Are you ever surprised by a word in Scripture? You’re reading along in a familiar passage, and suddenly you realize it doesn’t say what you thought it said. This happens to me a lot. Usually, it is because I’m reading the familiar passage in a less familiar translation, and the shift in wording makes me pause and rethink the passage.* Recently, though, something stood out to me that I only thought was different in that day’s translation.
The verse was Luke 12:12:
Whenever they bring you before synagogues and rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how you should defend yourselves or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what must be said. (Luke 12:11-12, HCSB, emphasis mine – read all of chapter 12 for better context.)
The word that jumped out at me was “teach.” For some reason, I had always perceived that word as “give.” I grabbed my NASB to see what it said, since that’s the translation I read most frequently. It also said “teach.” Next, I went back to translations I would have read as a child: KJV and NIV. Guess what? They both said “teach” as well. So did ESV.
For some reason, my brain had always processed a word that wasn’t there at all in any translation I’d read. So where did it come from?
I started skimming through the rest of the Gospels, and I finally found it in Mark:
When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. (Mark 13:11, NASB, emphasis mine)
Both “teach” and “give” are correct. Both are biblical. But, I’d completely missed “teach” because my brain automatically inserted “give” into both verses.
So, what’s my point? Well, I’ve mentioned it before, but this incident just reinforced the truth: I can never exhaust a passage. No matter how familiar, there is always something I have missed or was not yet ready to learn. The Word of God is so rich and full that I can never ever exhaust its depth. Never. That’s the general application here.
But, there is a specific one as well. It’s easy to look at these particular verses and think, “Oh, I don’t have to worry about that. The Spirit will dump it into my brain when I need it.” But that’s not what is being said in either verse, whether we are talking about the Holy Spirit teaching us or giving us the right words.
The key here is that we do not worry in advance about a specific incident because we are to be constantly sitting at the feet of the Holy Spirit. Day in and day out, in every experience, with every prayer, and through every reading of God’s Word, we are to be both learning and receiving from the Holy Spirit. This is an on-going reality. We don’t worry about the moment in which we have to make a defense because it is to be no different from any other moment. In all situations, we are to receive the teaching and gift of the Word of God through the Holy Spirit.
An unexpected word drove home that truth.
I love being startled by God’s Word. Jolted into an understanding by something I’d never paid attention to or noticed before. When is the last time that happened to you? I pray that your understanding of God and His Word may be deepened today because of an unexpected word.
Not Quite Ordinary 