The Bible is an uneven book. If you think about the range of subjects it covers, some things just get a lot more attention than others. For example, the Bible has a lot more to say about Moses and the exodus from Egypt than what Moses did in Midian for forty years after fleeing from Pharaoh (Acts 7:29–30). Most of what the New Testament tells us about Jesus covers the final three and a half years of his life. We know nothing about Jesus from the time he was twelve (Luke 2:41–52) to the beginning of his ministry when he was around thirty (Luke 3:23).
The Bible’s presentation of doctrine is the same way. We’re told a great deal about the nature of salvation, the meaning of what Jesus did on the cross, the relationship of faith and works, and the work of the Holy Spirit. We’re told next to nothing about where angels and demons come from or the origin of the soul.
The imbalance is deliberate. The biblical writers had agendas with respect to what they wrote. Their books come out of specific circumstances and target specific events or questions. It was God who prompted them to write when they did, and to do so from their sociocultural contexts. God chose specific men and specific times and places to write for spiritual posterity. God’s choices are intelligent and deliberate. The very nature of the enterprise of inspiration means that the product—the Bible—will be selective.
Let’s think about what this means and doesn’t mean. I’m not suggesting that items to which the Bible devotes little space are unimportant. Everything the Bible comments on is important. Every passage in Scripture has some communicative purpose. What I’m saying is that frequency and repetition indicate emphasis. If we are mindful of inspiration as the providential process it was, frequency telegraphs that certain truths are more central to the overall biblical message.
The situation is sort of like a website. Most of your attention is drawn to big pictures or prose text. That’s what holds your interest, by design. Tiny links are scattered here and there amid the prose, in the margins, across the top. They don’t communicate much by themselves. But following them can illumine the whole point of the website. Both are indispensable.