Wil Wheaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher on the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, offers a comment on his personal website that really resonates with me:

“I was recently asked if I have gotten tired of the same old questions from [Star Trek] fans. The truth is, I really haven’t, because even if it’s the thousandth time I’ve been asked a question, it’s the first time the person asking it has ever heard the answer.”

I frequently am asked a similar question: “Don’t you get tired of preaching and teaching about the same subjects all the time?” I can understand why people wonder. With rare exceptions, I deliver two detailed sermons and teach two Bible classes every week. Throw out the Sunday of our annual gospel meeting, one or two Sundays for vacation, and twelve Wednesdays when we have singing assemblies, and that’s still close to 200 lessons per year, without repetitions. (Honest.)

Considering that I’ve been at this for more than 17 years, with the first seven of those years at half the current pace because I then shared the work with brother John Burkhart — well, you do the math. It’s in the neighborhood of 2,700 lessons, give or take a few. Haven’t I run out of things to talk about by now?

I haven’t — not by a long shot. A significant reason is the one to which Wil Wheaton alludes: no matter how many times I preach or teach, there’s always someone present who hasn’t heard this particular subject approached in exactly this way. There are many more who — and I mean no disrespect — have heard the material before but have forgotten, or have stored the information in one of the filing cabinets of the mind and haven’t taken it out again recently. If you’ve never heard a point of Scripture taught before, or if you just don’t recall hearing it, it may be old but it’s “new” to you.

As for me, I learn more new things preparing those four studies every week than I could possibly share. (Perhaps I could, but most of you would agree that my lessons are long enough as it is!) By now, it’s not that I’m reading passages of Scripture I’ve never read before — I’ve read the Bible end to end many times. But when I study a portion of it, I study with fresh understanding. I’ve learned and (hopefully) grown since last I read. I’ve gained more knowledge of certain passages that help me better grasp the meaning of others.

Which is why we never exhaust the study possibilities of the Scriptures. I’m a different person reading the Bible today than I was the last time I picked it up — even if that last time was as recently as yesterday. I’ve had new experiences. I’m in a different state of mind. I know things now I didn’t know before, or I’m in a position to view the inspired writings from another, different perspective. Like the mercies of God, the Scriptures are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23), even though God hasn’t changed a word in nineteen centuries.

And this isn’t just my experience. It’s the experience of faithful Bible students in every generation, all over the world. Even the apostle Paul, learned as he was, was a student to the end, writing in his final letter to Timothy, “Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come — and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13).

As we sing, “I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.” The word of God, we should remind ourselves daily, is a living, active document (Hebrews 4:12). Go ahead — read it for the thousandth time. You’ll find in its pages answers you’re seeing for the very first time.