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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1266 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Mastering the Bible - Conveys Meaning - Worldview Wednesday


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1266 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday.  Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events.  To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God and His Word.  Our focus for the next several months on Worldview Wednesday is Mastering the Bible, through a series of brief insights. These insights are extracted from a book of the same title from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars, Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. This book is a collection of insights designed to help you understand the Bible better.  When we let the Bible be what it is, we can understand it as the original readers did, and as its writers intended. Each week we will explore two insights.
Mastering The Bible – Conveys Meaning
Insight Seventeen: The Writers of the Bible Structured What They Wrote to Convey Meaning
If you’ve ever had to outline a paper or prepare notes for a company meeting at work, you know that how the elements in your writing or presentation are arranged will matter a lot for how it’s received and understood.

How information is “packaged” can be crucial for comprehension. People who work with large amounts of data know especially well that their information presentation often dictates whether their work is grasped or ignored. For that reason, pollsters and statisticians often use visuals, infographics, pie charts, tables, to present their work. A good visual can draw the eye immediately to the most important points the data conveys.

When it comes to writing, skilled authors structure material for the same payoff. They may not use colorful graphs, but there are ways of structuring material to draw the eye, or, in the case of the ancient world, the ear, to the important points.

One example that’s well known to biblical scholars is the use of chiasm. The word chiasm is derived from the Greek letter chi, which is written like the letter X. Imagine cutting the X vertically in half. The arms of an X move toward the center point and then veer outward again in the opposite direction. Chiasm refers to doing that in writing. The writer builds a scene or an argument in one direction and then begins to “work backward” following the same path.

By way of illustration, consider Romans 2:6—11. Let me read this passage, He will judge everyone according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness. There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritismNotice how the content of the verses moves toward a point (marked by letters) and then “reverses” itself element-by-element:

God will judge everyone equitably (v. 6).
Those who seek God's glory and honor will receive eternal life (v.7)