MAP DETAILS - Repeating Words

26/02/24 10:40
Repeating words are often a clue in the Treasure Map and gold may be found. Does the author intentionally repeat anything in the text? Whenever you're studying the Bible and you notice something is repeated over and over again it does not mean that the author forgot that they already said it - he's doing this for reason. The author is trying to point something out that is really, really, important.

So, what kind of things are repeated? Sometimes terms are repeated, phrases, and clauses. If you read Psalms 136 you will see "his love endures forever" repeated over and over. If you look at the sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5 through chapter 6, you'll see that Jesus refers to God as the Father many different times.

Look at second Corinthians 1: 3-7 and see you if this text is repeating anything.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-7


What you see in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 is this picture of suffering and comfort and how they go together. Those two words don’t go together do they? In Christ they do. Comfort and Suffering repeated over and over again - setting the stage for the book of 2 Corinthians.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
1 John 2:15-17


You see “the world” over and over again. Not just here but in much of 1 John; and you see love. When you see these clues circle them to draw attention to the fact that the words are being repeated for a reason.

Another observation we should notice is when a repeating word is conspicuously left out. We see this happening in the creation account noted in the Bible Study Tip on Lists and an article about it in Why Us?