PUNCTUATION IS POWERFUL

How many punctuation marks are there and how good are you at using them?  Do you know the proper place for a question mark?  That one is really easy.  How about an exclamation mark?  Quotation marks can be a bit tricky.  When to use a colon and when to use a semi-colon creates a real problem.  Thinking about punctuation might take you back to the horror of getting your composition marked in red. 

Period:      the full pause with which the utterance of a sentence closes: end, stop

Comma:    a punctuation mark, used especially as a mark of separation within the sentence: a pause, interval

Colon:       used chiefly to direct attention to matter that follows

Yes, I know.  My blogs are full of punctuation and grammatical errors.  Spell check hates my fragment sentences.  I consider my blogs as very, very casual English.  BUT there is a problem with being very, very casual when we read.  We make a comma a period and, therefore, we miss the point of the sentence.  We stop at a colon and do not finish reading the important part.  Or, we do not read the whole chapter and miss the conclusion.

Before going any further, I am sure you are thinking, “But I have favorite verses and you often only use one verse at the end of your blog.”  We all have our favorite verse/verses.  I often go to Psalms 139.  When I pull a verse for my blog, I make sure the meaning in the Scripture is the same as the meaning in my blog.  Now back to how stopping at a comma, colon, or semi-colon can change the meaning of passages.

What if we read Romans 3:9-31 and do not read in the commas, semi-colons, and colons?  Or what if we only read verses 9-11 and part of 20?

What shall we conclude then?  Do we have any advantage?  Not at all!  For we have already made the change that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.  There is no one righteous, not even one.  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight.

By picking some verses, parts of verses, and stopping mid-sentence, these verses sound like doom and gloom.  No hope whatsoever.  Using just these verses to make a point or present a message would be wrong.  Why?  Because the meaning of Romans 3 is completely distorted.  Please read the whole chapter where you find sentences like this:

·       The righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

·       There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Comma NOT a period) and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 

·       For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 

There is no doom and gloom in Romans 3.  Yes, we are all sinners, BUT God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement.  That is LOVE.  Jesus shed his blood.  That is SACRIFICE.  God is the God of Jews and Gentiles.  That is ONE GOD. 

When reading the Bible, read the whole chapter.  Know what happened at the end of the previous chapter and see how the chapter carries to the next one.  And, don’t change the punctuation.   Stopping at a comma means you might only read the doom and gloom and not find the redemption.

PS:  How many punctuation marks are there in the English language?  Good luck finding the exact answer.  There are 14 or there might be approximately 14.  There are 16.  There are 26.  Take your pick.  Plus, watch out for the decision on using the Oxford Comma.