The Mystical Geek

It is one thing to outline a bible passage from a narrative like the Gospel of Mark.  It is another thing to outline a passage from the Pauline letters or any discursive type of biblical literature.  The key is to make a good sentence flow of the text and then to see where one idea ends and another one begins.  If in narratives, the key for the division of a pericope are most often the changes in characters, places, actions, in a discourse, it is most often the words or the theme that is crucial.  Below are two examples from the selections from Colossions for Wednesday and Thursday of the 23^rd week of OT Year B (click on the image for a bigger look)

An article on both these selections is found here:  Put on the New Man.  Integrated in the article is a Sentence Flow of the same.  For Col. 2:20–3:11, the keywords “died” and “raised” were determinant, together with the phrase “putting on the old and new”, a reference to the changing of ordinary clothes into baptismal robes.  For Col. 3:12–17, the important idea was “God’s people”.  Here the emphasis is on what should be put on.  (Note that in 3:1–11, the emphasis is what should be shed and set aside.)

See the following articles from Your Daily Inspiration for some more examples

• Christ Is Our All (Col. 2:6–19)
• The Mystery that Paul Proclaims (Col. 1:24–2:3)