Over some years I’ve been slowly writing down illustrations that I thought might be helpful for sermons or evangelism that has apologetics’ thrusts.
Here’s 70 of them arranged topically. Which one was your favorite?
Illustrations in Defense of the Importance of Doctrines and the need for Discernment of False Doctrines
- The school bell that was a bomb and importance of being able to identify bad doctrines
- Secret Service do train with false currency as well with true currency
- Beware of parasitic false teachers and Polyergus breviceps Parasitic ants
- Why Doctrinal Details matter and the case of Kenyan accidental flight to North Korea rather than South Korea
- Marines’ Body Armor and Trust or Criticism of What One Believes
- Messianic Prophecy And A Red Carpet Premiere
- Why we warn against false teachers and a registered sex offender in a retreat for sex assault survivors
Illustrations Explaining and Defending the Gospel
- Rejection of man-centered theology/philosophy
- Poor excuses against rejecting Christianity
- Bad excuses for rejecting Jesus and Christianity and the analogy of dental care
- Rejecting Christianity because of bad religious leaders and the analogy of rejecting dental care because of a bad orthodontist
- There are Too Many Religions Which One is True and Counterfeit Currencies
- Hypocrisy, Christianity and the Case of Patrick Rock
- Hypocrisy, Christianity and the Drunk Police Officer
- Does a Fake Police Officer disprove real Officers Exist and Disproof of Christianity
- False assumptions, Composition Fallacy and Malaysian flag mistaken for American flag with ISIS symbols
- Handling Bible Contradictions
- Bible Contradictions and Fitting Puzzle Pieces
- Idioms of Love and Bible Contradictions
- Whoppers and Bible Contradictions
- Bible Contradiction and Gold Medal at the Cambrian Patrol
- Bible Contradiction and the Word “Left”
- Bible Contradiction and Louisiana Purchase
- Bible Contradiction and Thanksgiving Story
- Refuting Contradictions and Martial Arts Punch
- Defining Contradiction and Dalmatian
- Bible Contradictions and September 11th
- Bible Contradiction and Lyrics in Context
- Bible Contradiction and Contronyms
- Bible Contradiction and Mistaking ‘poppers’ for Candy
- Contradiction and the Word with the Most Definitions
- Water Connect Puzzle and Harmonization of Doctrines and Bible Contradictions
- Bible in context and Florida man flies banner as marriage proposal mistaken for racism
- Bible Contradiction and Multiple Meaning of “Watch Your Back”
- Our sins and the problem with self-righteousness before a Good God
- Defense of Sharing the Gospel
Illustrations of Presuppositional Apologetics
- Doing Math with Dice and Atheism’s Destruction of Knowledge
- Spin the Bottle for Multiple Choice Homework and Atheism’s Destruction of Knowledge
- The Person who denied the Sun
- Man blows up part of house while chasing fly
- Motorcyclist dies while protesting without a helmet against helmet laws
- Attacking Corporations and Banks while depending on Corporations and Banks to even attack it
- Why we question alleged disproof that mathematics or Christianity are not true
- Blackouts and one’s dependence on Electricity and man’s dependence on God
- Using Rights to Hand Guns While Critical of Rights to Hand Guns
- Transcendental Arguments and Chelsea Clinton’s Suicidal Argument
- Bad foundations of worldviews and Louisiana Sinkhole
- Self-refuting arguments and Soviet Anti-tank dogs
- Snake Biting Self and Self-Refuting Arguments
- Don’t believe Oxygen exists? What If The World Lost Oxygen For 5 Seconds?
- Torching A Safe Full of Fire Works and Self-Destructive Arguments
- Trying to Kill A Spider by burning down the House and how atheists argue
- Going Against God While Relying On Him and man who stole ambulance sent to help him
- Transcendental Argument illustrated with Would-be robber breaks leg, calls ambulance with shop’s payphone
- FBI going after terrorist network and not just individuals and importance of refuting worldviews
- Transcendental Argument illustrated with Anti-Cop Rapper Has Life Saved by Cops
- Refuting Presuppositions and Ant Bait
- Refuting Presuppositions and Handling ISIS Drones
- Refuting Presuppositions and Fighting Terrorist Financing
- Three Little Pigs and Apologetics’ Methodology
- Riot Glass and a Sure Foundation
The Domain for Truth 
Thanks for this great resource. I know I have read a few but it helps to have them in a systematic collection. Blessings.
