Page 141 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the

darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23). In this preaching, Jesus used the word picture of an eye

metaphorically.

The language of imagery incorporates the sense experience of the audience. 161 People recall

sensory experience from resident memory using related words of smell, tastes, vision, pain,

physical sense of hot and cold. The words of the senses penetrate the layers of logic to the

emotions in the heart by their imaginative power. Jesus’ use of sensory language appears in this

statement, “while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there

will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12). The sensory words of “darkness,”

“weeping,” and “gnashing” are apparent and enhancing the effect of the preaching. There are

copious of examples in the sermon of Jesus. 162

Jesus understood that the language of his people is pictorial; 163 thus, Jesus dressed his

thoughts in pictorial language. 164 Handy notes the effects that “his picture works and word

160
Handy, Jesus the Preacher, 57.

161 Charles Paul Klose, “The Use of Imagination inn Preaching,” Th. M. thesis, Northern
Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, 1950, 64.

162
Matt. 5:6, 5:13, 7:13-14, 10:16, 11:28-30, 22:2-14, 23:4, 25:1-13, 25:31-46, Luke
13:34, 16:19-31, 18:10-14.
163
Handy, Jesus the Preacher, 57. He maintains that “an Oriental language is pictorial.”
See also White, Listening Carefully, 10. He explains the poetic and pictorial expression of faith,
saying, “The psalmist did not speak of God’s unfailing sustenance and rehabilitation, his
supervision and hospitality. He said, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not in want; he makes me
lie down . . . He leads me . . . ’ And prepares ‘a table before me . . . ’”

164
Zuck, Teaching as Jesus, 184. He gives the reasons of Jesus’ using picturesque
expressions: “to capture his hearer’s attention, to encourage them to reflect on what he said, and
to help them remember his words.”