Natural holistic reading of the Bible
There are several distractions to a natural reading of the Bible that publishers seem to disregard with an apparent disrespect for the Bible. I encourage and even challenge Bible publishers to reconsider their tradition of chopping up the Bible with chapters, verses and headings. I realize that it is a great convenience to have chapter and verse numbers but they could at least be minimized to almost unnoticeable. You may have heard the phrase “verse by verse” Bible study. I want to challenge the virtue of that approach. Here are examples of the destructive effect of chapter breaks in the Bible.
Matthew chapter 4; in Matthew 3 Jesus is baptized and 3:17 God speaks to Jesus saying, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased” which is the key verse in the following section about the temptation of Jesus but there is a chapter break interrupting the flow so that we don’t even see this as one passage. In chapter 4 verse 3 and 6 Satan questions the identity of Jesus by saying, “If you are the Son of God”. It is actually an echo of the temptation of Eve when Satan said, “Did God really say?” And so without the chapter break we would naturally read this as one passage with the theme that God has just said something; that Jesus is the Son of God, and Satan is throwing doubt on what God has just said.
In western thinking and writing we form paragraphs out of complete thoughts. A paragraph will be a complete thought and is concluded before starting a new one. Each new paragraph introduces a new thought which may be related to the preceding paragraph but is also independently new. In eastern and Greek thought there is something beautifully different. The final sentence of a paragraph will also be the introduction to the new paragraph. In fact they probably didn’t even see paragraphs the way we see them. An example is Matthew chapter 6. The last verse of chapter 5; is “Therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. This is a conclusion the previous section on Jesus fulfilling the law and it is also an introduction the next section which is about living out this perfection. My Bible also adds a heading in addition to the chapter break “Giving to the poor and prayer” just further adding to the confusion. You may think this is insignificant but one criticism of the Sermon on the Mount is that some claim it is a compilation of random sayings rather than a cohesive unit and these breaks only add to the breaking of its cohesion.
A proper way to understand Greek writing is through the literary form inclusio. This might be similar to our paragraph but it has definite rules. The inclusio starts and ends with a same or similar term or phrase. An example is in the beatitudes Matthew 5: 3-10 where the term “kingdom of heaven” forms the beginning and end of that inclusio. The verses following 10 which also use the phrase “blessed are” are an extension with a super explanation mark “!!” but the thought is in transition from what was contained within the inclusio.
This inclusio factor could be critical in the interpretation of Matthew 6:22-7:5 which begins and ends with the topic of the eye. And this section is linked back to the introductory verse “blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. If I am correct here about this section then the chapter 7 break is an intrusion. And also we will correctly view the verses about judging is included with the preceding verses.
Themes make a huge contribution to a holistic reading of scripture. Chapters really break into our ability to perceive the themes that are so vital to the scripture’s message. Consider the whole Bible and its unifying themes; God reaching out to humanity, mankind’s need of redemption and the sovereignty of our Creator over creation. Each part of the Bible contributes to its theme but if we isolate a writing from the whole it really loses its meaning. Many of the interpretation problems that we encounter can be resolved by stepping back, looking at the big picture theme and then seeing that problem passage as part of a greater theme. Consider Romans; this poor book gets dissected more than any I know of. My friends did a verse by verse study of Romans that took over a year and to tell you the truth it was very unpleasant. But if we look at verses 1:16-17 as a powerful introduction then the rest of the book becomes very sensible, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “the just shall live by faith”. We often hear this quoted as though Paul is saying, “I’m not embarrassed to witness for Jesus”. But that is irrelevant to the rest of the letter. Use some literary common sense. Consider the setting of the gospel message being challenged as inadequate in itself. Consider the Jews saying that the Greeks need law. Consider the great ethnic division between these groups. Paul is saying, “I am fully confident in the gospel within itself to save. The gospel works!” Then as we progress through the book we see chapters 7-8 talking about his confidence that life in the Spirit is better than life by the law, it cannot give us the righteousness of God and life in the Spirit is superior to sinful desires of the flesh. Finally in Romans 14 when Paul could have reasserted that we still need the law as a guide he concludes by saying the law is fulfilled by love. This is all an expansion of 1:16-17 his confidence in the gospel. Please, if you must do the verse by verse style of study at least read the entire book/letter as a whole first.