Wow Jim! What a treasure trove of ideas. This is saved in my favourites to peruse through at leisure.
I’m touched to hear you saved them! I’m praying some of them will be useful for others in their evangelism conversations to drive the point home!!! Enjoy and be edified!
Thanks for this listing, brother, and for all of the work it represents. I enjoy these apologetics illustrations.
Thanks! I enjoyed making them, didn’t realized how long I’ve been doing them, collecting them for evangelistic and sermon illustrations. I’m hoping its useful for others! How is your day going today? Going to have lunch with a pastor in an hour…hoping to go to Dunkin Donuts to get a free donut and coffee for Vets today
Thanks for your service, my friend! We non-vets often take our freedoms for granted but many have sacrificed. Enjoy the donut!
Thanks! Busy day today including leaf collecting and taking my sister’s car in for service in prep for selling it. Almost done cleaning it out.
Just the hints from the titles draw me in! Our Lord has given you a great gift for apologetics and your use of such unique illustrations is proof of that. Praise God!
pax,
dora
Thank you Dora for your kind words!!!! I hope this would be useful somehow for people’s evangelism and apologetics conversations both online and offline! Anyone I can pray for you for in regards to knowing the Gospel?
Jimmy, I know you constantly pray for your mother’s salvation, reminded of that today, and I join with you in praying for her. And when you think of it, would ask that you pray for my 85-year-old uncle who is unsaved. Thank you for asking. 🙏
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Thanks much!
Appreciate you dropping by and seeing these! Have a blessed day today sister! Hope you are doing well?
🙌🙌🙌 Thank you! Praise God, doing well! I pray you and your family are doing well as well!
Wow. A lot of work went into this post! I am re-blogging it so that I don’t lose it. So many of these I have never read and they all look interesting.
Thank you, Pastor Jim!
Thanks for sharing this!! Hope you have a peaceful and wonderful day, and once more thanks for reading and commenting all these years Chris!!
You’re welcome, Pastor Jim. Thank you for your kind words and for putting this post together. I know it takes time to organize a post like this and I appreciate it.
May God continue to bless your ministry!!
Reblogged this on Wings of the Wind and commented:
I have been following Pastor Jim’s blog named The Domain for Truth for several years now. He is a defender of the Christian faith as I understand it and the “about” on his blog tells you a little about him:
“His interests include Christian history, military history, apologetics, philosophy, politics and theology. He is a United States Marine Corps veteran, a graduate of UCLA and holds an MDiv and ThM.”
I am posting this for myself as much as for my readers. I want it in a place where I have easy access to it as I haven’t read all of these.
Enjoy.
By the way, Apologetics is not about winning an argument.
Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, “speaking in defense”) is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and recommended their faith to outsiders were called Christian apologists.
I found the one titled “There are Too Many Religions Which One is True and Counterfeit Currencies” helpful.
Just because there are counterfeit currencies doesn’t mean all money is counterfeit.
That there are counterfeit currencies is a sign that real currencies are valuable otherwise there would be no counterfeits of it like there are no counterfeits of Monopoly money.
Just spent a long time going through these
Excellent. Saved this!
Aww thanks!! I hope Nathan is having a meaningful Veterans Day (and hopefully he didn’t have to work?). Blessings to you and Nathan!!
Yes he did have to work. Someone asked him how long he served he said, “I retired at 22 years” and the guy said, “lucky duck.”‘I am so glad Nathan didn’t go off on him. As you know that’s hard work and a lot of souls lost. Freedom is not free. For those in the States, soldiers today sacrifice themselves in defending freedom against enemies foreign and domestic. Jesus’s sacrificial penal-substitutionary death made believers free from the penalty of sin and right with God. Sacrifice is taboo and freedom is so misused today. I am thankful for you and your family’s sacrifice in ministry and country. Are you guys going out for dinner tonight?
Wonderful to have a bunch of illustrations in one place. Thanks, Jim!
Reblogged this on clydeherrin.
I didn’t read them all as of yet, but so far I thought they are all good, useful, and practical. Up to this point I would say that the hypocritical police offer is on top!
Aww thanks for browsing through them and that include the police post! Hope you had a good week so far brother?
Thanks Jim! Putting this in my list of links!
I can think of several verses which some might consider contradictory even though they are not.
[…] 4.) Collection of 70 Apologetics’ Illustrations […]
What a toolset!
What a collection