All those Eat This Book summary tweets from 2012 – and more!

As anyone monitoring my Twitter ot Facebook feed may have noticed as early as 400 days ago, we’re part of a community that read through the Bible in 2012. Below you’ll find my summaries of the daily readings, without the #EatThisBook and #fb hashtags I used to mark and autopost them to Facebook. The summaries mostly exclude the psalm of the day – though there were some interesting connections there. A few tweets appeared in addition to the daily summaries as extra responses to texts encountered. More background is available on this odd but fruitful habit.

I started a different reading plan for 2013 and beyond based on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer’s lectionary as hosted by YouVersion. I’m tweeting themes or threads that seem to connect the various passages (usually OT, NT and Gospel) along with references for (usually) one verse from each. So the analysis and meditation involved move toward expression in a principle or imperative, not so much a summary. Catch the latest over at www.twitter.com/jdata1.


Ge 1-3; Ps 1: God ordered life’s vast realms and variety; alien and human rebellion’s destructive consequences reach to us.
Ge 8-11; Ps 3: Near extinction didn’t end proliferating humans’ struggle with evil, but a covenant promises God isn’t done.
God’s promise to us non-water-dwellers stands (Ge 9.8-17); we saw its sign by an old bullfight arena. http://t.co/DomIfjOb
Ge 12-15; Ps 4: God selects Abram to craft a people to bless all peoples. Abram starts trusting God’s promises – sometimes.
Ge 16-19; Ps 5: Amid sex’s abuses, God intimately marks Abraham’s people; meets them in prayer; and can judge evil sooner.
Ge 20-21; Ps 6: God is faithful to give Abraham and Sarah Isaac, and to spare both powerless Hagar and powerful Abimelech.
Ge 22-24; Ps 7: At Isaac’s near-sacrifice, Sarah’s death and Rebekah’s marriage, Abraham trusts God to provide; God does.
Ge 25-26; Ps 8: Abraham dies. Isaac mimics Abraham’s choices and conflicts, has twins and others recognize God’s blessing.
Ge 27-29; Ps 9: Isaac’s sons experience sibling rivalry, God’s blessing the younger, polygamy and praise – with new twists.
Ge 30-31; Ps 10: Manipulation marks Jacob’s family and work relationships as God prospers and protects his 20 exiled years.
Ge 32-34; Ps 11: Jacob wrestles God as Israel, cautiously meets Esau and protests 11 sons’ overkill for a Canaanite rapist.
Ge 35-37; Ps 12: Jacob worships God and buries Rachel and Isaac. Favorite Joseph’s brothers sell him. Esau builds a nation.
Ge 38-40; Ps 13: “How long?” ask Tamar (widowed twice, then prostituted by Judah) and Joseph (framed, forgotten prisoner).
Ge 41-42; Ps 14: Joseph’s dream skill wins him governorship, family and famine-time visit from ten unsuspecting brothers.
Ge 43-45; Ps 15: Joseph frames his brothers to test them and Israel. Judah’s humble offer makes him reveal dream fulfilled.
Ge 46-47; Ps 16: Jacob moves his clan to Egypt but plans for Canaan burial. Joseph consolidates Pharaoh’s power using food.
Ge 48-50; Ps 17: Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons and brothers, then dies. God has blessed nations despite the brothers’ wrongs.
Ex 1-3; Ps 18: Egypt enslaves multiplying Israelites. Moses survives genocide, kills, flees to Midian and hears God’s plan.
Ex 4-6; Ps 19: God gives Moses signs, promises and partnership with Aaron. Pharaoh has Israel produce bricks without straw.
Ex 7-9; Ps 20: God ratchets up (7) plagues on Egypt while Pharaoh refuses to release the Israelites as Moses and Aaron ask.
Ex 7-9: Which of the first seven plagues (blood, frogs, gnats, flies, dying livestock, boils, hail) evoke Egyptian deities?
Ex 7-9: Pharaoh’s magicians replicate the first two plagues – in Goshen? None of the later plagues touch Goshen. #wondering
Ex 10-12; Ps 21: Plagues escalate (locusts, three dark days, firstborns’ death or Passover) until Egypt ejects Israel fast.
Ex 1-14: Mending a previous generation’s wrong gets more costly the longer one rejects just requests, adding to the wrong.
Ex 12.33-39: Despite deadly plagues, the sympathy of many in Egypt extended beyond gift-giving to even joining the exodus.
Ex 12: Since all Egyptian firstborns died, was Pharaoh a usurper or a younger-blessed like Israel’s patriarchs and Moses?
Ex 10-12: In ruining Egypt, God kept his covenant with Abram to bless or curse nations. Moses blessed Pharaoh by leaving.
Ex 13-15; Ps 22: God leads and delivers his redeemed people celebratedly at the Red Sea, and provides though they grumble.
Ex 13-15; Ps 22: David recalls the Exodus in his pain and deliverance. Read backward: God’s saving power in resurrection.
Ex 16-18; Ps 23: God serves desert quail, manna and water. Joshua defeats attackers as Moses prays. Moses’ family reunites.
Ex 16-18: God trains Israel to keep sabbath and has Moses strike a rock for water, win a battle hands up and get organized.
Ex 18: Moses’ FIL Jethro is from “the sticks,” but he teaches a prince of Egypt the art of delegation. #AllTruthIsGodsTruth
Ex 19-21; Ps 24: At Mount Sinai, Israel accepts God’s missional covenant of blessing and hears God speak Ten Commandments.
Ex 22-24; Ps 25: Moses relays God’s laws for Israel’s holy wholeness in all relationships. God graciously hosts 74 leaders.
Ex 25-27; Ps 26: God starts Moses’ 40 days on Sinai with detailed instructions to craft a portable worship tent and tools.
Ex 28-29; Ps 27: Aaronic priests are to be set apart to operate Israel’s central worship system – by and for sacrifices.
Ex 30-32; Ps 28: God tutors Moses on worship; Aaron makes Israel an idol. Moses intercedes and intervenes; God disciplines.
Ex 31: God gives Bezalel, Oholiab and others skills and spiritual gifts to craft all the holy hardware of Israel’s worship.
Ex 33-34; Ps 29: At a Tent and on Sinai, Moses talks with the God of glory, who renews covenant tablets. Moses’ face glows.
Ex 35-37; Ps 30: The chastened Israelites give even more materials than the workers need for the fabrication of God’s Tent.
Ex 38-40; Ps 31: Once Israel completes and consecrates the Tent, its tools and priests, God’s presence moves in visibly.
Le 1-4; Ps 32: God details burnt, grain, fellowship and sin offerings. David sings, “Blessed are those with sins forgiven.”
Le 5-7; Ps 33: Sacrificial cures for ethical lapses foster responsibility and supply the priests. “Yahweh loves justice.”
