2010: The Middle of the Loaf - What God Has Placed Dead Center In Biblical Scriptures
When I was a young boy, my mother quite often made me sandwiches to eat. They were usually from a bread that said it made you grow stronger in a dozen different ways. I was addicted to the idea of being an especially strong boy, so anytime I could influence the bread buying at the grocery store, that was the type that we got. I was aware of vitamins, and wanted all of them I could get, knowing that they helped make you very strong.
The ends of a loaf of bread were called the heel when I grew up. I didn't like them very well, because they had too much crust. Once a loaf got to the end, I tried not to eat any sandwiches made from those slices. Especially the piece at the very end, that was all crust on top, on one of its sides. I liked bread from the middle! But of course, I changed my mind when my mother explained to me that the crust was brown because it had all the vitamins. My mother, God rest her departed soul, was a clever mother.
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Some people question the Bibles authenticity, and that is even a step in growing to trust it, I suppose. But though there are many versions of the Bible, it seems to me that a good number of them seem to have signs in their internal structure attesting to God's hand having been with their individual translating, writing, and publication teams.
Those teams did a lot of praying, I have no doubt, when they undertook the work. And I think God has guided most all of them. Like many, I have come to believe that scripture was perfect when given by the Holy Spirit to the writers of each book, in the language it was first given in. And I believe prayerful teams have since translated it faithfully and effectively into other languages.
Yet, the Bible's structure has changed over time.
I read in a friend's American Standard Bible that it was a man named Stephen Langton that divided the Bible into chapters, in about 1228 A.D. Though the Holy Spirit might have rightly guided him in this undertaking, it was, nevertheless, a change in the Bible's structure. Not it's content, but it's structure.
John Wycliff and John Purvey had translated the Bible into English by 1388 A.D.
And 220 years later, in 1448 A.D., a man named R. Nathan first divided the Old Testament into verses.
In 1551 A.D., a Robert Stephanus divided the New Testament into verses.
Finally, the entire Bible was placed into the now conventional Old and New Testament, chapter and verse structure in 1560 A.D., in what was named the Geneva Bible.
So, oddly, the Geneva Bible first brought us our present-day structure for the great book which comes to the aid of men and women who have let themselves be captured in spiritual war (in Satan's schemes), while the Geneva Convention is the name of the body of international law which comes to the aid of men and women taken captive in physical war. That's sort of strange that the same city would be associated with both important things, isn't it. Geneva, our thanks!
Prior to these changes, the scriptures could not really be quoted by 'chapter and verse'. Yet they were effective in reaching lost men, they were effective in teaching the history of man from creation until now, they held the power to lead men to eternal life, and they were the Word of God.
So, sometimes when I have seen people essential go blue in the face from shouting about one or the other translation being the one and only dependable one, I have felt strong disagreement with them. Other Bibles have led men to God, led men to Christ.
I have not been able to spot the 'perfect Bible translation'. I don't have the education (very true!), or the powers of perception, or something. I believe it is every translation team's job to translate the ancient scriptures as perfectly and exactly as they can do it. I believe mistakes can be made and have been made. I believe a few teams perhaps didn't try too hard to translate exactly, but instead injected their own understanding in places. That's just the impression I've gotten when looking at certain Bibles. I admit, though, that I'm not especially well versed on the subject.
But the word of God, though handled by man, has retained its power to save souls. And I believe that the better translations have been guided by God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to maintain the Bible's accuracy quite effectively.
For instance, a new acquaintance gave me his Bible -an American Standard - to look at. It had some 'Bible Facts' pages. These pages mentioned things of interest to be found in this translation's scriptures. Here are some things which were noted there that some Christians may already know, and others might find interesting. I think they may suggest that the structure of the Bible, even in its several popular translations, is structured with guidance from God.
