Chapters get in the way of good verses.
Books get in the way of good chapters.
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. And least, thus thought Aristotle.
I enjoy reading the chapters around the “scripture verses” as these verses are read at religious meetings. It's enlightening. It exposes the choice for what is desired to be known, or not known.
Some favorites …
The Communion liturgy read from 1 Corinthians 11 while ignoring the point being made in the verses all around and within the extracted ones about the inappropriate difference in the treatment of rich and poor.
The “lovely” story of Queen Esther that actually just ends as a plot twist of who got saved and who were the victims of a bloody genocide.
The frequent Malachi 3 admonition from the church pulpit to bring our “tithes to the storehouse” for a pouring out of blessings … while one verse earlier in the chapter lies the rarely read insight that God judges us on, among other things, how we pay laborers and how we give due process to the immigrants in our land.
A Leviticus 19:28 “biblical” scolding of grandchildren who have all together added a “Pop pop” remembrance tattoo by a grandmother wearing a polyester blend blouse forbidden a mere nine verses earlier.
Verses are powerful allies in our quest to build foundations for our personal, preferred theologies.
Chapters “shrink the fish” of our stories, at best, and “stink them up” most often.
Books really mess with our chosen “knowledge.”
Chapter or verse?
I think a verse fan should “close the book” on that one, and quickly, before something different is learned.