Read
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
John 21:25
Reflect
James Smithson lived a very interesting life.
He was born illegitimate in secret in France but grew up in England. He was in France during the French Revolution, was imprisoned during the Napoleonic Wars and became a respected chemist and mineralogist who published 27 scientific papers during his lifetime.
But that’s not how you know him. In fact, Smithson never even visited the United States.
When he died, he left his estate to his nephew with an unusual condition. If his nephew died without heirs, the fortune would go to the United States government to establish an institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
Six years later, his nephew did, indeed, die without heirs, and Smithson’s fortune crossed the Atlantic to a country he had never seen.
On August 10, 1846, Congress established the Smithsonian Institution. That means it celebrated its 180th anniversary this week. Ironically, the Louvre in France also opened as a public museum on August 10, back in 1793.
If you’ve never visited the Smithsonian, you really should. I could spend days walking through exhibits devoted to art, science, history, aviation, culture and almost anything else imaginable. You can stand inches away from objects that helped shape history or stare at artifacts you may have only seen in books.
It is a remarkable place built around the idea that knowledge should be preserved, explored and shared. And yet something even more extraordinary is probably sitting somewhere in your house.
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and most families have at least one copy. Even if they don’t, anyone with internet access can read countless translations online. Yet something so available can become almost invisible.
People will stand in line to see a famous painting, an Apollo spacecraft or a piece of American history. They’ll spend hours wandering through museums because they know there is always another room to explore and another exhibit worth seeing.
Almost nobody walks into the Smithsonian, looks at one display case for five minutes and says, “Well, I guess I’ve seen everything.” And yet we can sometimes treat the Bible that way.
We read a familiar passage, hear a favorite verse or remember a story we’ve known since childhood and assume we already know what is there. But Scripture doesn’t work that way.
At the end of his Gospel, John made an astonishing admission. After spending 21 chapters telling us about Jesus, His teachings, His miracles, His death and His resurrection, John said there was still far more that could have been written.
“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did,” he wrote. “Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
John had given us an entire Gospel and then essentially told us that we had only begun to see the wonder of Christ.
The same thing happens when we continue returning to Scripture. A passage we’ve read dozens of times suddenly reveals something we never noticed before. A verse connects with another passage in a way we had never considered. A familiar parable speaks differently because our circumstances have changed. A promise we once skimmed past suddenly becomes exactly what we need.
There is always another gallery.
You could spend a lifetime exploring Scripture and never exhaust its treasures. The tragedy isn’t that God has hidden His truth from us. It’s that He has placed it in plain sight, and we so often leave it unopened.
Don’t make that mistake today. Open the Bible. Read slowly. Look again. There is always more to discover.
Enjoyed this? Subscribe and get future reflections, bourbon notes, and assorted nonsense delivered straight to your inbox.
Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