MIDDLE "VERSES":
The Middle verse of the Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 20:17 There, God speaks through a prophet named Jahaziel to a King of Judah named Jehoshaphat. A mighty coalition of Judah's enemies (Ammonites, Moabites, and men from Mt. Seir) have decided to march on Judah and overpower it. Jahaziel has good news from God to tell his king. Part of it is 2 Chronicles 20:17, the exact center verse of the Old Testament:
"You will not have to fight in this encounter. Take you places, stand firm, and see how the Lord will be with you to deliver you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not fear or lose heart. Tomorrow go out to meet them, and the Lord will be with you." End Quote
What resulted was a great salvation for Judah and God's people as these enemy armies, temporarily allied but not really friends with each other, fell to fighting among themselves while marching towards Judah. First the Moabites and Ammonites ambushed the men of Mt. Seir and killed them all. Then, the armies got completely out of control and the Moabites and Ammonites began attacking each other - apparently with a vengeance.
When the army of Jehoshaphat arrived upon the scene of this battle, the scriptures go on to say this:
From 2 Chronicles 20:24 - 30: "When Judah came to the watchtower of the desert and looked toward the throng, they saw only corpses fallen to the ground, with no survivors. Jehoshaphat and his people came to take the plunder, and they found an abundance of cattle and personal property, garments and precious vessels. They took so much that they were unable to carry it all; they were three days taking the spoil, so great was it. On the fourth day they held an assembly in the Valley of Berecah - for there they blessed the Lord. Thereafter that place has ever since been called the Valley of Berecah. Then all the men of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehosaphat at their head, turned back toward Jerusalem, celebrating the joyful victory the Lord had given them over their enemies. They came to Jerusalem, to the house of the Lord, with harps, lyres, and trumpets. And the fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of the surrounding lands when they heard how the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. Thereafter Jehoshaphat's kingdom enjoyed peace, for his God gave him rest on every side." End Quote
That was a very large enemy force if it took three days to plunder it's remains. And that's a very big God who saved them. The men of Judah didn't trust in their own strength. They didn't even have to fight at all. They were able to just take refuge in the protection of their God.
So if this verse from 2 Chronicles, verse 20:17, was the exact middle verse in all of the Old Testament, what do you suppose is the exact middle verse of all the Bible, the Old Testament and New Testament combined? Those who have checked (Protestant Bibles) say that it is a verse in the Book of Psalms - Psalm 118:8. It goes as follows:
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man."
I would say that 2 Chronicles 20:17 and Psalm 118:8 are very compatible middle verses, wouldn't you? And it is one of a great number of things which suggest that the Bible is like a garment woven from top to bottom in one piece, all parts working seamlessly together to reveal the things God has chosen to reveal. A garment like that shouldn't be divided. Lots should be cast. It should be given to the chosen. We Christians are that lucky chosen, as is anyone else who wishes to partake of this great loaf of bread - God's word - which is the Bible.
MIDDLE "CHAPTERS":
The middle 'chapter' of the Old Testament is Job 29, where Job, a man reduced in circumstance almost to death, recounts to his three visiting friends how joyful he was in his earlier 'glory years', when he lived in the favor of heaven, enjoyed the great plenty provided by the Earth, was surrounded by his family, and enjoyed the great esteem of his community. All this has been taken from him in his time of testing, which he is now enduring with all the patience he can muster.
This is not unlike the condition of the Jews in the time of their visitation by Jesus. They, also like Job, soon would enter a time of tremendous punishment and suffering. It would last from 70 A.D. until even our present age, though they have now been restored to Israel, just as Job would eventually be restored, at the end of the Book of Job.
To continue with the 'middles' of the American Standard Bible that I looked at, (which listed its 'middles') the middle chapter of the entire Bible is also it's very shortest chapter. It is Psalm 117. The fact that this Psalm should occupy the exact center spot of a Bible whose structure was modified by a good number of men throughout various centuries is utterly and completely astonishing. This is the great Work, this is the mind of God shared with men, this Bible. And the absolute center chapter is also the shortest, yet it could hardly have been more concise yet sufficient in conveying the central theme of all the Bibles knowledge:
"Alleluia. Praise the Lord, all you nations; glorify him all you peoples! For steadfast is his kindness towards us, and the fidelity of the Lord endures forever." And that is all it says.
If you are in the right frame of mind, it can choke you up to consider that amazing tidbit. What an astounding God we spring from, yet I am thoroughly convinced we don't know but the smallest fraction of all that would further amaze us, if only we knew it.
