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BIBLE HEADERS AND MARGINS

As a devoted Bible reader, I have come to realize that God will communicate through Bible headers and margins—in other words, the subtitles found in each chapter of the Bible. There is something prophetic when you are in need of the Lord’s direction and suddenly open up your Bible and the page lands on a header that says “The Lord Your Shepherd” in Psalm 23. Have you ever wondered where the bolded section headings in the Bible come from? With the exception of the titles in Psalms, the Bible’s authors didn’t write their books of Bible with chapters or section headings in mind.

Bible headers were inserted later by translators in order to help organize, coordinate, and divide the chapters into easy to locate and digest pieces. There is something powerful about these section headings because the context of the chapter reveals the story and revelation that God wants us to know. In addition, headers, subtitles, and margins are given for us to reflect, meditate, and pause on what we just read.

The Bible headers are also used to bring a smooth flow and highlight specific parts related to the context or chapter. They are used for breaks and transitions to show when a topic has started or ended. Many great books use subtitles, headers, and transitional words to keep your focus, attention, and concentration.

You can see headings in most English translations of the Bible, though they do vary across different translations. For example, Genesis 1 starts out with a heading that says “The Beginning” in the New International Version and “The Account of Creation” in the New Living Translation. However, if you take a look in the King James Version you will notice that there’s no header at all. A side-by-side comparison of Genesis 1 in five translations easily highlights the differences in section headings. In other words, the headers will say something slightly different.

These different types of headers or subtitles can bless you when you are personally going through something; writing a book, song, play, movie, or research paper; or preparing a sermon or message. I use headers to write inspiring devotionals and prayer starters. God will speak to us through them to make sense of the chapter and the substance provided. As you study and read the Word of God, start searching the bold chapter headers or subtitles and watch them minister to you. It will create an appetite to read that particular chapter. God will speak to you and you can use the margin footnotes to write down points drawn from Scriptures.