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:

1. that the Israelites should be set apart from the practises of the nations around them
2. that they should be just and compassionate in their dealings with neighbours and strangers

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...