Sep
9
Old Style
Filed Under Devotional
I’ve been reading and studying the Bible for so long, it always strikes me as odd when someone admits to have very little knowledge about how it came to be. I once had a family friend ask, “Who wrote the Bible? Was it that King James guy?” Others seem surprised that the content is not chronological. And others are turned off when it doesn’t fit our modern ideas of how literature is expected to be written.
For example, the chapters and verses are a later addition by scholars to help divide and reference the content. As a result, they didn’t always place the divisions in the best possible location. We expect the end of a chapter to wrap up a thought and the beginning of a chapter to start a new one. Sometimes, that chapter split comes precisely in the middle of a thought.
I ran into that yesterday after reading through the faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11:
“And all these, having obtained good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” Hebrews 11:39-40
The author makes the point that we have more information and a clear declaration of the promise of salvation in Christ, so faith should be an easier conclusion for us than for the great saints of the Old Testament who lived by the faith of a promise fulfilled that they never saw in their time on earth.
Then the next chapter starts thusly:
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1
This passage starts with “Therefore”. This is the conclusion to the long argument laid out in the previous chapter. This is not a new, separate thought.
As a result, this passage carries even more weight! The author describes all of the saints that have gone before as a cloud of witnesses. He’s challenging the reader to take into account that all of these men and women lived by faith and we have their example along with the acts of Jesus as our evidence. So, let us let go of those things that would drag us down and get on with the only race that matters!
Don’t let our Western formatting and ideas of literature prevent you from experiencing the power of the Word. Do what you can to read Scripture as it was meant to be read.