Living by the Book/Living by the Book Workbook Set (24 page)

T
here’s probably no tool of teaching more powerful than repetition. If I want to make sure that you catch on to what I have to say, I’ll repeat it over and over, again and again, time after time. Repetition reinforces. That’s why the second clue to look for whenever you come to the biblical text is:

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus repeats things to His disciples? The gospels record at least nine times that He said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” And when John was recording the Revelation, what do you suppose the Lord told him to write to the seven churches? That’s right: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

That’s a lot of emphasis. You get the impression that Jesus wanted His disciples (and us) to pay attention to what He had to say. By constantly using that formula to flag His words, He gave His listeners clues about the significance of His teaching.

Let me mention a few categories of repetition to look for.

Scripture constantly repeats terms, phrases, and clauses to emphasize their importance. For example, in Psalm 136 we read,

The psalmist repeats
His love endures forever
no less than twenty-six times in this psalm. Why? Did he have nothing else to say? No, he was emphasizing the fact that God’s love endures forever. By the time you get through the psalm, you know the bottom line: His love endures forever. In effect, the psalmist is saying, “What else do you need to know?”

Or take Hebrews 11, God’s Hall of Fame—or Hall of Faith. It’s another classic illustration of things repeated. The phrase
by faith
appears eighteen times. The writer is talking about different people living in different times under different circumstances. But all of them are living the same “by faith” lifestyle.

Again, look how important the little word
if
is to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul uses it seven times in verses 12–28, where he is talking about the critical importance of Christ’s resurrection to our faith.
If
emphasizes the fact that everything we believe is conditioned on the resurrection. If that’s untrue, everything about Christianity is untrue.

Phrases and terms are not the only things that a writer repeats to make a point. Sometimes a character reappears.

Barnabas is a good example. We really don’t know too much about the man. His given name was Joseph, but the apostles called him Barnabas, meaning Son of Encouragement (Acts 4:36). And that’s really the most important thing about him: he was an encourager. Whenever somebody in the early church needed a hand, up would pop Barnabas to help him out: Saul (Acts 9:27); the believing Gentiles at Antioch (Acts 11:22); and John Mark (Acts 15:36–39). Luke brings Barnabas into the story at strategic points as a model of spiritual mentoring.

Sometimes a writer makes his point by repeating a particular incident or set of circumstances.

In the book of Judges, for instance, the writer begins each section with the words,
Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
That refrain sets up the situation in which God raises up judges who usually lead the people back to God—but never permanently. Sooner or later they fall away, and the cycle repeats until the end of the book, where it gets to the heart of the problem: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25).

Another example of repeated circumstances occurs in Matthew. Throughout his gospel, the author builds a tension between Jesus and the Pharisees. Over and over the Lord does or says something that offends these
leaders. Matthew uses these incidents to call attention to the power struggle going on between the old system of self-righteous legalism and the new way of salvation in Christ.

A related situation is the creation of a repeating pattern. Bible students have long recognized the parallels between the life of Joseph and the life of our Lord. Likewise, there are parallels between the experience of Israel and that of Jesus.

Or take Saul and David in 1 and 2 Samuel: whatever Saul does wrong, David does right. The writer uses juxtapositions to show that, although God acceded to the people’s pleas for a king by designating Saul, it would later be David who reflected God’s “own heart” (see 1 Samuel 13:11–14).

A final and obvious case of repetition is the citation of Old Testament Scripture by the New. That’s a fascinating study in itself. Obviously, if the Spirit of God compels a New Testament writer to recall a passage from the Old Testament, it’s likely because He wants to emphasize that portion of God’s Word.

Take the story of Jonah. In the early days of the Christian church, some people didn’t want the book of Jonah included in the canon of Scripture. But Jesus referred to it in a way that makes it indispensable to the divine revelation (Matthew 12:39–41).

Or look at the book of Hebrews. It would be hard to imagine what that book would have to say were it not for its heavy reliance on Old Testament Scripture.

In short, whenever you study the Bible and notice that something is repeated—said more than once—mark it down. It’s not because the writers couldn’t think of anything else to say. It’s their way of pointing out matters of crucial importance.

S
o far we’ve labeled the thumb with things that are emphasized and the index finger with things that are repeated. Now the third clue you need to look for—and this goes on your middle finger—is:

By related I mean things that have some connection, some interaction with each other. You see, just because two things are next to each other does not make them related. They’ve got to work off of each other in some way. There must be a tie that somehow binds them together.

Look for three kinds of relationships in your study of Scripture:

This is the relationship between the whole and its parts, between a category and its individual members, between the big picture and the details. We’ve seen this relationship a number of times before.

Let me give you an illustration out of Matthew 6, a part of the Sermon on the Mount. The chapter begins,