Le 8-10; Ps 34: Moses initiates Aaron and sons as priests in God’s presence. Two improvise some worship and don’t survive.
Le 11-13; Ps 35: All Israel can identify an edible animal; rashes or molds need a priest’s discernment. (Maternity leaves?)
Le 12: Does this (amid rules on ceremonial unclearnness) imply that new moms got a break from food prep and public worship?
Le 14-15; Ps 36: The priests keep infections, molds and discharges from defiling God’s clean living room in Israel’s midst.
Le 16-18; Ps 37: God starts a Day of Atonement, centralizes sacrifice and sets a higher sexual ethic than some patriarchs.
Le 19-20; Ps 38: God lists capital and other offences to a unique, defining character: “Be holy because your God is holy.”
Le 21-23; Ps 39: God aims to make Israel holy through a priesthood, sacrifices, sabbaths and festivals. Consistency counts.
Le 24-25; Ps 40: “I waited patiently for the [land]Lord…” who centered Israel’s economy on seven- and fifty-year rhythms.
Le 26-27; Ps 41: God promises to reward Israel’s loyalty and punish rebels. They could go beyond tithes with “corban” vows.
Nu 1-3; Ps 42: Moses counts Israel’s men and rings tribal camps about the Levite clans that camp around God’s central Tent.
Nu 1-3; Ps 42: Recalling Eden in a desert, God moves into the neighborhood, pitching a Tent amid those redeemed from Egypt.
Nu 4-6; Ps 43: God regulates Levitical duties, impurities, wrongs, male jealousy, Nazirite vows and the priestly blessing.
Nu 7-8; Ps 44: The Israelite tribes offer the Levites in place of firstborns and dedicate the altar by 12 days’ sacrifices.
Nu 7: The 12-day litany of Israelite tribal offerings forms an ancient chant – only without the partridge in a pear tree.
Nu 9-10; Ps 45: Israel celebrates Passover at Sinai before God mobilizes them by trumpets and the pillar of fire and cloud.
Nu 11-13; Ps 46: God disciplines Miriam and others for complaints and adds 70 spiritual leaders. 12 spies’ report is mixed.
Nu 14-16; Ps 47: Israel refuses God’s promised land. The aftermath costs 15,000 lives and a generation of desert wandering.
Nu 15: Amid insurrection and carnage, God adds offerings and tassels, and they stone a Sabbath violator. Oh, more carnage.
Nu 17-18; Ps 48: Of 12 staffs in the Tent, only Aaron’s turns fruitful for the Levites – who aren’t exempt from offerings.
Nu 19-21; Ps 49: God gives cleansing, water, healing and victory over three nations. Moses disobeys; Miriam and Aaron die.
Nu 19-21: My wife suggests the summary “how to clean it up, kill some off and kick others out.” Some alliteration at least.
Ps 49: Folks who take the stuff God provides but won’t accept God’s wisdom end up with little to show for life.
Nu 22-24; Ps 50: King Balak of Moab hires Balam the prophet to curse Israel, but he delivers God’s blessing and judgements.
Nu 25-27; Ps 51: Flirting with Moab’s Baal costs lives. Moses recounts warriors, confirms heiresses and commissions Joshua.
Nu 28-30; Ps 52: God calendars daily, weekly, monthly and festival offerings and allows most women a way out of rash vows.
Nu 31-32; Ps 53: 12,000 Israelites kill Balam and all but Midian’s girls. Two tribes negotiate for land east of the Jordan.
Nu 33-34; Ps 54: After 42 stops and 40 years, God specifies Canaan’s borders for Israel to empty and divide by tribal lot.
Nu 35-36; Ps 55: God allocates Levitical towns, anticipates accidental death cases and allows heiresses to marry kinsmen.
Dt 1-2; Ps 56: Moses’ review of Israel’s journey after Sinai emphasizes the spies’ failure and historic national invasions.
Dt 3-4; Ps 57: Moses, with three tribes settled and the land in sight, coaches Israel to keep God’s unique acts and words.
Dt 5-7; Ps 58: Moses reminds Israel of the laws’ context: a life of love with the One who saved them from evil oppression.
Dt 8-10; Ps 59: Moses charges Israel to humbly remember and continue responding to God’s merciful gifts of unmerited favor.
Dt 11-13; Ps 60: Moses explains how centralized worship can build public and private faithfulness to Israel’s faithful God.
Dt 14-16; Ps 61: Moses describes how Israel’s loyal belonging to God shows in their diet, economy, celebrations and courts.
Dt 17-20; Ps 62: Israel’s roles of priest, king, prophet, judge and soldier are to reflect God’s character-not the nations.
Dt 21-23; Ps 63: Moses restates laws about mysterious murders, marriage, inheritance, neighborliness, sanitation and more.
Dt 24-27; Ps 64: Moses’ law review includes scripted events and protection for vulnerable divorcees, poor, criminals, etc.
Dt 28-29; Ps 65: God renews Israel’s covenant, promising abundant blessings in obedience and consequences of disobedience.
Dt 30-31; Ps 66: Concluding his service to God’s revelation, Moses relays a sad prediction of Israel’s future disobedience.
Dt 30-31; Ps 66: Near the heartbreak of predicted disloyalty comes the promise of human hearts irreversibly marked by God.
Dt 32-34; Ps 67: Moses sings of God’s emotional relationship with Israel, blesses each tribe and dies in view of the land.
Joshua (1-4) memorializes leading Israel through the Ark-dried Jordan River while Rahab hides his Jericho spies. + Psalm 68
Joshua (5-8) circumcises Israel; they do Passover 41; manna stops; Jericho falls; Ai doesn’t; Achan dies; Ai falls. + Ps 69
Joshua (9-11) eliminates all of Canaan’s kings and peoples but the one that tricks Israel and becomes their slaves. + Ps 70
Joshua (12-21) catalogues and distributes Canaan’s land God promised Israel, including Levitical and refuge cities. + Ps 71
Joshua (22-24) sends home loyal troops across the Jordan, calls Israel to obey God, and dies. Joseph’s buried too. + Ps 72
Israel cycles from disloyal to oppressed, prayer to rescue by Judges (1-3) God calls after an incomplete invasion. + Ps 73
Deborah, fourth of Israel’s Judges (4-5) and a prophet, predicts and celebrates Jael, the unlikely female assassin. + Ps 74
Israel cycles through seven more Judges (9-12), including fratricidal Abimelech and Jephthah of the foolish vow. + Ps 75
Gideon, fifth of Israel’s Judges (6-8), tests God, ruins idols, tests his men, conquers, refuses rule but idolizes. + Ps 76
Samson, most famous of Israel’s Judges (13-15), is a Nazirite whose passions lead to vengeance on the Philistines. + Ps 77
Delilah profits from Samson’s fall – until his suicide attack. A Levite profits from patrons’ idolatry. Judges 16-18; Ps 78
Without Judges (19-21), some Benjamites act like Sodomites and women take the brunt of the resulting violence. Worse: Ps 79
Moabite Ruth’s (1-4) bold loyalty meets Boaz’s principled generosity; God cures Naomi’s bitterness in David’s roots. Ps 80
1Sa 1-3; Ps 81: Samuel, born out of Hannah’s anguished prayer, grows up hearing God amid Eli’s corrupt priests at Shiloh.
