THE layout of this Gospel in the NRSV gives a clue to its message. I am grateful for the decision of the editors: it mattered to them to remind us that the words of Jesus in verse 53 are a quotation, from the prophet Micah (7.6). I wonder why the NIV and New Jerusalem Bible do not do likewise. The standard Greek text of the New Testament puts verse 53 in italics, which is another way of indicating quoted words.

I have just completed a new edition of Augustine of Hippo’s Teaching Christianity, in which he explores how words mean things in scripture, and describes the knowledge that Christians need to understand the Bible. The earliest surviving manuscript of any work by Augustine happens to be a first edition of Teaching Christianity. Augustine had it professionally copied, as a gift for a friend. We would call it a luxury edition, more Folio Society than £1 Wordsworth Classic.

This manuscript is gloriously readable, in Bible-black ink on white vellum. It uses two innovative techniques to make the reading experience easier. Initial letters of paragraphs are written in red ink (“rubricated”): this lets the eyes help the mind to see the shape of the argument. More important for this Gospel is the other innovation: the scripture quotations are indented.

This sort of feature makes the Bible scholar’s heart beat faster; for it is evidence, from early times, of how Christians marked their reverence for the holy writings. They were making absolutely certain that people reading books about the Bible would not mix up the non-scriptural words with the scriptural ones. How might this innovative presentation enhance our understanding of today’s Gospel, making everyone else’s heart beat faster too?

Christians have always been innovators in the ways in which they treated the scriptures. The codex, or modern-form book (pages sewn together down one side), replaced papyrus rolls as the best way to package writing because it was easy to transport and read it, and to protect its contents between hard covers. It also meant that Christians had access to all the holy writings in one block (“codex” means a “chunk”). This new book form was as groundbreaking in its time as the Bible app on my mobile phone, which gives me easy access to scriptures in ancient and modern languages. I use the app to follow readings in church — although I do get the occasional disapproving glance from people who probably think that I am checking my emails.

As soon as writing was invented, ingenious humans were hunting for ways to improve the new communication technology. For example, they soon abandoned writing “as the ox ploughs” (zig-zagging from side to side) because it was confusing. Like the indented layout in Augustine’s fourth-century manuscript, Luke 12.53 in my NRSV signals: “This is sacred text: handle with care!” Reading in another version, I might never have twigged that Jesus was reminding his hearers of Micah’s prophecy. But, when I notice the indentation, I can instantly turn to Micah to make deeper sense of Jesus’s meaning.

If we look at this Gospel only in English without indentation or italics, Jesus’s remark about setting family members one against another sounds like a mainly domestic matter. When we bring in Micah 7.6, however, his words are set against an epic backdrop. The prophet had the moral decay of an entire nation in view: the godly vanished, wrongdoing flourishing, the powerful abusing power, justice perverted by those who administered it. At a societal level, this was bad enough, but corruption had even leached into the sacred bonds of friendship and family.

It sounded like looming disaster for an entire nation. Yet, Micah, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, mingled his prophecies with seeds of hope: even in such desperate circumstances God would not fail those who put their trust in him. Here is Micah’s concluding message (7.7), which Jesus surely had in mind, indented as Augustine’s scribe would have indented it, to show that the words are holy writings, and sacred scripture:

But as for me, I will look to the LORD,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.

Now for a final message from Jesus, which authenticates, for all time, use of the Old Testament by the beneficiaries of the New. He is “the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13.52).