Reading Scripture: Chapter & Verse

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had many conversations with many of you over how we should look at Scripture, particularly the first half of the book of Matthew. Today we start reading chapter nine, but I want to look at the texts we have read so far and use them to lay the groundwork for some larger themes and ideas that I hope will help us as we read the Scriptures together.

This past weekend I was watching a preacher on TV say that God had told him to tell me that because God had promised a blessing in Isaiah 58, I was supposed to give $58 a month for a year in order to receive the same blessing. I’ve seen this preacher do this before, with certain chapters being the number of people who are supposed to give, and the verse being the amount they are supposed to give.

Now of course this is an extreme example, but it got me thinking about the concept of chapters and verses in the Bible. In reality, the chapters and verses as we have them today were not there when the original authors wrote the Scriptures. They just wrote long letters or gospels. It wasn’t until centuries later that they were divided up and organized into the chapters and verses that we have today. Of course, the intent was to make the Scriptures easier to reference, but there have been unintended consequences.

Today when we read a passage of Scripture, the editors of the different Bible translations have broken them up by story or topic based on these chapters, and on what they think is a “logical” break. But what if the original author did not mean for the story or thought flow to break there? What if we have missed something all together by boxing in the Scripture so it makes sense?

Here is an example: In Matthew 3:13-17 we have the story of the Baptism of Jesus. The story climaxes with Jesus rising out of the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descending upon Him, and God declaring out loud for all to hear, “This is my beloved Son, and I am well pleased with Him.” Then the chapter ends, and then Matthew 4 opens with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. So we tie off one story and open the next… and this story usually ends for us with the lesson that Jesus was able to fight of temptation and so can we.

But look at the first thing that happens when Satan tempts Jesus. He asks Him “are you really the Son of God?” Jesus rebukes him, and tells him that “Humans do not live off of bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” What does that mean?

But if we look back in the story just a bit, we see that from the mouth of God came the words that Jesus was the Son of God. So what did Jesus “live off of” while he fasted in the desert for 40 days? What was the bread that had come from the mouth of God? The words of the Father at His baptism… "This is my beloved Son, and I am well pleased with him." And so after 40 days with only that as his bread in the wilderness, Christ is able to face the temptation of the Enemy, knowing that his identity is in the Father. And what is even more telling, is that God declares he is well pleased with the Son before he has even done anything publically, rather than waiting until the end and saying, "Well done good and faitful servant." It was not Christ beating back Satan with Scripture that won God's favor... rather it was knowing and feasting on the fact that He had God's favor and was God's beloved Son before he entred the wilderness that enabled Christ to resist temptation.

I don’t know about you, but that helps me look at the story in a different light, and it helps me apply the story to my own life in a somewhat different way. This is no longer just a Bible lesson that simply says, “You can fight off the Enemy with Scripture.” Rather our Baptism, in all reality, becomes the core of who we are and how we are sustained in the wilderness… the beloved sons and daughters of God, regardless of what we have or have not done.

When reading a passage of Scripture, it is of vital importance to not read a verse or set of verses in a vacuum and try to determine what they mean for you life now. Take the time to read what has come before it, and even what comes after. Try to not let the chapters and verses break up the story where it was not intended to be broken. You’ll be able to find where the author intended for a change or a break, but often times it will not be where centuries of editors decided it should be.

So how does this concept change some of the other ways we should read Scripture? More to come…