1Sa 4-8; Ps 82: God’s ark plagues ruling Philistines after Eli & Sons die. Samuel delivers but Israel wants a visible king.
1Sa 9-12; Ps 83: Samuel anoints Saul king, a tall, humble fighter. Samuel reminds Israel of God’s mercies and expectations.
1Sa 13-14; Ps 84: Saul foolishly fails Samuel and condemns his own son, Jonathan-whose brave attack panics the Philistines.
1Sa 15-17; Ps 85: Saul partly obeys God as sacrifice, to be replaced by young David who risks all for God against Goliath.
[1Sa 17.39] http://t.co/unZ8bjrF David didn’t reject technology to fight Goliath, but selected by usability. Played acoustic harp too.
1Sa 18-20; Ps 86: David’s military successes provoke Saul’s violent jealousy but loyalty from others, especially Jonathan.
1Sa 21-24; Ps 87: Part-Moabite David attracts a band and protects his parents as he flees Saul’s manhunt.
1Sa 25-27; Ps 88: After Samuel dies, David still treats Saul and other fools blamelessly – and fools his host, Gath’s king.
1Sa 28-31; Ps 89: David’s kept from fighting for the Philistines (gets Amelekites), while Saul goes from bad to suicide.
2Sa 1-3; Ps 90: Amid cycles of mourning, conflict and revenge beyond Saul’s death, David grows his kingdom and household.
2Sa 4-7; Ps 91: David enthusiastically centers his kingdom, household and worship around God’s ark in conquered Jerusalem.
2Sa 8-12; Ps 92: God expands David’s kingdom with many victories. David cares for Saul’s heir but covers up rape by murder.
2Sa 13-15; Ps 93: Nathan’s prediction is fulfilled in conflict between David’s children-deceit, rape, murder and rebellion.
2Sa 16-18; Ps 94: David’s spies frustrate Absalom’s rebel advisor; general Joab frustrates David’s plan to spare his son.
2Sa 19-21; Ps 95: David grieves Absalom, honors his soldiers, resettles graciously, quashes rebels and rights Saul’s wrong.
2Sa 22-24; Ps 96: David’s Psalm 18 appears alongside last words, exploits of 40 core warriors and a very misguided project.
1Ki 1-3; Ps 97: Despite Adonijah, Solomon becomes king before David dies, settles David’s accounts and gets God’s wisdom.
1Ki 4-7; Ps 98: Solomon made sustainable administrative, architectural and educational structures to aid peaceful worship.
1Ki 8-10; Ps 99: God answers Solomon’s prayer to hear any who pray via the temple, and builds Israel’s wealth and prestige.
1Ki 11-13; Ps 100: Solomon’s 700 wives led him to idolatry, costing his son ten northern tribes where Jeroboam apostasized.
1Ki 14-16; Ps 101: Israel’s kings Jeroboam to Ahab increase in idolatry, while some of Judah’s live up to David’s heritage.
1Ki 17-19; Ps 102: Elijah lives in Jezebel’s area until Yahweh humiliates Baal before Israel and Ahab and ends the drought.
1Ki 20-22; Ps 103: Ahab’s military, domestic and religious behaviors are badly mixed; God’s mercies to him are significant.
2Ki 1-3; Ps 103: Ahab’s two successors fare worse and better by the words God gives Elisha, deathless Elijah’s successor.
2Ki 4-7; Ps 105: Elisha performs God’s miraculous acts of mercy and judgement for Israel and occasionally their enemies.
2Ki 8-11; Ps 106: In Elisha’s day, zealous Jehu finishes Ahab’s clan in Israel. Young Joash also hits Judah’s Baal worship.
2Ki 12-14; Ps 107: After generations of coups and conflicts in, between and beyond Israel and Judah, Elisha finishes well.
2Ki 15-17; Ps 108: Assyria deports Israel after none of its kings live idol-free. Judah’s not far behind, by this summary.
2Ki 18-19; Ps 109: Assyria’s Sennacherib threatens Judah’s good king Hezekiah, but Isaiah predicts that invader’s downfall.
2Ki 20-22; Ps 110: Judah’s final few generations of kings swing wildly between sensitive reformers and religious copycats.
2Ki 23-25; Ps 111: Josiah destroys Judah’s idols, but 20 years after his death Babylon exiles Judah and destroys Jerusalem.
Ezra 1-3; Ps 112: 50 years after Babylon crushed Jerusalem, Persia’s Cyrus sends exiles to rebuild its temple for worship.
Ezra 4-7; Ps 113: Under three kings, Jerusalem’s rebuilding stops and restarts, the temple finished before Ezra’s arrival.
Ezra 8-10; Ps 114: Having led exiles back with temple assets, Ezra leads the remnant in repenting of foreign intermarriage.
