Editing on Horseback. Romans 15:1.

Did you know that the sixty-six books of the Bible were codified into a single book long before the chapter and verse divisions were added? Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury (and a key writer of the Magna Carta), first introduced chapters in the year 1228. The first Bible to be published with both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible in 1560.

So why does it matter? It matters because a few of the chapter and verse breaks are awkward or unnatural. Sometimes you will find a verse break that happens in the middle of a sentence.* If you stop reading there, you might miss something. Some chapters break the same way, separating one passage from another to which it should have remained connected.

The chapter division at Romans 15:1 is such a place. Paul begins:

“Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not simply please ourselves” Romans 15:1.

When I read this today, I thought about walking through the airport with my mother, and the way I insisted on carrying her bags. But I suspect Paul is talking about something other than physical strength–don’t you? What does he mean when he says, ‘we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength’? You can read chapter 15 over and over to try to figure it out. But the answer is the previous four verses back in chapter 14, Romans 14:19-22. 

“We must pursue what promotes peace and builds up one another … Everything is clean, but it is wrong for a man to cause stumbling by what he eats. It is a noble thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother stumble” Romans 14:19-21.

When you read Romans 15:1 with those verses in mind, it becomes clear that Paul is saying we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength—what kind of strength? The strength that comes from a full understanding of grace and freedom. That is, we who are strong in Christ and in His grace, must carry the load for Christians who do not understand Romans 14:20—“EVERYTHING IS CLEAN.”

Does that make sense? To give you an example of this truth, the easiest analogy is always alcohol. Those of us who are strong in Christ and understand that ‘everything is clean,’ must carry the burden of those who do not have the same strength. Don’t try to change them:

“Do you have a conviction? Keep it to yourself before God” Romans 14:22.

(Notice the way Paul stuck that in the middle of the passage. We are not here to change other people’s beliefs.) Don’t try to change people. Instead, carry the burden for the weak. How? By not using your freedom in a way that will cause them to stumble. That is, by not drinking.

Am I arguing here that you cannot drink, or that it is wrong in every context? Absolutely not. I am using drinking as an analogy. Although Paul also mentioned not drinking (when he said, “It is a noble thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother stumble” Romans 14:19-21), he more often illustrated this point with the example of ‘meat sacrificed to idols,’ but that is a concept foreign to most of us today.

The point Paul is making is that YOU DO HAVE FREEDOM, because “Everything is clean,” but don’t allow your freedom to be a stumbling block to others. And the larger point I am suggesting is that we remember that chapter and verse divisions were added to the Bible more than a thousand years after its last words were written. When a passage is difficult or confusing, it is wise to look past chapter and verse divisions and look at the entire context of the passage you are trying to understand.

Dr. Gene Wofford, one of my college professors, used to joke that the chapter and verse divisions were penciled in by a little monk riding along on horseback, and when the horse hit a bump, the monk spilled a bit of ink and accidentally added a new chapter in some random location. Dr. Wofford was teasing, of course. Most of the chapter breaks are appropriate and well-chosen. But some of them—well, they could have happened on horseback. Keep that in mind when you read the Bible!

ΑΩ

• One example of a verse break in the middle of a sentence is Ephesians 1:4-5. Beginning with verse four, Paul writes, “(4) For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love (5) He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for himself, according to His favor and will, (6) to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.” Notice that verse five does not include the whole sentence, and when the words “in love” are removed, the meaning of the sentence changes. The same can also be said about verse six. Verse six is a dependent clause; it cannot stand on its own grammatically. Without the independent clause in verses four and five, verse six loses much of its meaning. The point is, we should remember that chapter and verse breaks–while quite helpful–were added later and sometimes were not added as carefully as they might have been. You will understand the Bible better when you consider the context–the verses and chapters before and after the verses and chapters you are currently reading.