Shakespeare chose his words carefully. Never is there a careless phrase or sentence. There is rich meaning in all his particularly chosen words. And when there is repetition, he means "pay attention, this is important!" For example, four times in Act V, scene 1 of 2 Henry IV, the character Shallow tells the carelessly immoral character John Falstaff, "Sir John, you shall not be excused." In the midst, he repeatedly calls upon another character, Davy, or as it would have been heard by the audience,"de vie," which is French for "of life." Shakespeare was indicating to his audience that Sir John would not be excused for his lifestyle. Another example is the lost sleep because of guilt in Macbeth. "Macbeth hath murdered sleep."  "Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murther sleep'--the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast . . . Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house; Glamis hath murthered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more--Macbeth shall sleep no more" (II, ii, 32-40). Well, I say all this to say that if a playwright would do this to focus our attention on an important concept, how much more would the Bible authors by the power of the Holy Spirit also use repetition to focus our attention on a spiritual truth? When I see repetition in verses, I know God is saying, "Pay attention! This is very important! This is key!"

Hebrews 11 is one place we see this. Twelve times in the chapter the phrase "by faith" occurs. God is making a point. As well, three times in the one verse, Galations 2:16, Paul stresses justification by faith in Christ alone. "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified" (15-16). Just several verses later we read "Consider Abraham: He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (3:6); the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you" (3:8); "Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, 'the righteous will live by faith'" (3:11); "So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith" (3:24).

What do you think? Was God making a point through Paul? We are justified by faith! Amen