Nehemiah (1-3) mourns the cause for the sad state of Jerusalem’s walls and gates-and becomes part of the solution. + Ps 115
Nehemiah (4-6) deals with economic injustice and external and internal opposition to finish the walls in 52 days. + Ps 116
Nehemiah (7-9) oversees gated Jerusalem’s resettlement, a restarted festival and a scripture-prompted confession. + Ps 117
Nehemiah (10-11) leads the remnant in pledges to God’s law and worship, and volunteers resettle more of Jerusalem. + Ps 118
Nehemiah (12-13) ramps up pressure on Judah to keep their vows about intermarriage, sabbath and temple worship. + Ps 119
Esther (1-5) breaks court protocol to dine Xerxes and Hanan, whose genocidal plans start with her Uncle Mordecai. + Ps 120
Esther (6-10) asks Xerxes to protect the Jews as Haman’s plot backfires with a vengeance and Mordecai is promoted. + Ps 121
Job (1-4) meets hellish losses with faithful grief. Silent for a week, his friend Eliphaz now tells a ghost story. + Ps 122
Job (5-7) challenges Eliphaz and his friends to better arguments – before complaining to God about his situation. + Ps 123
Job (8-10) agrees with Bildad about God’s justice, but knows his complaint against God is hopelessly asymmetrical. + Ps 124
Zophar accuses Job (11-13) of unconfessed sin, but Job chides his friends and directs his appeal to the Almighty. + Ps 125
Eliphaz mistakes a friend’s rants for concealed sin, but Job (14-16) has nothing to hide in his quest to hear God. + Ps 126
Job (17-20) and friends continue the disconnect between wrestling God and spouting popular formulas on suffering. + Ps 127
Job (21-23) finds hope in God’s justice even while he’s not experiencing any mercy amid his friends’ accusations. + Ps 128
Job (24-28) defends hope in God’s character and wisdom, as death limits evil. Bildad concludes mortals are worms. + Ps 129
Job (29-31) reviews his blameless life of proactive righteousness in the face of God’s (and his friends’) silence. + Ps 130
Young Elihu vents his disappointment in Job (32-37) and his friends and recognizes God’s approach in a storm. + Ps 131-132
Job (38-39) listens to God’s survey of creation’s wonders for which Job’s not responsible. So what does Job know? + Ps 133
Job (40-42) responds humbly to God’s parade of pet monsters, sacrifices and prays for his friends and is restored. + Ps 134
Solomon starts Proverbs (1-3) as a father’s plea: Flee folly and embrace wisdom by learning a healthy fear of God. + Ps 135
Proverbs (4-6) urges people to avoid destructive deceit, violence and adultery to find God’s way of enduring love. + Ps 136
Proverbs (7-9) personifies Wisdom as a noble hostess of life’s best, Folly a brazen adulteress on hell’s highway. + Ps 137
Proverbs (10-12) contrasts the lasting fruit of life lived on God’s terms with the deadly wages of any other way. + Ps 138
Proverbs (13-15) shows the fear of the Lord in speech and relationships, wealth and poverty, ethics and emotions. + Ps 139
Proverbs (16-18) applies wisdom across the variety of human experience, including planning, conflict and power. + Ps 140
Proverbs (19-21) explores the heartbreaking consequences of folly in contrast with wisdom’s life-giving rewards. + Ps 141
Proverbs (22-23) begins Sayings of the Wise, which group couplets in topical stanzas with an occasional triplet. + Ps 142
Proverbs (24-26) promotes robust righteousness: kindness to enemies, hard work and intervention against violence. + Ps 143
Proverbs (27-29) discerns many tests of wisdom, like how one uses power or treats the poor. Abuses can be gross. + Ps 144
Proverbs (30-31) rounds out with sayings by Agur and King Lemuel’s mother and an acrostic praising the noble wife. + Ps 145
Ecclesiastes’ (1-4) Teacher sees enjoyment of life as God’s gift amid the common struggle against meaninglessness. + Ps 146
The Quester-turned-Preacher of Ecclesiastes (5-8) recommends a funeral over a comedy for the learning opportunity. + Ps 147
Ecclesiastes’ (9-12) Teacher concludes from testing everything that the wisest course is to get to know God early. + Ps 148
Song of Solomon (1-4) captures the erotic poetry between a woman and her man. God is pro-sex – gave it its power. + Ps 149
Isaiah (1-4), a fearless covenant watchdog to Judah’s later kings, blows God’s whistle on worship without justice. + Ps 1
Song of Solomon (5-8) voices passionate human love amid a chorus of friends aware of some appropriate boundaries. + Ps 150
Isaiah (9-12) holds out hope for a reformed remnant of Israel when God destroys the nations who’ve destroyed Israel. + Ps 3
Isaiah’s (5-8) kids’ names warn of God’s holy verdict on his fruitless vineyard: Israel’s exile soon, Judah’s later. + Ps 2
Isaiah (13-17) predicts the downfall of Babylon, Damascus and-more sympathetically-Moab from violence and idolatry. + Ps 4
Isaiah (18-22) portrays naked trouble for Judah, its Nile allies and other enemies, with some becoming God’s people. + Ps 5
Isaiah (28-30) sees Judah reject God’s voice and rest and pursue an unwise alliance, trapped by rule-based religion. + Ps 7
Isaiah’s (23-27) God judges nations for their treatment of the earth – and resurrects and restores at least Israel. + Ps 6
Isaiah (31-35) looks past the future destruction of Jerusalem and of all nations to the lasting rule of God’s peace. + Ps 8
Isaiah’s (36-41) incomparable God humbles a superpower, heals Judah’s king, pokes fun at idols and thinks way ahead. + Ps 9
Isaiah (42-44) hears Israel’s Redeemer call them God’s servant – now blinded by idols, someday restored by “Cyrus.” + Ps 10
Isaiah (45-48) relays God’s great invitation to Judah facing judgment and to those who attack, deliver or observe. + Ps 11
Isaiah (49-53) describes God’s plan to deliver his people and all nations by his servant’s sacrificial obedience. + Ps 12
Isaiah (54-58) confronts Judah’s idolatry and injustice while holding out God’s promises to other nations as well. + Ps 13
Isaiah (59-63) foresees a renewal of peace and justice for many nations by Israel’s Father, Savior and Holy Spirit. + Ps 14
Isaiah (64-66) glimpses a purified remnant of humanity flourishing in God’s new creation, finally freed from evil. + Ps 15
Jeremiah (1-3) likens Israel’s and Judah’s idolatry to adultery-abandoning a spring to dig disappointing cisterns. + Ps 16
Young Jeremiah (4-6) experiences and expresses the emotional life of God in warning and wooing his wayward people. + Ps 17
Jeremiah (7-9) passionately confronts Judah’s duplicitous, lawless, self-deceived, restless and unrepentant ways. + Ps 18
Threatened whistleblower Jeremiah (10-13) shows Judah prefers conspiracy and worthless idols to covenant obedience. + Ps 19
Jeremiah (14-17) prays amid calamity and false prophets, trusting God to deliver him now and restore nations later. + Ps 20
Judah’s leaders beat Jeremiah (18-22) but consult him as Babylon attacks. Cracked pots and deaf listeners, indeed. + Ps 21
