Visualizing the Text in Hebrews

I love data visualization.

I love this one in which Dr. Hans Rosling shows the relationship between lifespan and income around the world over the last century. A picture is worth a thousand words indeed. 

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Hebrews opens with these words:

^1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴ having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

This block of text is full of “data.” How God spoke in the past. How God has spoken lately through his Son. Who this Son is, the heir of all things, the creator, the radiance, the imprint, the upholder. What he has done, where he is seated, his status in relation to the angels. 

Unfortunately, this is almost too much “data,” especially when conveyed through densely laid out text in small fonts in a small book or on a smartphone. We struggle to absorb and process it. In the end, we may just gloss over it, hoping for a “feel,” and then move on.

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What if, instead, we took the time to lay out the text like this?

A	1:1 Long ago at many times and in many ways		God spoke	to our fathers	by the prophets
A’	2 but in these last days		he has spoken	to us	by his Son.

1	whom he appointed the heir of all things
2	through whom also he created the world.
3	3 He			is			the radiance of the glory of God and
							the exact imprint of his nature, and
				upholds			the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins,

he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

The two key points are in the blue rows. 

The first key point says God spoke “by his Son” in “these last days,” which represents a change from how he spoke “by the prophets” “long ago.”

We then see how the Son is described in relation to this first key point. The description begins with how he is the “heir” of “all things” and ends with how he upholds “all things.” (The same Greek words are translated as “all things” in v. 2b and as “universe” in v. 3c.) Sandwiched between the two “all things” are three more attributes of the Son — i.e., creator, radiance & imprint.

After that comes the second key point: The Son sat down at the right hand of God “after making purification for sins.”

Finally, we note the use of two similar words – heir & inheritance – and two contrasting beings – the Son & the angels.

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How does this help us?

For one, this layout makes clearer what the key points are. So we focus on them first, and then turn our attention to the subsidiary points, and relate the subsidiary points to the key points.

For another, by noticing these details, our minds are primed to notice them when they show up again. And they do show up again and again throughout the rest of Hebrews. For example, we will see how the writer keeps contrasting the old ways to the new ways, just as he did in the very first sentence by contrasting how God spoke “long ago” to how he has spoken “in these last days.” We will see the writer repeatedly mention how the Son sat down, and this will cause us to ask whether that is significant. (It is!) We will see the writer bringing up “inheritance” and “heir” again, and this will lead us to go back and look at Psalm 2 one more time to see its relevance to Jesus and us.

Most importantly, developing a habit of arranging a block of Biblical text this way slows us down. It lets us spend more time with the details of the text and its flow. It lets us — in other words — “meditate” on God’s word. And if we do that day and night, God says we’ll become like fruit trees in the garden of Eden, producing fruit, giving life to those around us (Ps 1).

Shall we begin?

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Sam serves as one of the elders at ODPC EC. Please feel free to contact him at sam.kwon@odpcec.org with any questions or comments. Please join him and fellow brothers and sisters for the monthly study of Hebrews by signing up here.