MIDDLE "BOOKS":
The middle book of the Old Testament is Proverbs, and it is filled with so much wisdom and so many good warnings to the young Christian especially that I believe the world would be revolutionized if it was systematically read by parents to their children as they raised them. It speaks of how to fear God, how to treat your neighbor, an how to avoid the traps of Satan and sin in a very practical way. All sorts of life's common mistakes are warned against here. It is a depository of common sense hardly equaled elsewhere, though the book Solomon wrote called Wisdom, and his other writing called Ecclesiastes, and the Book called The Wisdom of Sirach (
And Proverbs was probably divided into Chapters with just such a thought in mind, as there are 31 chapters in all in the Book of Proverbs, which matches the days of the longer months. It's final chapter, Chapter 31, is the one place in the whole Bible where the Holy Spirit has given women a pretty thorough description of what their behavior and character should be like if they wish to be an ideal and worthy wife in God's eyes.
But we Christians know that we, Jesus's church, are also His bride. So, when it discusses the sort of help that a woman provides for her husband, her family, her maid servants, and those in the community around her, doesn't it also hint to the church about how it should minister to Jesus, since we constitute His suitable helper?
The middle book of the New Testament is also an important one, though a little obscure. It is 2 Thessalonians. It is very short. About a 5-minute read. But it tells us a very important thing, in a way that is not spoken of anywhere else. It tells us what event will occur before the snatching up (we commonly say 'rapture') of God's people. It says that first the lawless one must be revealed. He is the one that promotes worship of himself as God, above all other gods. He is the one that will become known as the anti-Christ.
We currently have the advantage of television and radio news media. We have information at our fingertips., and the current news always available. But if there is ever a great world calamity, a global emergency, and all of that reliable news coverage is unexpectantly gone for a while, rumor is sure to run rampant. Maybe we will hear that the rapture has already happened, but we weren't chosen. Is it true? We would surely wonder. Maybe we will hear that the anti-Christ (the Coming World Leader) has arrived. Is it true? We will wonder, right? Second Thessalonians was written to reassure a troubled church, about 1940 years ago, which had these very sorts of concerns. They had heard that the rapture had occurred, and they weren't chosen to go. They'd been rejected!
So, in this letter, Paul spends some time telling them what signs must occur before the 'rapture' occurs. The signs were true then, and they are true now. They will be very reassuring to us at some time in the future, when there is much doubt. Some Pastors say that the rapture could come right now. But 2 Thessalonians does tell us that there will be occurrences we can rely upon that precede the rapture. It could all happen in very quick succession, though. Very quick!
Finally, fellow sinners, we were all meant to be saved, if only we would seek the mercy of the Lord. But some will and some wont. We are told how much this sorrows the Lord, that we, who were meant to be His servants and friends, should instead come to know death because we do not repent, be baptized, and follow the Lord's teachings, honoring God and loving our neighbor with our whole heart.
John 11:35 is the New Testament's shortest verse. It occurs when Jesus has travelled to the hometown of Lazarus, his friend who has died in His absence. Lazarus's sister Martha greets him as he approaches their home. Then, Mary, Lazarus's other sister, is told of Jesus's coming. She goes out to meet Him.
"When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping. he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see." And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him?" But some of them said "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?"
"So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench. He has been dead for four days."
Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you, if you believe you will see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me." And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So, Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go." End quote.
So, there it is .... the shortest verse in the New Testament: "And Jesus wept." John 11:35
Why is this the shortest verse? It is a mystery, or maybe just a coincidence. Some verse or another had to be the shortest, right? But with God, few things are incidental. For the shortest verse in the New Testament to involve Jesus weeping.... it's just not likely that this wasn't planned.
What does it show that Jesus wept? He didn't weep when they beat Him of crucified him. He prayed so hard in the Garden that his sweat fell like tears, but that's the only other association of Jesus with tears, isn't it. He was tough. He was strong. And he didn't feel sorry for himself. But He had (has) a huge, immeasurable passion for the lost sinners, men and women, for whom he came to die.