Jeremiah (23-25) sees the 70-year exile start for Judah’s leaders, prophets and people, and awaits a godly leader. + Ps 22
Jeremiah (26-29) opposes his judges and false prophets nonviolently (truth wins) and asks exiles to bless Babylon. + Ps 23
Jeremiah (30-32), imprisoned during Jerusalem’s siege, keeps promising a new covenant and restoration – much later. + Ps 24
Jeremiah (33-36) rebukes leaders who retake freed slaves and burn his messages, reflecting awful family traditions. + Ps 25
Jeremiah (37-39) deals with arrest, dungeon, cistern, state secrets and ongoing rejection till Jerusalem is burned. + Ps 26
Jeremiah (40-44) is taken to Egypt by a remnant Babylon left in Judah, whose idolatrous fears endanger their hosts. + Ps 27
Jeremiah (49-50) foresees doom in Ammon, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, Babylon-and a guiltless covenant for Israel. + Ps 29
Jeremiah (45-48) promises his scribe’s survival, doom for Philistia, Egypt and Moab, and a hope for the latter two. + Ps 28
Jeremiah (51-52) sends Babylon a scroll of God’s doom for Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. + Ps 30
Lamentations (1-3) vividly depicts Jerusalem’s fall resulting from Judah’s unfaithfulness against the faithful God. + Ps 31
Lamentations (3-5) models confession amid calamity, while promising the exile’s end and worse punishment for Edom. + Ps 32
Ezekiel (1-4) sees God’s glory visit Judah’s exiles in Babylon and starts dramatic messages to a rebellious people. + Ps 33
Ezekiel’s (5-8) model predicts Jerusalem’s fall because of ongoing idolatry he sees remotely, even in God’s temple. + Ps 34
Ezekiel (9-12) sadly sees the city’s idolaters or violent die as God abandons his temple. Exile now; renewal later. + Ps 35
Ezekiel (13-15) warns every fake prophet, fortune teller and internal idolater to repent as God judges their land. + Ps 36
Ezekiel (16-17) depicts Judah’s idolatrous sacrifices as adulterous, “free” prostitution that shocks the neighbors. + Ps 37
Ezekiel (18-20) emphasizes individual responsibility – “Repent and live!” – as he laments, confronts and foretells. + Ps 38
Ezekiel (21-22) moans, wails and claps angrily: God wields Babylon like a sword on Judah’s idolatry and injustice. + Ps 39
Ezekiel (23-24) likens Jerusalem’s fall to a prostitute’s death, a cooking pot he chars and mourning for his wife. + Ps 40
Ezekiel (25-27) warns Judah’s neighbors of doom: Ammon, Moab, Edom and especially Tyre, the coastal trading center. + Ps 41
Ezekiel (28-30) sees Babylon humiliate Tyre and Sidon and start Egypt’s 40-year exile – before Judah returns. + Ps 42
As Jerusalem falls, Ezekiel (31-33) entertains exiles: Pharaoh’s lumberjack, hunter, mourner and graveguide is God. + Ps 43
Ezekiel (37-39): Israel’s final restoration will be like a bone army’s resurrection. Not so for her last invaders. + Ps 45
Ezekiel (34-36): Israel’s Shepherd comes to rule by his own goodness, reversing evil done by leaders and neighbors. + Ps 44
Ezekiel (40-44) gets a detailed tour of Mt. Zion’s ideal temple, where God dwells with priests to make Israel holy. + Ps 46
Ezekiel (45-48) foresees reordered Israel worshiping God and welcoming foreigners to share its tribal territories. + Ps 47
Daniel (1-3) and three friends excel at Babylon U., thriving in Nebuchadnezzar’s rule by integrity and God’s mercy. + Ps 48
Daniel (4-6) sees God humble dreamy Nebuchadnezzar, script Babylon’s fall and stop Darius’ lions by illegal prayer. + Ps 49
Daniel (7-9) receives wild visions of the distant future and prays penetentially for Israel after 70 years’ exile. + Ps 50
Warrior messengers give Daniel (10-12) eschatological visions of international conflict and innovative idolatry. + Ps 51
God has prophet Hosea (1-5) marry promiscuous Gomer-and reconcile-to mirror God’s rocky relationship with Israel. + Ps 52
Hosea (6-10) carefully describes Israel’s unfaithfulness, consequences and the cure in repentance and resurrection. + Ps 53
Hosea (11-14) displays the emotional life of God: “You’re destroyed, Israel, because you’re against…your helper.” + Ps 54
Joel (1-3) foresees locusts’ devastation, urging Israel to turn to God, who gives his Spirit before final judgment. + Ps 55
Amos (1-5) hears God’s roar against the injustices and idolatries of Israel and her neighbors: “Let justice roll!” + Ps 56
Amos (6-9) confronts Israel’s complacent and proud-ripe for destruction-with God’s plumb line. Others will return. + Ps 57
Obadiah warns Edom of doom. After a fishy sidetrip, ethnocentric Jonah warns Nineveh and they turn to God’s mercy. + Ps 58
Micah marks centrifugal and centripetal people movements for justice or blessing: “Who’s a pardoning God like you?” + Ps 59
Violent and unrepentant, Nineveh won’t dodge the doom later pronounced by Nahum (for whom Capernaum will be named). + Ps 60
Habakkuk has issues with God’s delayed justice…and use of cruel Babylon to mete it out. #Prayer changes pray-ers. + Ps 61
Zephaniah urges Jerusalem to humbly turn to God ahead of the day all nations will worship God or face destruction. + Ps 62
Haggai promises blessings on Jerusalem’s remnant for rebuilding God’s temple, and the Peacemaker’s global shake-up. + Ps 63
Zechariah (1-4) tells Jews of horses, horns, clothes, lamps and trees: God comes to atone, adopt nations and dwell. + Ps 64
Zechariah (5-8) makes a crown and sees a scroll fly, a basketed woman, chariots and Jerusalem a magnet for seekers. + Ps 65
Malachi (1-2) confronts Judah’s priests for making more of sacrifice than truth, because God will be known by many. + Ps 67
Zechariah (9-14) anticipates God’s visit to Israel amid the nations to make war and peace in their struck shepherd. + Ps 66
Malachi’s (3-4) faithful few long for God’s covenant messenger to purify Jewish leaders-after a reconciling Elijah. + Ps 68
1 Chronicles (1-9) summarizes the genealogical records at the Jews’ return from exile, plus a few family vignettes. + Ps 69
If you skip 1 Chronicles (1-9) like movie credits or a curtain call, you miss the occasional shorts and commentary. + Ps 69
1 Chronicles (15-17) retells how David commissioned the Levites to carry the Ark and lead worship-with a new psalm. + Ps 71
1 Chronicles (10-14) highlights David’s exploits and compatriots from Saul’s reign to Uzzah’s death by God’s Ark. + Ps 70
1 Chronicles (18-21) retells David’s expanding rule over near nations and the results of his misguided army census. + Ps 72
1 Chronicles (22-24) tells how David commissioned Solomon with materiel, workers and priests to build God’s Temple. + Ps 73
1 Chronicles 22 quantifies silver and gold David set aside to build the Temple, worth over US$5 trillion at today’s prices.
In 1 Chr 23, David prioritized the Levites’ Temple duties over their decentralized educational work crucial for the tribes.
