I'm summarising the Bible on Twitter - one tweet per chapter, one chapter per day.
It's a three-and-a-half year project. I started on 8 August 2010 and I'm on course to finish on 8 November 2013.
The @biblesummary account has 23,928 followers.
Bible Summary has been featured in the news all over the world.
Find out about the project here, check out my progress, or feel free to get in contact.
Chapters 10 to 29 of Proverbs pose two particular challenges for the discerning Bible summariser:
Firstly, the lack of structure.
Chapters 1 to 9 have a very coherent overall theme - wisdom against folly - and each chapter develops an aspect of the theme. By contrast, in chapters 10 to 29 there are about a dozen main themes, which are mixed together verse by verse with no apparent order.
My method for the project so far has been to build a summary around the key themes of each chapter. But there don't seem to be themes in these chapters!
Secondly, the irreducibility of a proverb.
Individual proverbs are actually very well suited to Twitter as a medium. Most proverbs are 140 characters or less, and they convey a single, clear idea through a pair of contrasting examples.
But I'm trying to summarise an entire chapter of proverbs in each tweet. It's very difficult to reduce the length of a proverb without losing precisely the grit that makes it profound in the first place.
So, what am I going to do?
I think I'm just going to pick the three or four images that strike me most from each chapter. I'll look for proverbs that capture the heart of one of the broader themes within the book, and over the course of the 20 chapters I'll aim to cover all the main themes.
I won't even try to preserve the pair-of-contrasting-examples form.
It will be interesting to see whether this exercise reveals structure that I haven't noticed before, or whether I'll be left feeling more than ever that it's impossible to do justice to Scripture within the constraints that I've imposed.
Here we go - I'll be starting the Psalms tomorrow!
I was worried that I would be tired of the daily summaries by the time I got here, and that five months in one book would finish me off. But I don't think I've looked forward to any book more!
In my day job, as Director of Worship at King's Church Durham, I've been challenging myself to include a Psalm each time we gather for worship. That may sound obvious, but our diet has been very much focussed around hymns and songs. It's been incredibly enriching to explicitly link our worship with the songs of Scripture.
The Psalms are a kind of lexicon of worship. Given how much my understanding of the other books I've summarised has grown, I'm really excited to discover what the impact of working through the Psalms will be.
I'm also really looking forward to tweeting straightforward praise of God each day!
I think the Psalms are a kind of project-within-the-project. Reading through the Psalms would benefit anyone... so how about joining me?
I've finished the History books! That always feels like a very significant step on the journey through Scripture.
Next come the Wisdom books, which are probably my favourite in the Old Testament. I've been looking forward to starting Job for weeks!
Perhaps that sounds strange? Job has a pretty gloomy reputation. But the raw honesty of books like Job, Ecclesiastes and the Psalms has been life and death to me in dark times over the years. I've never been content with a faith that shies away from those realities.
The Wisdom books take the reality of the human condition very seriously. And they also take God very seriously. There's a spring of life in the coming together of the two.
So, on to Job...
The first time I read the book of Job - about twelve years ago - I was expecting it to be only a couple of chapters long. I had assumed that the children's version was all there was to it. I was bewildered as chapter after chapter of poetic dialogue sailed over my head.
In fact, that bewilderment partly accounts for this whole project!
In an attempt to get to grips with the arguments of Job, I condensed the book into a two-page script. That summary was one of the first things I ever published on the internet!
I'll have a head-start as I get underway tomorrow...
These shorter books are passing quickly! Ezra and Nehemiah are done, and Esther will be finished in a week. That will be the end of the history books!
Somewhat appropriately, I've just passed 10,000 words for the project.
After the run of evil kings leads inexorably to the exile, it's a relief to find a new start for Israel in these recent books. But you can't quite escape the comparison with the great heights of earlier generations.
The Israelites felt the contrast themselves: in Ezra 3 the older people weep for the glory of the former temple even as the new foundations are laid.
This seems a very unresolved new beginning.
My stats tell me that chapters full of unfamiliar kings are the least popular. I lost more Twitter followers than I gained each day between the middle of 2 Kings and the middle of 1 Chronicles. But here we go again...
For your encouragement: 2 Chronicles is a little easier going than 2 Kings. 2 Chronicles focusses on the kings of Judah, who are a better bunch than the kings of Israel on the whole. And there's generally more about each king in 2 Chronicles so the summaries won't be quite so abbreviated.
Only three more weeks...
A year ago today I put the finishing touches to the Bible Summary website and published my summary of Genesis 1 to zero followers.
365 summaries and over 50,000 characters later I published my summary of 1 Chronicles 28 to 19,513!
