On James 1:19

Some years back, in a little church we were attending at the time, I learned something.  It was a Sunday evening service, typical of so many, and we came at length to the point in the service where it was time for the preaching.  A text was taken--Hebrews 5:8, if my notes are to be believed, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the tings which he suffered:"  But no sermon followed.  My, what an occasion it would have been to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ using that text as an opening.  But instead, it what had become a sad pattern over a stretch of weeks, the pastor asked each member of the congregation to give his or her own comments upon the verse.  And so we went around the room and heard this silly notion and that, this half opinion, and that educated guess.  We went home unedified.  We almost always went home that way.