Good Illustration or Gimmick?

A preacher was criticized for dressing in first-century clothes and quoting passages from the apostle Peter. Some said it was just a gimmick and shouldn’t have been done.

I’m confused. Is it a gimmick at regular worship but not a gimmick at Vacation Bible School? Who made that rule? Why do we dress in costumes at VBS? Should we stop dressing in costumes at VBS, or could the reasons we do it be good reasons to do it occasionally in regular services?

Is quoting the Bible wrong? Is quoting the Bible a gimmick in a suit and tie? Is quoting the Bible a gimmick if you take off your coat? At what point in a wardrobe change does quoting the Bible become a gimmick?

I’ve had people tell me PowerPoint is a gimmick. Should I refuse to use that during worship? I know of a congregation where people left because they used PowerPoint. Is that issue worth leaving brethren and going to a church that uses a blackboard?

At one church, we were constructing a new building with large beams. Before they were installed, several men helped me bring one of the large beams, about twenty feet long, into the auditorium where we worshipped. I preached from Matthew 7:1-5 on removing the beam from our eye before we try to pick a piece of sawdust from our brother’s eye. I had a piece of sawdust glued to a 4” x 6” card for the contrast. Was that a gimmick or a good illustration? I preached that sermon in 1976, and I still have people telling me they remember the sermon and the points I made.

Could you have a closing prayer before he starts and not count it as a part of worship, and everybody is OK?

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I’m concerned about doing things right and not violating God’s teaching. I’m also concerned about making rules out of scruples that freeze us. Matthew 15:1-9 was not spoken to the denominations. There weren’t any then. Jesus spoke them to some of the “preachers” and “elders” of His day:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” — Matthew 15:7-9, ESV

Is a preacher walking naked and barefoot for three years a good illustration or a gimmick? Isaiah 20:1-5

Is a preacher lying on his left side for 390 days and then on his right side 40 days, eating bread made of wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, cooked with cow dung a good illustration or a gimmick? That wasn’t God’s first idea. The first command was to use human waste. Ezekiel negotiated and was permitted to use cow dung instead to cook his bread. Ezekiel 4:1-15

When I took the Dale Carnegie Leadership class in the 1970s, they taught us that people remembered when we used exaggeration, color, movement, and pain as memory hooks. We forget the usual. We remember the unusual.

Jesus used a variety of illustrations: farming, seeds, dirt, homemade bread, expensive jewelry, fishing, a dishonest manager, a fig tree, a foolish rich man, a lost sheep, lost money, a rebellious son, and a sanctimonious son.

Suggestion: Perhaps we need to pick things that are worth getting upset about. Maybe wearing a tunic and mantle occasionally, as Jesus, the apostles, and others wore during the first century, and quoting scripture to help people visualize how it might have been to be in those audiences isn’t bad.

I’d rather do that than walk around naked for three years or have scrambled eggs with bread cooked with cow dung for 430 days. I prefer toast with butter and jelly.