As many of you saw, the number of followers rocketed under the gaze of the media coverage shortly after I began, and continued rising steadily for a few weeks. But the hype inevitably gave way to the reality of a three-and-a-half year commitment, and in the recent months the increase in followers has mirrored the fortunes of Israel - levelling off and even falling sometimes.
Not that it's ever been about the number of followers, though. I've reached this one year mark with my focus very much in the same place as when I started: first and foremost the project is a way to discipline and deepen my own Bible reading.
It's been an eventful year for me more generally - not always an easy time to stay disciplined. Your retweets, replies and encouragements have helped a lot with keeping me motivated, so thank you!
The storm of newspaper articles and TV interviews had hardly died down last year when we found out that my wife was pregnant. Our son, Samuel, was born in July! There have been some pretty hard things along the way too, and the story that I've been summarising has become deeply entwined with everything that has gone on.
I think that's part of the point of reading Scripture: it's supposed to get bound up with our lives.
I've read through the Bible start-to-finish several times before, so one of the big surprises for me has been how much of a difference the process of summarising has made. I've been forced to notice all kinds of details and themes that I would usually gloss over without really understanding.
One of the biggest pay-offs has been with unpopular books like Leviticus and 2 Kings. The commitment to come up with (hopefully) evenly weighted summaries has meant that I've had to spend time with commentaries - understanding the geography, customs and genealogies that don't naturally interest me very much. My understanding of those books has increased dramatically!
The other pay-off has been in seeing the big picture. I've noticed things in summarising that I'm amazed I hadn't spotted before. For example, I don't think I appreciated how strongly these early books emphasise covenant. I knew in theory that 'covenant' was an important Old Testament theme, but I hadn't really felt the weight of it.
And that's just scratching the surface. Who knows what the impact of the project will have been by the time I finish!
Looking forward, I'll be starting 2 Chronicles on Wednesday, then on towards the Wisdom Literature (some of my favourite books!) This time next year I'll be in Isaiah, and in two years time I'll be on the home stretch. It all seems very doable now!
So here we go... 12 months down, 27 to go...
One of the most frequent questions I got asked when I started Bible Summary was what was I going to do with all the lists of names.
Well, here I am right in the middle of them, and yes they are some of the trickiest chapters I've done. (Which is only partly due to the fact that my own genealogy has recently gained a generation and I'm consequently a little sleep-deprived.)
The first challenge is actually reading the chapter! It's amazing how easy it is to switch off when trying to read all the begetting. I frequently find that my mind has wandered and I'm thinking about something completely different.
The second challenge is in understanding what's going on. You'd think it would be pretty straightforward - some guy, his son, his son, his son - but these chapters are full of family branches. It can be incredibly hard to follow all the relations. I've spent more time in commentaries as I've read these chapters than almost any so far.
Then finally there's the business of summarising. I've obviously got to miss people out and it's a lot harder with these chapters to decide what to emphasise. I've been trying to understand the point of each genealogy and highlight that. (For example: 1 Chronicles 1 takes us from Adam to Israel; 1 Chronicles 2 shows us Judah's line to David.)
These are never going to be anyone's favourite chapters (Jabez and his best-selling prayer notwithstanding) but this has always been an exercise in engaging more deeply and deliberately with what's there in the Bible. The commitment to write a summary probably pays off most with difficult and unpopular chapters.
1 and 2 Kings have been hard work!
Elijah and Elisha have provided some fireworks, but for the most part the last few weeks have just been long chapters and evil kings.
Most people seem to think that Leviticus is the hardest book in the Old Testament but I'd take Leviticus over 2 Kings pretty much every time.
I'd be looking forward to moving on in a week or so but I'll only be moving on to 1 and 2 Chronicles. This must be the toughest stretch!
That wraps up 1 and 2 Samuel. I've enjoyed these books!
For all the extraordinary events along the way, David's life is a very human drama. It's challenging and also hopeful to see this 'man after God's own heart' get so many things wrong. Perhaps that's the reason why the stories of 1 and 2 Samuel are among the most famous in the Bible.
But I'm getting a bit previous. Although we've had David's 'last words' in 2 Samuel 23, he's actually still with us for another two chapters.
So, on to 1 and 2 Kings...
That brings us to the end of 1 Samuel.
The book has already had its share of Hollywood plotlines (see 1 Sam 19 just for starters!) and now it ends at this awful moment of cliffhanger - our hero is exiled, Saul is dead, the Philistines have invaded, all seems lost for Israel. Can there really be any hope?
Part 2 is on its way...
