The Bible is like a big puzzle

“We all know that not only the New Testament, but also the Old Testament was written in the way of a puzzle. This is why so many teachers of the Bible like to systematize the things in the Bible. Isaiah 28:10 and 13 tell us that God speaks His word here a little and there a little. He speaks a little to Moses and a little to Joshua and a little to another one and a little to David. In the Bible God didn’t speak in the way we do. Whenever we speak we like to have a completion to our speaking. But God didn’t speak in that way. God spoke just a little bit to Abraham. Then, of course, God spoke a lot to Moses. At least two full books were God’s speaking to Moses, especially the book of Leviticus. From the first verse of chapter two to the last verse of the last chapter, it is altogether God’s speaking. That speaking of God to Moses was longer than God’s speaking to anyone else. Even Psalm 119 has only one hundred seventy-six verses. The book of Exodus has forty chapters; Leviticus has twenty-seven; Numbers has thirty-six; and Deuteronomy has thirty-four. This means there are one hundred thirty-seven chapters of God’s speaking just to one man, Moses. Yet still that was only a little of God’s entire speaking. Why? Because it was not completed. After speaking to Moses it may be that the Lord spoke to over forty different people in different places at different times. Still God’s speaking was not completed until Paul. Paul said his commission was to complete the word of God (Col. 1:25). Paul was bold. No other one ever had the boldness to tell people he had a commission to complete the word of God. In the Bible no one chapter is so complete in revealing God’s economy to us, but a little is here, a little is there, piece after piece, like a big puzzle. All the pieces are scattered and mixed up, so you need to spend many hours to put the pieces together. Then you can see the picture.”

(Perfecting Training, chapter 16)