“Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.” (Exodus 17:6 KJV)
A common practice when preparing a Bible study or Sunday school lesson is to take a concept, turn it into a lesson, and in the course of the preparation be sure to anchor that lesson with adequate scripture. As though the many verses add an overall foundation to the concept. While it clearly weakens the concept if sufficient in-context scripture is not available, I think we’re actually short changing ourselves by preparing lessons in this way. Here is why. While we may actually come up with some very good foundational thoughts and even connect them into doctrines, we are finite temporal people who can only see dimly as through a glass. We only know (at present) in part (see 1 Corinthians 13:12).
What if we did this the other way around? We take a verse that God has prepared, read and study the whole chapter (if not the whole book) that it is in, and let fountains gush out from each and every solid rock of scripture! What is being spoken of in whatever this verse is will naturally have many other stories and instances in other passages that say something very similar. Because of the many authors and the many years that scripture was written over, it’s not long before we see the same inspiring Spirit behind many scriptures say something strikingly similar. In fact, as we see life giving water bursting forth from what we thought was only a solid rock, we begin to learn that this life giving water comes forth just by speaking to it. Because we find that it’s been speaking to us all along.
“Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.” (Numbers 20:8 KJV)