T-minus 2 days... Preface

Today I read the three page Preface titled "The Books of the Bible" in the TNIV Bible I bought at church.  It talked about some of the "problems" of the current chapter/verse system that is used in today's Bibles (chapters devised in 1205 and verse divisions in the 1550s). Here are a couple examples:

• Chapter divisions typically don't correspond with the actual divisions of thought. They thus require readers to make sense of only part of a longer discussion as if it were complete in itself, or else try to combine shorter discussions into one coherent whole.
• When "Bible verses" are treated as independent and free-standing statements, they can be taken selectively out of context and arranged in such a way as to suggest that the Bible supports beliefs and positions that it really doesn't.

 The Preface also mentions how the current ordering of books can further "hinder their understanding".  For example, Paul's letters are arranged in order of length.  This version of the Bible arranges them in order of their date of authorship.  I can see where this might lead to a better understanding of each letter as we can see Paul's growth over time and change in demeanor due to circumstances.

After reading the Preface, I'm inclined to read from this version of the Bible as opposed to my NLT version for the NT40 challenge.  We'll see what Clark has to say about NT40 tomorrow and then we get started the very next day.  This should be a very interesting couple of months!  I only pray I can keep up!