Read It For Yourself

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; – Col 3:16

Any Believer who has conscientiously read through the Bible will admit that there’re certain areas in the Bible that their pastor has never preached on, and most likely will never preach. This isn’t because those areas contain hot-potato, contentious doctrines, but because they quite frankly don’t have broad enough relevance to warrant a full blown sermon to a whole congregation.

There’re times, when reading the Bible, that you find a message so directly relevant and apposite to you and your situation that you have no doubt that that word was meant for you. Nevertheless, such Bible “lessons” may not be something a preacher would want to devote a 60-minute sermon to; not only because it’d be a real chore to stretch such a single thread of thought out in a homily but because it’s significance and relevance will probably be lost to most of the persons in his congregation.

Other times, a truth is skipped because its message is so basic that it’ll border on insulting the intelligence of the audience to mention it. For example, that Jesus spoke to Mary audibly may be an important message in somebody’s personal study but a preacher who tries to make a message out of that will come across as either theologically desperate, or homiletically unimaginative.

Restaurants typically only serve meals that cater to the broadest section of the eating public; however you’ll agree that the real magic of food – the part where it’s more than a sum of all the constituting ingredients – can only be found in the home kitchen. In the same vein, the real sparkle of Scripture – that part that makes it so beautiful, so powerful, so life-transforming and relevant – is usually only discovered when you’ve made it a habit to read it for yourself.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.
GREG ELKAN