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’s 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 pay-off. 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 an 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. Notice how the content of the verses moves toward a point (marked by letters) and then “reverses” itself element-by-element:
A. God will judge everyone equitably (v. 6).
B. Those who seek God’s glory and honor will receive eternal life (v. 7).
C. Those who are unrighteous will receive judgment (v. 8).
C'. Those who are unrighteous will suffer judgment (v. 9).
B'. The righteous receive glory and honor (v. 10).
A'. God will judge everyone without partiality (v. 11).
The arrangement is deliberate, not accidental. Like the rest of the letters of the New Testament (the Epistles), Romans would have been read aloud. Alert listeners would have detected repetition patterns like this structure. They would have made the content easier to remember. And like this example, the structuring highlights the most important thoughts in a pattern.
Biblical writers wrote with intention. We need to read them that way.