Slow reading

Slow reading [∞]

Discussion

Take notes

If something catches your eye, perhaps it is something God wants you to see. As you see many details, you may wish to come back to some of them.

Learn to distinguish between legitimate questions and mere curiosity. A legitimate question concerns solving the riddles and mysteries of the Bible making the invisible God known. They lead to deeper study.

Mere curiosity leads to idle disputes; purposeless debates containing less and less focus.

Look for patterns

There are patterns which help with interpretation and those which help with doctrine. Numbers help with interpretation:

Two things together represent the same thing from two sides. Example: "God created the heavens and the earth." [1] here is one creation with two parts. "Milk and honey" [2] represent the blessings of God in the spirit and flesh. "Soul and Spirit" [3] : 'Soul also means 'waxing pale' as if it is dying. The Spirit gives life.

The first account of Genesis is written in a literary pattern of ABCDABCDA. This helps discern the pericope of the passage. It also forms a doctrinal pattern with the ten commandments. Ten times "God said" in a way which is later mirrored by the tablets of the law. The first set of ten are the commandments which displayed God's nature as creator, the second display his nature to a rebellious mankind.



  1. ↑ ▸ ± Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
  2. ↑ ▸ ± Ex 3:8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
  3. ↑ ▸ ± Heb 4:12 For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Fractal expansion

A doctrinal idea is seeded in the alphabet, then is recapitulated in various ways. Example: Aleph א means 'God spoke and created the heavens and the earth. The first word of the Bible, bereshith translated 'In the beginning' also means 'created bara ברא six shith שית.' The first chapter of the Bible tells how he created in six days. Each day is like a Table of Contents entry pointing to a larger portion of scripture, which says that God is the creator.

Repetition

God said he would make man in his "image and likeness". Then he made man in his image. Then he made male and female. [1] This is not mere poetic repetition, but an indicator of a riddle. Christ was made in the image of God. [2] His bride was made to be 'like' him. Together they are the "image and likeness". The narrative through Gen 5 tells how the bride is made to be like Christ through the cross.

  1. ↑ ▸ ± Ge 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
  2. ↑ ▸ ± Heb 1:3 Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
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