1 Chronicles (25-28) adds temple gatekeepers, musicians and prophets with stewards, tribal heads and army officers. + Ps 74
2 Chronicles (1-4) retells how Solomon got wisdom at Gibeon’s altar and had foreigners help fabricate God’s Temple. + Ps 75
In 2 Chronicles (5-8), Solomon models prayer while dedicating the marvelous-yet-inadequate Temple, and God answers. + Ps 76
2 Chronicles (9-12) retells how Solomon’s wisdom impressed Sheba’s queen and his son Rehoboam risked a split rule. + Ps 77
2 Chronicles (18-20) shows that Jehoshaphat, one of Judah’s best kings, succeeded except when allied with Israel. + Ps 79
2 Chronicles (13-17) retells how Rehoboam’s successors deal with God, Judah and Benjamin, Israel and nearby powers. + Ps 78
2 Chronicles (21-24) highlights Judah’s kings’ path from loyalty to David’s God into idolatry and unjust violence. + Ps 80
2 Chronicles (25-27) highlights how Judah’s King Joram learned faithfulness after his ancestors’ proud nominalism. + Ps 81
2 Chronicles (28-31) traces Ahaz’s downfall to idolatry; Hezekiah’s reforms touch Israel’s and foreign God-fearers. + Ps 82
2 Chronicles (32-34) surveys kings Hezekiah (good, proud), Manasseh (idolater, repents), Amon (bad), Josiah (good). + Ps 83
2 Chronicles (35-36): Even the Exile’s length has ceremonial meaning, making up the land’s 70 missed sabbath years. + Ps 84
Matthew (1-2) shows Jesus rooted in Israel’s story by a royal genealogy and prophetic, angelic and dream messages. + Ps 85
In Matthew (3-4), Elijah-like John preps Jesus’ 2nd career under God. Devil-tested, he starts a healing community. + Ps 86
Matthew (5-6) has Jesus’ manifesto of ethically demanding, spiritually gracious, shared life in the Father’s reign. + Ps 87
Matthew 9-10: As legalists debate, Jesus forgives outcasts, raises the dead, cures many and trains twelve for more. +Ps 89
Matthew 7-8: Jesus’ words offer grace, heal all kinds of people, calm a lake and trade a herd of pigs for demoniacs. +Ps 88
Matthew 11-12: Jesus reminds his generation of the benefits of faithfulness and the dangers of avoiding repentance. +Ps 90
Matthew 13-14: Jesus encodes kingdom truths in story, offends his hometown, feasts graciously and leads a lake walk. +Ps 91
Matthew 15-16: Jesus clarifies his identity and mission amid disciples, conservatives and liberals, Jews and others. +Ps 92
Matthew 17-18: Jesus transfigures, exorcises and teaches disciples on faith, death, taxes, greatness and sin’s cure. +Ps 93
Matthew 19-20: On his way, Jesus affirms marriage, singleness, children, sacrifice, grace, service and persistence. +Ps 94
Matthew 21-22: Jesus enters Jerusalem gently as king so its powerful hear their Landlord’s voice from David’s heir. +Ps 95
Matthew 23-24: Jesus confronts selective practices by religious elites and offers life that thrives amid apocalypse. +Ps 96
Matthew 25-26: Jesus urges readiness, industry and generosity until he returns. Judas betrays him; Peter denies him. +Ps 97
Matthew 27-28: Jesus’ self-sacrifice fulfills scripture; his resurrection and ongoing mission rest on his promises. +Ps 98
Mark (1-2) focuses on Jesus’ decisive actions in God’s liberating power, his pithy sayings and everyone’s amazement. +Ps 99
Mark 3-4: Jesus makes enemies by relating everything to the open secret of God’s reign, terrifying even disciples. +Ps 100
Mark 5-6: His disciples, some leaders, the sick, hungry and delivered trust Jesus-not his hometown crowd or Herod. +Ps 101
Mark 7-8: Jesus faces legalism, ethnocentrism, enthusiasm, misunderstandings and deception as he heals and teaches. +Ps 102
Mark 9-10: Brightest yet cross-aimed, Jesus speaks into faith, greatness, marriage, children, wealth and suffering. +Ps 103
Mark 11-12: Jesus speaks truth to the fruitless, religious powers in Jerusalem, then extols a faithful, poor widow. +Ps 104
Mark 13-14: Jesus prophesies of the end-before his anointing, Passover, betrayal, arrest, trial and Peter’s denial. +Ps 105
Mark 15-16: Jesus, beloved Son and rejected King, gives his life saving others, and rises to support their mission. +Ps 106
John 1-2: Jesus, God’s Word, became human. This Lamb offers more than ritual purification; his body’s a new Temple. +Ps 107
John 3-4: Jesus’ rabbinic conversations with Nicodemus and a Samaritan woman are night and day. His words can cure. +Ps 108
John 5-6: Jesus works to heal Sabbath too, feeds thousands new manna, walks a lake-but few take the life he offers. +Ps 109
John 7-8: Jesus offers God’s Spirit to feasting Jews, dodges arrest, pardons an adulteress and dialogues with many. +Ps 110
John 9-10: Jesus heals a man born blind, leads like a shepherd and claims deity. We are blind who deny plain truth. +Ps 111
John 11-12: Jesus raises a dead friend to face peril, burial anointing and curious non-Jews as Passover approaches. +Ps 112
John 13-15: At dinner, Jesus serves, instructs and promises the Spirit to his disciples-and dismisses his betrayer. +Ps 113
John 16-18: Jesus comforts the Eleven, prays for his people, and allows his arrest and trial by priests and Pilate. +Ps 114
John 19-21: Jesus-mocked, condemned, tortured, dead, buried-shows up convincingly alive to friends including Peter. +Ps 115
Luke 1: Angel Gabriel foretells forerunner John’s and Jesus’ births; the related mothers meet; God’s Spirit speaks. +Ps 116
Luke 2-3: Jesus-born in Bethlehem at Caesar’s census-is baptized 30 years later before another Herod arrests John. +Ps 117
Luke 4-5: Devil-tested Jesus preaches, heals and shuts demons out by the Spirit, calls followers and offends some. +Ps 118
Luke 6-7: Jesus trains disciples in a demanding mercy and affirms tenacious, well-placed trust even from outsiders. +Ps 119
Luke 8-9: Jesus leads and sends a mixed, missional community. They recognize Messiah, but not the path he pursues. +Ps 120
Luke 10-11: Jesus affirms 72 friars, a halfbreed hero, a female mentee and persistent prayer, but not religionists. +Ps 121
Luke 12-13: En route to Jerusalem, Jesus warns of hypocrisy, greed and worry, urging responsibility and repentance. +Ps 122
Luke 14-16: Jesus keeps Sabbath by healing, upsets etiquette, celebrates reconciliation and exposes stuff’s power. +Ps 123
Luke 17-18: Jesus commends forgiveness, duty, gratitude, watchfulness, persistence, penitence, kids and sacrifice. +Ps 124
Luke 19-20: Zacchaeus grows by divesting. Jesus invades Jerusalem gently, but turns tables on his silenced critics. +Ps 125
Luke 21-22: Jesus foresees Temple destruction, his return, his Passover arrest, Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial. +Ps 126
Luke 23-24: Tried by Jewish leaders, Pilate and Herod, tortured and executed, Jesus alive again shocks all but him. +Ps 127
