I came to expect to learn something new in familiar things at a conference I was privileged to attend at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Because it was billed as an “international conference,” I was expecting thousands to be in attendance. There were fifty of us and, that, by design. At that time, I was a novice in vocational ministry with no seminary training, so the prospects of me learning something new were pretty good.
We all received a pre-conference assignment in the mail to prepare a sermon outline from one Scripture passage from a list of passages and be prepared to present it. Having yet to preach a sermon, I did not realize that every passage on that list was so familiar that most, if not all, the clergymen had preached on one or more of them at least once if not many times. Looking back, I imagine that while I clumsily worked through a text, my experienced colleagues simply reached into a file drawer and retrieved an old sermon.
On the day of reckoning, we gathered in a classroom and waited for the moderator to arrive. In walked a tall, lanky Brit dressed in a tweed suit with a vest, a walking cliche perhaps supplied by Central Casting. He folded himself into a chair and said with a refined London accent, “Shall we begin? Who would like to go first?”
A young American seminary graduate with a master’s degree raised his hand without hesitation. Everyone knew he had a master’s degree because he made sure everyone knew. He took command of the floor and, with an air of intellectual superiority, presented his outline. He ended with a self-satisfied look that said, “I nailed it!”
After an uncomfortable silence, the moderator, leaning forward in his chair, his chin cupped in one of his massive hands, in a condescending tone asked, “Wherever did you get THAT?”
The haughtiness drained out of that young man like air from a balloon. The moderator proceeded to dismantle the young man’s outline revealing that he had not carefully exegeted the passage because he assumed what he knew already was correct and complete. Subsequent sermon outline presentations revealed that he was not alone.
It is our tendency when reading a familiar passage of Scripture to skate over it, rehearsing in our minds what we think we already know. What we think we know may be correct, but it may not.
It has been my practice since that conference to study those familiar passages even more carefully, prepared to learn something new. I have discovered that some familiar passages did not mean what I initially thought, and others were far richer than I had realized. And because the Scriptures are the revelation of God who is infinite in his being, to our delight, we will never come to the end of learning about Him.
