consider them weird as such. That I'm you know, I I'm I'm just using the word weird in in terms of not mainstream. Yeah. And so, you know, but but nobody thinks that that Buddhist person hates all the carnivores. No one no one thinks that that that Buddhist person's got it in as as though they're carnivore phobic. And we don't and we don't call them a carnaphobe. You know, we we j we recognize that there is a whole world view that they have, that we don't have, but they've got this world view, and there's a sanctity of life issue going on, and in order to respect that whole view of life, they don't eat meat. And it's not because they hate those who do eat meat, it's just because they've got a different vision for life. Um and we can respect that. They think differently, but they love all the same. And and then you just bring that into the Christian realm, and you just say, Well, look, Christians are weird. We are really weird, and we've got these weird views of of of sex. But if you sat with us for a little bit, you know, we could tell you how it fits into our view of God the world and everything. And we could we could show you how it makes sense from within our worldview. And it doesn't mean that we hate people who who think of sex differently or or who use sex differently. You know, we are not homophobes any more than the Buddhist is a carnophobe. You know, can you at least let us um let us have our strange view and not conclude that we are haters? Because some are, and some Christians are, and they and they need to be, you know, told to repent of that. But then we're not necessarily haters because of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Good. Okay, uh and I like this one. Uh are Christians anti-science. How would you illustrate that?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um lots of different ways. Um sometimes John Lennox does the one with uh the cake. You know, Auntie Mabel has baked you a cake, and you can take the cake into the the biology department and they can, you know, tell you the number of kilojoules in it, and you know, you can take it to the chemistry lab and you can, you know, get the chemical compounds, you can take it to the physics lab and they can tell you all sorts of things about the mass and the weight, and you can you can reverse engineer the cake, you can f figure out what the ingredients are, you can, you know, be able to manufacture more cakes more efficiently, and the science can help you with all that sort of stuff. Fantastic. But none of them can tell you why Auntie Mabel baked the cake. And, you know, a it happened to be Aunt Edward's birthday, or Aunt Edward? Uncle Edward. Whatever. And um and that sort of, you know, communicates the the the truth. There's there's all sorts of truths that scientific analysis doesn't get at, but they're still worth asking about, and they're still true you know, matters to investigate. You know, some I I use the illustration of um, you know, a a scientist called Rachel gets twelve long stem roses on the 14th of February um from her lab assistant, Mark, you know, who's looking very nervous as he hands her the twelve long-stem roses. And you know, you you can imagine Mark's surprise when the next day she sort of comes back and he says, Oh, thank you for for the um uh the specimens that you gave me. Specimens? She said, Yes, you know, I did a spectral analysis of them, and I, you know, found out all these different you know species of of parasite that were living in the stems, and uh managed to map the genome, and you know, and we've got breakthroughs and you know, which is wonderful stuff. It's fantastic. But she doesn't get it, does she? She's she's and and and putting th those roses through more and more physical tests is not going to help her to actually receive the meaning of the twelve long stem roses. What if the world is like the twelve long stem roses? The world is, according to the Bible, the world is it's a love gift. And there's somebody who loves you and is communicating to you that that they love you. And wonderful, you can you can do a spectral analysis of the world, you know, you can you can delve into the chemistry and the biology and the physics of it all. Um but but that's not the only truth um to be received about the world. And yeah, so that's just another illustration. I like that one. Okay, alright. The romantic in you Well, we better leave it there, Glenn.
SPEAKER_00Uh we've been going far too long.
SPEAKER_01Far too long. Longer than usual, but um if people have good illustrations that they use in evangelism, I'd love to hear them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Share them in the comments. Please do. That'd be great. So uh you can find this podcast on our website revivalmedia.org slash tep85. Uh, and we'll have the links to the book and the links to the um Paul Little's book. Paul Little's book. How to share your faith, I think it's called. How to share your faith. I think. Okay. Okay, thanks very much, and see you next time.
SPEAKER_01See you next time.