What a relief to hear another who pauses to bring deeper meaning into his reading.
That valuable device, the pause, is a short period of silence following a word or a group of related words conveying a thought - a phrase.
A pause gives the listener the chance to understand and remember what he has just heard.
The reader has the double opportunity to breathe in quietly and to let his eye take in the words immediately ahead.
Look at John 3:16. If it is read in one breath the listener battles to grasp the meaning even though only the right words have been emphasised. The speed, together with absence of pauses, gives little opportunity for those magnificent words and ideas to register in the mind.
How different if you hear it this way. (The mark / indicates a pause.) God loved the world so much, / He gave His only Son / that everyone who has faith in Him / may not die / but have everlasting life.
If the appropriate pause is made each of these vital ideas has the opportunity to sink in.
An inexperienced or uninformed reader may pause wrongly and lose the whole impact and message of this tremendous verse.
A GROUP OF RELATED WORDS, IS CALLED A PHRASE.
YOU GROUP TOGETHER THE RELATED WORDS BY PAUSING AT THE END OF THEM.
A PAUSE IS A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOLLOWING A WORD OR PHRASE.
A. In my opinion / whatever we may have to go through now / is less than nothing / compared with the magnificent future God has in store for us.
B. In the light of the grace I have received / I want to urge each one among you, / not to exaggerate his real importance.
C. It is plain to anyone with eyes to see / that at the present time / all created life groans in a sort of universal travail.
D. We who have strong faith / ought to shoulder the burden of the doubts and qualms of the weak / and not to just go our own sweet way.
A reader who had not prepared, read without any pause "And the shepherds came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger."
The correct reading is ". . . and found Mary and Joseph / and the baby lying in the manger."
There is the uncomfortable story of a certain inept chairman who paused unwisely in his introduction of an after dinner speaker, "And now I would like you to meet that well-known pest / extermination expert, Mr. Flip".
PAUSES IN THE WRONG PLACES
Misplaced pauses can produce shudders. Try a pause before the last word of the sentence, "What's the dog chewing on Grandpa?"
Or more gruesome still, "What's that on the road ahead?"
There was the rather dreamy minister who remarked, "We had twenty odd people in church last Sunday". He would have saved himself many explanations if he had paused in the right place. (Pause AFTER "odd".)
PAUSE IN THE WRONG PLACE OR FAIL TO PAUSE IN THE RIGHT PLACE
AND YOU'LL CLOUD, CONFUSE OR CHANGE THE MEANING
MARKING YOUR BIBLE TO ASSIST READING ALOUD
Don't hesitate to mark your Bible to guide your pausing and emphasis. Your memory can easily let you down.
Below is a practical way to mark up a passage for phrasing and pausing.
Then Jesus said to them, / "I myself / am the bread of life. // The man who comes to me will never be hungry / and the man who believes in me will never be thirsty. / Yet I have told you / that you have seen me and do not believe. // Everything that my Father gives me will come to me / and I will never refuse anyone who comes to me. / For I have come down from Heaven, / not to do what I want, / but to do the will of Him who sent me. / The will of Him who sent me is / that I should not lose anything of what He has given me, / but should raise it up when the last day comes. / And this is the will of the One who sent me, / that everyone who sees the Son and trusts Him / should have eternal life, / and I will raise him up when the last day comes. //
At this, / the Jews began grumbling.. .
Some find value in a large type copy of the Bible to make marking easier and more visible.
Watch the type of paper and pen used. If the ink is unduly absorbed difficulty may be experienced on reading overleaf.