The Blog
1,000 Days of Bible Summary
Today is the 1,000th consecutive day that I've woken up, read a chapter of Scripture and published a summary on Twitter. (And what a gift of a chapter to mark the occasion!)
Other than the absolute basics of life, I'm not sure there's anything else that I've done literally every day for this length of time. It's the deepest kind of habit now.
The benefit of reading and summarising has changed over time. At first I had to think about it a lot. It was a deliberate choice every day to engage with Scripture. The active attention really helped my reading and understanding.
These days Bible Summary is basically automatic. I obviously still have to decide what to include in the summaries, but the processes for making those decisions are well established. And I have a clear sense of the style of the project.
The benefit these days (other than the inherent benefit of reading any part Scripture) is mainly in the sheer discipine of the project, and the sense of pilgrimage.
I've actually only got six months left to go now. I can't imagine what it's going to feel like the first day I wake up without a chapter to summarise. To be honest, I think it will be almost easier to just start again than to do nothing...
But I'm getting ahead of myself! We've still got John's gospel to finish, then the book of Acts, the letters and - let's not forget - the book of Revelation to go.
Digital Bible Survey
Tim Hutchings from the Open University is conducting some very interesting research on the impact of reading the Bible on screen rather than on paper.
If you've ever used a digital Bible, you can help by filling in his survey.
On ITV Tyne Tees
Kenny Toal from ITV Tyne Tees interviewed me for a piece on Bible Summary yesterday, which went out on the local news this evening.
Here's the video.
I was in the Northern Echo again this week too. They've been great supporters of the project. And the story was picked up in the local free paper which went though every door in Durham today.
I've gained 150 followers since this morning. Thanks for your interest!
UPDATE Mar 1: Looks like I'm in the Church Times too.
I summarised all 1,189 chapters of the Bible on Twitter - one tweet per chapter, one chapter per day for over three years.
Click ☰Summaries above to view the archive.
Find out about the project here, you can buy the Bible Summary book on Kindle or in paperback, and feel free to get in contact if you have any comments or questions.