Envision the front cover of a magazine with a picture of a cheerful woman striking a pose with her dog – the headline reads “Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog”. As it is, the headline comes across as rather sinister; but a punctuated version – “Rachel Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family, and her dog” clears the air. Phew!
No gainsaying, syntax and punctuations do matter.
In attempting to read just about any material, there are both internal and external factors that inform how a reader engages the art of reading. Continue reading “The whole and the sum of its parts”
It is quite fascinating that whilst the Bible is essentially the story of God’s redemptive history, believers are able to locate themselves in the unfolding drama. In the last post, we saw how the Bible really is a purposeful narrative: a clear beginning in Genesis, a perfect ending in Revelation, and with everything in the middle building up towards that end.
Every book has a purpose, so in order to get the most out of it, it’s important to ask the right questions, such as who wrote it?, to whom was it written?, what’s the author’s purpose? These same questions and more are to be asked of The Bible, if we’re to make sense of it.
