Page 139 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

Use of Pictorial Language

The vocabulary Jesus used in his preaching was definite and concrete, drawn from the everyday

dialect of his people. 152 It is not difficult to locate concrete word pictures in the Savior’s

preaching, words that enshrine valuable spiritual themes. 153 For example, the Sermon on the

Mount displays such pictures as “salt, light, city, candle and bushel, adversary, customs of

Pharisees and hypocrites, treasures, birds, lilies, roads, and wolves.” 154 These word pictures

were familiar to the listeners and were ubiquitous in first century everyday life. Jesus used the

concrete since it is helpful to “convey the meaning of the abstract.” 155 Moreover, the audience

of Jesus could grasp these illustration by relating to the picturesque speech, thus hearing what

Jesus intended to speak.

Jesus spoke to his disciples, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather

into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

(Matt. 6: 26). He wanted to teach them to trust God’s provision. He used the picture of a bird

flying in the air. He continues, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil

152
Norman E. Richardson, The Christ of the Class Room: How to Teach Evangelical
Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932), 146.

153
Wiersbe, Preaching and Teaching, 166-67. He furnishes even an inventory of the less
obvious pictorial images in the Synoptic Gospels that needs attention for their expository values.
See also Phipps, Wisdom & Wit, 66.

154
Bond, Master Preacher, 186.
155
Herman Harrell Horne, Jesus The Master Teacher (Grand Rapid, MI: Kregel
Publications, 1964), 122.