Lately I’ve had more and more of a sense that the Bible is not a list of bullet points. A bullet point format seems to allow me to focus on one point and not see the total picture. I’m trying to see more and more the connection between verses and paragraphs and chapters. It’s so easy to think in a bullet point format because of the verse numbers and the chapter numbers and in most Bibles the description of groupings of verses. Unfortunately, that encourages me to begin to look at individual verses out of context. I can forget to look at the context and see what came before and what is coming after.
It sometimes takes looking at a commentary to see the total picture; to see the significance of why the verse or passage was written and what else it is surrounded by. A bullet point perspective, I think, sometimes gives us the idea we can buy into whichever bullet point we want and discard the others. But that’s not true about the Bible. It’s a living unity, with a complete unified message. We can’t pick and choose which bullet point is most attractive and acceptable. And dare I say: most painless.
Try reading the Bible without a bullet point format mentality. Let me know what you think.