It should not be forgotten that much of the choicest illustration is derived from the commonest pursuits and the most familiar experiences of life, and a man may excel in this respect without living in New York or London.
The great mass of our Lord’s illustrations are drawn from ordinary human life. Of agricultural operations, we find reference to sowing wheat and various circumstances which help or hinder its growth, to harvesting, winnowing, and putting in barns, to the management of fig trees and vineyards, and to bottling of wine.
In domestic affairs, He speaks of building houses, various duties of servants and stewards, leavening bread, baking, and borrowing loaves late at night, of dogs under the table, patching clothes and their exposure to moths, lighting lamps, and sweeping the house.
As to trade, etc., He mentions the purchase of costly pearls, finding hidden treasure, money entrusted to servants as capital, lending at interest, creditors and debtors, imprisonment for debt, and tax gatherers.
Among social relations, He tells of feasts, weddings, and bridal processions, the judge and the widow who had been wronged, the rich man and the beggar, the good Samaritan.
Of political affairs, He alludes to kings going to war, and the parable of the ten pounds (Luke 19.11ff) corresponds, in every particular, to the history of Archelaus in our Lord’s childhood.
The Prodigal Son is a series of the most beautiful pictures of real life. And who can think, without emotion, of Jesus standing in some market place and watching children at their sports, from which He, afterwards, drew a striking illustration?
All these form but a part of the illustrative material which, in our brief records of His teaching, we find Him deriving from the observation of human life and, in nearly every case, from matters familiar to all. The lesson is obvious, but it should be pondered long.
From: A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons by John A. Broadus (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1870), p. 219.