Reaching Ruth is a relief after those last chapters of Judges! Ruth is set in the same period as Judges and both books anticipate the time of the kings, but they could hardly be more different in tone. Ruth is a beautiful tale of loyalty and God's provision.
I want to be particularly careful with shorter books that the chapter summaries work as a whole, so I've already planned the summaries for the next four days. It will be interesting to see whether that makes a difference.
I realise that my summary of Judges 19 is a pretty unpleasant addition to your Twitter stream.
In a way the summary sounds worse than the chapter itself - much colder - but it actually misses one of the worst details: the Levite voluntarily offered his concubine to the men of Gibeah because they initially wanted to rape him.
It's hard to see anything praiseworthy in the whole story. Perhaps there isn't.
We're at a key turning point for Israel. After successive bouts of apostasy and repentance under the judges we're now moving towards the time of the kings.
The repeated phrase in these chapters of Judges is, "In those days there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes." The book is deliberately presenting the problems in Israel, and suggesting that having a king would be the answer.
Although the context in no way lessens the awfulness of the events in Judges 19, it's a relief to realise that we're supposed to find it awful.
It's a dark time for Israel. Things can't stay as they are.
That brings Joshua to a close. I think Joshua has been the most straightforward book so far by quite some way. But next we have Judges...
Judges is probably the darkest book in Scripture. It certainly contains some of the most lurid tales.
I once read through each book of the Bible asking, "If this were the only book I had to learn about God and the universe, what impression would I have?" The picture in Judges was definitely one of the hardest to understand.
I can't believe I'm about to lead a tour of Judges for 18,000 Twitter followers. But here we go...
Chapters 16, 17 and 18 of Deuteronomy each introduce a new kind of leader to Israel: judges (ch16), kings (ch17) and prophets (ch18).
It's interesting to note that over the following years these figures did become significant, and in that order.
During the wilderness years Israel was ruled by priests (who we've already heard a lot about); after the conquest of the land the judges came to prominence; the time of judges ended when the Kingdom was established; and as the kings failed (for the most part) to walk with God the prophets arose as spiritual leaders.
It's clearly no coincidence that the New Testament specifically presents Jesus as fulfilling each of these roles: he is the final priest, judge, king and prophet.
Here's one: I've just passed 20,000 characters for the project! (Including spaces and punctuation, of course.)
We've got about a week left of our journey through the book of Numbers.
There are a lot fewer numbers in it than the title would lead you to believe. The most consistent theme seems to be the Israelites grumbling against God and Moses.
How easy it is to take the blessings we have received for granted and grumble about the details!
Leviticus has a reputation for gore, repetativeness and obscure laws about shellfish and mixed fabrics. As I come to the end of my fifth time through the book I can sympathise to some degree, but we should be careful not to miss the wood for the trees.
It seems to me that there are two main concerns in the law:
Or, holiness and compassion.
The laws that encourage love and respect for one another and generosity towards the poor and outsiders seem very contemporary. Progressive even. Those tend to be the laws that are concerned with compassion.
Many of the laws we find hardest to understand are those concerned with holiness: often to do with the Israelites not taking on the (now extinct) beliefs and practises of the religions around them.
As modern readers we may feel tensions between those two threads, but I think it's more interesting to look for the unity.
The concern for holiness and the concern for compassion were very much integrated in the worldview of the Old Testament people. How were they held together?
Perhaps we could sum it up as: "Love the LORD you God and love your neighbour as yourself."
Over the last few chapters Leviticus has moved from laws about sacrifices and priests to instructions for the Israelites about their diet, about childbirth, about diseases, their houses and now even the most intimate parts of their bodies.
We've already had stories of rape, murder, war and national disaster in previous summaries, but Leviticus 15 has generated more reaction than any chapter since the very beginning of the project.
I expected that these chapters over the next few days would probably be controversial, so I've already been reflecting on it a little.
I'm sure there are many reasons why people would or wouldn't want to see the word 'discharge' on their Twitter feed first thing in the morning, but one theme that I want to say a little more about is the implication in some of the responses that the Bible shouldn't have anything to say about things like that.
I think the line of thinking goes something like this: it's reasonable for the Bible to have things to say about God, religious life and perhaps even national life, but genital hygiene and sexuality are not appropriate subjects for religion.
In our culture we think of things like the religion, law, hygiene, social justice, diet and politics as very separate spheres of life (and some people seem to actively believe that they should be separate). But that's not the picture in the culture of the Old Testament at all.
The Israelites had a very integrated view of life. Every sphere from the most hidden to the most public was part of a continuity under the covenant God had made with them. It was therefore completely natural for the Scriptures to speak into every part of life.