Jesus was a prophet. He was much much more as well. But he was a prophet. He was, for this moment, a weeping prophet, and that is a sobriquet given to the prophet Jeremiah. A weeping prophet - Jeremiah tried and tried to forestall the destruction of God's chosen people by warning them of God's growing wrath. But in the end, the Jews of Jeremiah's time would not repent, and the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and led away the people as slaves. Rome would do no less when Jesus failed to reach the ears of the Jews he had come to as Messiah. Like Jeremiah, Jesus was rejected. Like the Jews of Jeremiah's time, the Jews of Jesus's day were soon destroyed - almost utterly.
But, just as we know that some things in the Old Testament foreshadow the things to come, so do some of the things in the New Testament explain certain things in the Old Testament. There is an old saying: "The New Testament is in the old Testament concealed. The Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed."
Why is Lazarus bound hand and foot? Forget burial customs. Isn't that the way that you treat a prisoner?
Some say that Jesus held John against His breast at the last supper. But others say it was Lazarus. Here the Bible gives us an association of a John, a Lazarus, or maybe both, with Jesus.
There is a parable Jesus speaks where a man named Lazarus, once a poor beggar, but now dead, is seen held to the bosom of Abraham, while a rich man, now deceased, endures the torments of a place that seems to be described as being like hell. There the Bible gives us an association of an Abraham with a Lazarus.
Once during his ministry Jesus tells some Jews at the end of John Chapter 8: "Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad." End Quote. So we hear that Abraham was somehow able to see the 'day' of Jesus.
Who was Abraham? We know who Abraham was, but what was his relationship to God? The scriptures give some answers:
"Our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendents of Abraham your friend?" 2 Chron 20: 6 - 8 Abraham was God's friend?
"But you, O Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendents of Abraham my friend." Isaiah 41:8 So, Abraham is again described as God's friend.
"And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.", and he was called God's friend." So yet again Abraham is identified as 'God's friend'.
Jesus is God, by virtue of being the true son of God the Father. Jesus had a friend named Lazarus. God had a friend named Abraham.
Lazarus is identified as one that Jesus actually loved a true friend. In John 11:3, when Jesus is told of Lazarus being ill, these words are used: "So the sisters sent word to him, saying "Master, the one you love is ill." (The sisters mentioned were Martha and Mary, Lazarus's sisters)
Later Jesus refers to Lazarus as a friend, when talking to his Apostles. John 11:11 "He said this, and then told them "Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him." "
So, the point I am suggesting as a possibility is this: Jesus has a relationship with Lazarus that is sort of like the relationship which God the Father had with Abraham. In both cases the word used is "friend" or the person is even identified as being specifically loved by Jesus or God.
Lazarus was in the cave, dead, when Jesus called him out. He had been buried in the cave for 4 days. With God, a day is like a thousand years. That is a scripturally mentioned truth, sometimes evident in prophesy. So, if Abraham lived about 1900 to 2000 B.C., which is probably about right, then in our day, here in the year 2000 A.D., Abraham would have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Israel for about 4000 years. Or, in God's eyes, perhaps only for 4 days. So, Jesus being God, he was in affect raising a 'friend' that had been dead for about 4 days or figuratively, 4000 years, from a burial cave.
So, do you suppose that Jesus awakening Lazarus 2000 years ago and calling him out, bound and in burial wraps, from his burial cave might also be a prefigurement of a returned Jesus the King calling out Abraham from his burial cave? There are actually a number of the Patriarch's buried in that cave. There are even legends that would have Adam and Eve buried there, in hidden recesses of the cave not presently known of.
Will Jesus raise Abraham like He raised Lazarus? Nothing in scriptures says that this will occur. It's only speculation. But, it would certainly put a few of the world's great religions in a pickel, wouldn't it?
How would a Muslim have to react to a Jesus that can not only raise their forefather Abraham from the dead, but call him out. Should Abraham ever rise from the dead and acknowledge Jesus then they would just about have to also, right?
And how about the Jews? If there were still any living Jews that didn't acknowledge Jesus when He came down from heaven ro return as a triumphant king (hard to imagine) they would just about have to start acknowledging Him upon hearing testimony from Abraham, right? It would be a very tough move for Satan to counter, though Satan's day will be over anyway by then, at least for the next one thousand years.
It's only a thought.
So, whether or not you see a possiblity of the Lazarus / Abraham connection being true, the words of God are called 'the bread of life'. And no matter how you slice it, some of the best bread is in the middle of the loaf.