Acts 1-2, Luke’s sequel: Jesus ascends as Peter’s 120 await the Holy Spirit-who invades, multiplying them 25-fold. +Ps 128
Acts 3-4: In Jesus’ name, Peter and John heal a lame man, preach, confront leaders, pray and share all among 5,000. +Ps 129
Acts 5: One church couple dies of lying. Threats strengthen the apostles to preach, heal and suffer in Jesus’ name. +Ps 130
Acts 6-7: Jerusalem church friction promotes servers like Stephen, later killed preaching Jesus from Moses’ story. +Ps 131
Acts 8-9: Deacon Philip reaps Samaritan and Ethiopian faith; apostles visit the faithful; persecutor Saul converts. +Ps 132
Acts 10-11: God leads Peter to Centurion Cornelius as Gentiles turn to Jesus. Saul joins Barnabas in Antioch’s mix. +Ps 133
Acts 12-13: Herod kills James, jails Peter, but dies. Antioch’s church frees Paul and Barnabas for mobile mission. +Ps 134
Acts 14-15: A first missionary journey provokes a range of responses. Jerusalem Council affirms Gentile Christians. +Ps 135
Acts 16-17: Paul and Silas see breakthroughs and violent opposition in a second missionary journey, on into Europe. +Ps 136
Acts 18-19: Jesus’ movement grows in Asia and Greece as Paul’s network works for truth against extralegal violence. +Ps 137
Acts 20-21: Paul treks to Jerusalem and-despite warnings, welcome and precautions-is arrested amid a murderous mob. +Ps 138
Acts 22-23: In protective Roman custody, Paul invokes citizenship, stirs up the Sanhedrin and dodges fasters’ plot. +Ps 139
Acts 27-28: Sent to Rome with Luke, Paul survives shipwreck and snakebite, and proclaims Jesus during house arrest. +Ps 141
Acts 24-26: Imprisoned years in Caesarea, Paul explains Jesus’ Way to governors and royalty-then appeals to Caesar. +Ps 140
Romans 1-2: Paul writes ahead of his visit, starting with incisive analysis of human evil, religious and otherwise. +Ps 142
Romans 3-4: Paul urges Jews and others to trust God’s setting us right in Jesus, as Abraham faced his helplessness. +Ps 143
Romans 5-6: Paul extols Jesus’ truly free, grace-filled, revolutionary life for us-Adam’s captive, dying offspring. +Ps 144
Romans 7-8: Paul explores the need for and reality of new dimensions God’s resident Spirit brings human experience. +Ps 145
Romans 11-12: Paul urges grafted-in Gentiles and loyal Jews to mature in humble service under God’s amazing mercy. +Ps 147
Romans 9-10: Paul explains his ongoing struggle to bless fellow Jews yet to yield to God’s grace in Yeshua (Jesus). +Ps 146
Romans 13-14: Paul encourages believers to adopt maturing self-governance in matters of citizenship and conscience. +Ps 148
Romans 15-16: Paul ends with greetings and reminders to serve those less mature and steer clear of false teachers. +Ps 149
1 Cor 1-2: Based on a common identity from God’s “weak” wisdom, Paul appeals to Corinth’s church for humbler unity. +Ps 150
1 Cor 3-4: Leveling with those who’ll listen about unbalanced development, Paul models a caring leadership they need. +Ps 1
1 Cor 5-6: Paul shows a Christ-centered worldview makes deep sense of sexuality, legal conflicts and even how we eat. +Ps 2
1 Cor 7-8: Paul helps believers navigate lifestyle questions-on relationships and diet-through Jesus’ love and truth. +Ps 3
1 Cor 9-10: Paul foregoes apostolic rights to uphold them-showing the gospel in mature freedom and service to others. +Ps 4
1 Cor 11-12: Paul affirms contextual worship, collects eucharist abuse and tutors on interdependent, spiritual gifts. +Ps 5
1 Cor 13-14: Paul describes Christ’s extravagant love powering extraordinary gifts for worship, witness and service. +Ps 6
1 Cor 15-16: Paul expounds on resurrection, plans to visit and collect alms for Judea, and passes Ephesian greetings. +Ps 7
2 Cor 1-2: Paul sees God’s gifts in suffering and rescue, underlines love and honesty, and urges grace to a penitent. +Ps 8
2 Cor 3-4: Jesus’ witnessing communities authenticate the longsuffering planters who relay God’s exoteric invitation. +Ps 9
2 Cor 5-6: In view of ages to come, Paul coaxes Corinthian Christians deeper in friendship with God and each other. +Ps 10
2 Cor 7-8: Encouraged by a painful letter’s healthy outcomes, Titus leads a Macedonian team spurring Corinth’s alms. +Ps 10
2 Cor 9-10: Modeling kingdom generosity and integrity, Paul’s team aims to disarm worldviews alien to Christ’s rule. +Ps 12
2 Cor 11-13: Paul plays Christ’s fool to boast of his limitations, compare super-apostles and warn the unrepentant. +Ps 13
Galatians 3-4: Paul shows how God’s promised life of trust in Jesus’ cross and Spirit surpasses religious legalism. +Ps 15
Galatians 1-2: Paul confronts young and old influenced by conservative conformity alien to Jesus’ rescue of rebels. +Ps 14
Galatians 5-6: Paul exhorts the church to keep in step with the free Spirit of the Crucified, ignoring circumcision. +Ps 16
Ephesians 1-2: Paul exults over the life the triune God planned, purchased and powers for ethnic rebels reconciled. +Ps 17
Ephesians 3-4: From jail, Paul unfolds the multiethnic dimensions and maturing ethic of Jesus’ message and mission. +Ps 18
Ephesians 5-6: Paul urges believers to live God’s humble, extravagant, tough love in all relationships or conflicts. +Ps 19
Philippians 1-2: Paul celebrates God’s maturing work in a church of partners with him in Jesus’ love, risk and pain. +Ps 20
Philippians 3-4: Paul’s joy from knowing Jesus overflows in thanksgiving and encouragement to his ministry partners. +Ps 21
Colossians 1-2: From jail, Paul commends a friend’s friends for focus on Jesus’ centrality in God’s work and theirs. +Ps 22
Colossians 3-4: Paul contrasts Jesus’ way of life-love, peace and truth-with the way of death, and passes greetings. +Ps 23
1 Thessalonians 1-2: Former pagans respond to God when Paul’s team shares truth, life, joy and trouble-and moves on. +Ps 24
1 Thessalonians 3-4: Reassured by Timothy’s report, Paul urges a church to keep sharp with God until Jesus’ return. +Ps 25
2 Thessalonians: Paul thanks God for endurance, recalls Justice is coming after worse, and commands freeloading end. +Ps 27
1 Thessalonians 5: Paul challenges new Christians to live ready for Jesus’ return, being made whole and holy by God. +Ps 26
1 Timothy 1-2: Paul’s protege must teach God’s grace despite unstable opposition, humbly praying with men and women. +Ps 28
1 Timothy 3-4: Paul catalogs servant leaders’ qualifications to stand against the tide by godly creed and character. +Ps 29
1 Timothy 5-6: Any age or stage in Jesus’ family is ripe to trade manipulation or greed for maturity and generosity. +Ps 30
2 Timothy 1-2: Paul cheers a coworker bravely exercising God’s gifts-patient with hardship, himself and his enemies. +Ps 31