There's a lot more to be said if we're getting into comparing cultures, and I'm not meaning to go too far into that, but I do think that it's worth us asking whether it's a good thing that our lives are so separate (fragmented?) before we decide that the Bible shouldn't talk about certain subjects.
We're nearly at the end of Exodus. What an eventful and unexpected journey!
The book starts off as Hollywood blockbuster (with a sizable section on epidemiology), then segues to a fairly in-depth law book, and finishes as a construction manual.
There are plenty of things in Exodus that can seem oddly specific. But the whole story of Scripture is about God dealing with people in specific ways.
Humans are always in a specific place, at a specific time, part of a specific culture, with a specific language. It's hard to imagine what it would mean for God to deal with us any other way.
I just thought I'd warn those of you who don't know Exodus that we've got six days of plagues coming up next...
One book down, 65 to go! Yes, completing chapter 50 this morning means that I have now summarised the whole of Genesis.
It's been a crazy few weeks! Bible Summary has taken off beyond my imagination and lots else has happened in life besides. Through it all I've been living in the story of Genesis. Each day I'm thinking about today's chapter and looking forward to tomorrow's. The project is certainly achieving its initial aim of getting me deeper into my daily reading.
I've become aware of so many major themes in Genesis: the chain of blessing that links all the key characters, the events that echo in several different lives, the journey from Eden to Egypt, the repeated promise of the land...
Eden to Egypt is a sad journey in many ways - there are already so many things going on that seem at odds with God's character and aims - but Genesis is also brimming with hope for redemption. God is faithful even when people are faithless, he gives his unmerited blessing again and again.
The book ends with Joseph telling Israel that eventually God will lead them out of Egypt and back to the land he promised to Abraham.
We're moving towards the Exodus. Of which, more tomorrow...
Genesis has a series of rather mysterious meetings between key characters and... well, that's exactly the question.
Genesis 18 and 19
We start with the most complicated: Genesis 18 and 19 and Abraham's 'three visitors'. Stay with me here, and particularly notice the words used to describe who is speaking and acting...
The chapter is introduced with "the Lord appeared to Abraham". Abraham then "saw three men standing near him" and addresses the men as "my lord". They ask where Sarah is, then "one [of the men]" says that Sarah will have a son when he returns in a year's time. The Lord asks Abraham why Sarah laughed and then says, using exactly the same words as the man, "I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah will have a son."
The "men" set out for Sodom with Abraham. The Lord tells Abraham what he is thinking about Sodom. Next, "the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord" and Abraham pleads with the Lord for the city. At the end of the chapter "the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place."
Chapter 19 begins with "the two angels" arriving in Sodom, who the men of Sodom descirbe as "men". The angels tell him that "we are about to destroy this place", then Lot tells his relatives that "the Lord is about to destroy the city". The angels are descibed as "men" when they lead Lot's family out of Sodom and finally "the Lord" destroys the cities.
Mysterious, don't you agree? The implication seems to be that Abraham's three visitors are themselves the Lord and the two angels. It's fascinating to try to follow the agency in the descriptions.
Genesis 22
Next comes Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. The text uses the word "God" all the way up to the point when Abraham is holding the knife, then "the angel of the Lord" stops him. "The angel of the Lord" says to him "I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me", and then blesses him, beginning "By myself I have sworn, says the Lord".
This is certainly not as mysterious as Genesis 18 and 19 but it's still interesting to note how at first God speaks directly to Abraham but later it's the angel of Lord speaking for him.
Genesis 32
Finally there's Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles the person who first renames him 'Israel'. The text introduces this person as a 'man', but Jacob afterwards says that he has 'seen God face-to-face'. The plot thickens further in Hosea, who says that Jacob 'struggled with an angel' (Hosea 12).
I'm not trying to make a point here, other than to notice the ambiguity in the language used and to wonder aloud what's going on. It made it hard to condense these chapters to tweet-length as I had to decide whether to preserve the different voices, or interpret them as the same character. I wonder if there's anything interesting going on in the Hebrew here. I shall have to talk about it with persons more learned than myself...
One strange theme in these early chapters of Genesis is that each time God chooses someone and blesses them, the very next thing they do leads to a curse.
Adam and Eve - at the end of chapter 1 God blesses Adam and Eve; in chapter 3 they eat the fruit and the earth is cursed.
Noah - in chapter 9 God gives a similar blessing to Noah; the other half of that chapter relates how he got drunk and cursed Canaan.
Abram - in chapter 12 Abram is told that "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed"; the very next thing that happens is that he pretends Sarai is not his wife which leads to a curse for Pharaoh.
It's interesting that these first heroes are so deliberately presented as fallible.
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