Illustrations are an important, and too often neglected, component of Bible teaching and preaching. Illustrations serve to shed light on the Scriptures, explain difficult concepts and open the door to application. Therefore books like Flynn’s, which teach us how to find, use and file illustrations, are valuable. The first half of the book is particularly useful for those who need to be encouraged and instructed concerning the above-mentioned aspects of illustrations. The second half of the book provides numerous illustrations categorized by various subjects. Unfortunately, many of Flynn’s examples are tired, old and unverified stories and anecdotes of questionable value. As a matter of fact, so dated were many of his stories that I checked the copyright date (1988) at least twice, thinking that surely this book is at least 50 years old.
My evaluation is that the first part of Come Alive with Illustrations is helpful if not great. But the second half is largely a giant example of the types of illustrations that, for the most part, teachers will not want to use. Far better books of illustrations would be Charles Swindoll’s The Tale of the Tardy Ox Cart and William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues.