I've finished the Gospels and Acts!

Romans comes next - one of the books that I've been most apprehensive about taking on. (Genesis, Proverbs, Luke and Revelation are the others, if you're interested.)

For a start there's the brilliance and complexity of Paul's thought in this letter. That's enough of a challenge, to be honest! But Romans is also regarded by many as the heart of Christian doctrine. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about this letter.

Summarising always means leaving out important material, but no one notices what gets missed from, say, Jeremiah 22 or Ezekiel 46. I have a sneaking suspicion that that won't be the case when it comes to Romans.

As always, I'll be trying to be as true to the chapters as possible. But I guess I'll discover some of my own bias in what I end up emphasising and what I miss out.

An interesting couple of weeks ahead...

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.

So here we are - 929 days in, over three-quarters of the way through the project, 128,137 characters published, and the whole of the Old Testament summarised!

It's a very satsfying feeling to have such a marathon behind me. The New Testament feels like a sprint finish by comparison.

I've published the complete Old Testament as a Kindle eBook for anyone interested:

The Old Testament

All 39 books of the Old Testament. Genesis to Malachi.

Kindle eBook. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

The archive will always be here at the website.

And it's on to Matthew 1 tomorrow morning...

Summarising the New Testament seems like quite an engaging project in its own right. I'm more familiar with the content, but it's a very different kind of literature.

The Gospels have very long chapters so it's going to be a huge challenge deciding what to leave out. And then I've got to capture Paul's theology.

How am I going to fit Luke 15 or Romans 8 into 140 characters?

I guess we'll find out...

I can hardly believe it, but I'm going to finish the Old Testament tomorrow morning! It will be my 929th consecutive day of Bible Summary.

Which means, of course, that I'll be starting the New Testament on Friday morning.

This would be a great moment for new followers to join, so if you like the project please do spread the word.

Here's a press release: Bible Tweeter reaches the Gospels

Today's chapter - Obadiah 1 - could just be called 'Obadiah'. It's the first of the five single-chapter books in the Bible. (Can you name the others without looking it up?)

Summarising a whole book in one tweet feels even more audacious than the rest of the project. I spent an hour or so listening to Roger Forster's audio commentary this morning to help get the measure of it.

A fitting message for my fifth wedding anniversary? Hopefully not.

History's most unorthodox submariner is up tomorrow...

That wraps up Ezekiel! I may still have almost a year of summarising to go but it feels like the home straight from here. Even the longest remaining books will take less than a month.

Daniel, up next, is only twelve chapters. Then come the minor prophets, including the single chapter of Obadiah. I start the New Testament in February. The Gospels and Acts are quite long but then I'll zip through the letters. The finish line comes into sight in October when I start the 22 chapters of Revelation.

Have a look at my progress infographic for a visual take on all that.

It's probably a good job that I'm heading towards shorter books. My concentration levels will be somewhat dimished for the next few weeks following the arrival of my second son on Saturday!

Both my sons have been born during Bible Summary. Perhaps it's no coincidence that they both have Old Testament names!

What will you be doing exactly a year from now?

8 November 2013 may be a date of minimal portent for most, but I've been looking towards it for the last two-and-a-half years.

All being well, one year from today I will have just published my final summary. The end suddenly seems rather nigh! (If you can't be melodramatic about finishing the book of Revelation then what can you?)

Tomorrow will be the last November the 9th that I ever wake up to publish a chapter summary. That's a strange feeling. Bible Summary feels like a permanent companion these days.

But I must say I'm looking forward to finishing Ezekiel. This is the last book that will take longer than a month. (And quite a perplexing one at that!) After this it's a quick run towards the New Testament.

I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with the long chapters of the gospels (particularly Luke) or the dense theology of Romans but these are the kinds of challenge I signed up for.

Once again, thank you so much for all your support. Your replies, retweets, comments and emails always spur me on.

824 days done, 365 to go...

I'm about to start the book of Ezekiel. It's the last book that will take over a month to complete.

There are a number of famous passages in Ezekiel, not least the valley of dry bones which I've probably heard preached on as often as any other passage. But I really don't have a sense of the overall message.

I do know that we start with one of the most mind-bending visions in scripture. So without further ado...

I'm two thirds of the way through the project! (Yes, 66.6%.) Here are a few notes, stats and reflections...

Although I'm two-thirds of the way through the chapters (792 of 1,189), I've only completed just over one-third of the books (23 of 66). Which goes to show how much longer on average the earlier books are than the later books. (I think that makes the task of reading through Scripture feel harder than it otherwise would.)

Here's a little infographic showing my progress and the relative lengths of the books.

Over the past few weeks, traffic to the Bible Summary website has gone crazy. Two months ago, 400 visitors was a pretty busy day, but that number has steadily soared so that last week there were several days when I had over 1,400 visitors. I have very little idea why this has happened, but thanks for visiting!

I can already sense how significant it's going to feel when I get to November 8. That will mark a year to go. It's very strange to begin contemplating a life where each day doesn't begin with posting to @biblesummary.