Sermon preparation: take more care!

I've enjoyed preparing my sermon for this week. I've ended up with far too much material (about 3600+ words). But it struck me in church today that there were parts of the text I had given little attanetion to in my preparation.

Mark 8:33, "But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples...." and Jesus said, "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

I had read the passage several times, of course, but I'd somehow "missed" those verses, or not really thought about them and taken account of them, and considered how they might affect the whole.

It's just a reminder to slow down and take care durring preparation (and Bible reading more generally). We are always in danger of assuming we know what the Bible says. And especially with a familiar passage, we are in danger of assuming we know what it means. When there are striking verses in the passage, and when you get gripped by them, its possible to overlook details that might be significant. Sermon preparation can seem to be flowing well when it might be good to pause and go back to what the text actually says.