Familiarity with the covenant-literary “fractal” architecture of the Bible enables the reader to perceive both the legal import and the typological significance of each passage. It also makes the reader more receptive to being reshaped by the text.
In most analyses, I get “into the weeds” and zoom in on the structure of each stanza. Since English translations necessarily reorder words and phrases for the ease of the reader, that practice requires working with the original languages. This is thus not something the average Bible reader could, would, or even should do while actually reading the Bible for devotional purposes.
However, in most cases, literary pericopes (self-contained passages) are clearly defined, so it is not too difficult to discern the Bible Matrix steps as one reads along. If you are somebody who marks or writes notes in your Bible, you might even consider “parsing” the text at this level. Of course, you will sometimes get it wrong. When I look at analyses I did when I started this work I realize how much more I have learned. But the Bible Matrix thesis itself has always been vindicated, and further study has uncovered many hidden gems.
So perhaps it is time for an easy one. Let’s take a look at Deuteronomy 18:15-22, the passage where Moses predicts the coming of Christ as a prophet like Moses himself. Hopefully this will give you some confidence to do some analyses of your own. If you do, feel free to join the Bible Matrix Discussion Group on Facebook and post them there.
Let’s take a look at the seven basic steps of the passage. Of course, you might also want to read it over again and see if you can hear the same tune, the same chain of authority and outcome, in each of the seven stanzas. I have posted the Bible Matrix “legend” below for reference. Print it out and tuck it into your Bible for when you feel inspired to use it—but visualizing it and memorizing each matrix “thread” is the best way forward. You don’t really know the “language” until it becomes intuitive.
Deuteronomy 18:15-22
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—
just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’
And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’
And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord,
if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”
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If you are new to this method of interpretation, please visit the Welcome page for some help to get you up to speed.
