I wrote a few times that most of the people were not trained to recognize the literary patterns in the Bible. That's why I do my best to point them out - on a large scale (the outline of the books as a whole), or on a micro-level (a short passage or a single sentence).
Here is an example of the beauty of Pauline writings. A single sentence is structured chiastic.
Here is the text: Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ.
I noticed that in the middle of the sentence there are two synonyms that even sound similar (in Greek): completely and whole. Then everything began to fall into its rightful place. Here we go:
a. God
b. sanctify
c. you
d. completely
d'. whole
c'. spirit, soul, body
b'. be kept
a'. our LORD Jesus Christ
b. sanctify
c. you
d. completely
d'. whole
c'. spirit, soul, body
b'. be kept
a'. our LORD Jesus Christ
St. Paul was a prolific writer. No very often English or Russian or any other language can fully express his thought - not only the meaning, but beauty of a structure... Yet, in this case ESV translation team did a great job picking up the proper words in a correct order. SDG!
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