2 Timothy 3-4: Paul signs off: stand firm in scripture’s witness and godly heritage, steer clear of fads and frauds.
+Ps 32
Titus 1-2: Paul coaches this teammate in gospel-formed leadership and character development across Crete’s churches. +Ps 33
Paul presses for a focus on essentials (Titus 3) and persuades Philemon to free Onesimus, subverting Roman slavery. +Ps 34
Hebrews 1-2: As no angel ever could, Jesus the God-man fulfills humanity’s sovereign design through self-sacrifice. +Ps 35
Hebrews 3-4: Jesus outranks Moses as the Word over a messenger. Each generation gets to trust God or miss that rest. +Ps 36
Hebrews 5-6: Christlike faith avoids dead end ruts by boldly following our merciful Priest, heeding the Word’s call. +Ps 37
Hebrews 7-8: Jesus’ ongoing Melchizedek-like life empowers God’s people far beyond the Aaronic priesthood’s ability. +Ps 38
Hebrews 9-10: Ignore at your peril Jesus’ once-for-all death giving direct access to heaven that temple rites can’t. +Ps 39
Hebrews 11-12: Past transients’, heroes’ and Jesus’ active trust in the Judge cheers heirs running risky challenges. +Ps 40
Hebrews 13; James 1: Jesus-centered lives are marked by holy, loving dependency on God, not avoiding the hard stuff. +Ps 42
James 2-3: Jesus’ path of loving wisdom and active faith gives life. Counterfeits take it, often with loaded speech. +Ps 42
James 4-5: Beware selfishness, prayerlessness, bickering, wealth, oaths or casual evil. God cares; confession heals. +Ps 43
1 Peter 1-2: The apostle welcomes Gentile Christians to building Jesus’ pure, promised, patient, priestly community. +Ps 44
1 Peter 3-5: Jesus’ passion gives away humble, loving, holy character in marriage, leadership, apologetics and more. +Ps 45
2 Peter: Beyond his martyrdom to Jesus’ return, the apostle urges Word-centered formation against popular apostasy. +Ps 46
1 John 1-2: Join Jesus in eternal life with confession, forgiveness and loyal love amid counterfeit spiritualities. +Ps 47
1 John 3-4: God frees his children from evil by the Spirit’s power to boldly live true to Jesus, loving each other. +Ps 48
1 John 5: Trust and obey Jesus the God-man for real life. 2, 3 John: Partner generously with the exemplary faithful. +Ps 49
Jude, brother of James, warns unregenerate hypocrites and exhorts those who pray in the Spirit to care for doubters. +Ps 50
Hey Jude/sorry ur last/next 2 the book of Revelation./@ least ur name don’t end with an S/4 so many who/should know better.
Revelation 1-3: John, exiled on Patmos, encounters the living Jesus, who has messages for seven Asia Minor churches. +Ps 51
Revelation 4-6: John’s sees God’s throne and Lamb worshiped by high and low. Jesus unseals strange work: holy wrath. +Ps 52
Revelation 7-9: Amid six seals and six trumpets’ toll on the unrepentant, John sees God’s countless living servants. +Ps 53
Reading Revelation reminds me of meeting Jesus there 34 years ago in the unexpected red ink, alive and well-and reading me.
Reading Revelation brings to mind a teaching pastor’s recent, visceral reaction to its thrust: “This should make us sick.”
Reading Revelation reminds me it’s nonsense to say humans become angels-It’s a Wonderful Life and Mormons not withstanding.
Revelation 10-11: Angelic and prophetic characters-and unrecorded thunder-wrap history headed into final evaluation. +Ps 54
Revelation 12-13: Cosmic drama follows conflict between a woman’s son’s angels and devil-dragon with its two beasts. +Ps 55
Revelation 17-18: John sees “Babylon” ruined by spiritual, political and economic havoc wreaked on martyrs and more. +Ps 57
Revelation 14-16: Apocalypse climaxes: The Lamb shields his witnesses as angels pour plagues on all who pursue evil. +Ps 56
Revelation 19-20: Jesus rules with martyrs, routing bedeviled armies 1000 years apart before evaluating all at last. +Ps 58
Revelation 21-22: God and the Lamb move to New Earth’s City-welcoming all cultures’ best and all who accept healing. +Ps 59
Advertisement

my #EatThisBook 2012 Twitter habit

This year, the church I attend with my family has been encouraging biblical literacy and spiritual formation through a daily habit of Bible reading. The Eat This Book discipline is a bold initiative, even for evangelicals. Bolder still is the Eat This Book challenge to read through the Bible in 360 days. The Advent issue of the church magazine included a number of cool stories from the experience. Mine’s not there, not typical and definitely more geeky than most. But who aspires to be average?

My family and I are relatively new to Blackhawk, though we’ve lived in Madison six years. Dy and I are both on staff with InterVarsity and have served together on campus, in a field office, at a retreat and training center and now at the organization’s National Service Center. We’ve enjoyed comparing notes as we Eat This Book.

I’ve read through the Bible before a couple of different ways and looked forward to doing it again, especially with such a large community. I appreciate the posted resources related to the initiative, and it’s been exciting to hear of 38,000+ using the plan on YouVersion (not my favorite Bible app). I’ve not participated in much of the online interaction, though. It seems to me that platform is still in its infancy compared to its potential for promoting biblical literacy through genuinely personal interaction.

To make time and space for digesting the daily text and meditating on it throughout the day, I adopted the practice of tweeting a summary of the non-psalm chapters. For example, one of this fall’s tweets was:

Luke 8-9: Jesus leads and sends a mixed, missional community. They recognize Messiah, but not the path he pursues. +Ps 120 #EatThisBook #fb

A few others use the #EatThisBook hashtag on Twitter; evidently there’s an unrelated Bible study course by that title. A few of the most recent tweets are visible. Mine appear for Facebook friends and are backed up online and offline.

It’s helpful when studying shorter passages to title natural paragraphs in scripture with a few words arising from the text, as part of observing their main features. It’s more challenging to puzzle through the connections within a couple of chapters or more – not always naturally divided – to a summary that fits in 100 characters. But it’s also been tremendously fruitful when God’s Spirit brings insight as things begin to add up. It often takes until evening to sufficiently mull over the collection of themes, characters, actions read or heard in the morning.

As with any spiritual discipline or new habit, it’s most doable when it connects with multiple parts of our personalities and experiences. This one has hooks in my problem-solving bent, enjoyment of complex systems (and text) analysis, amateur wordsmithing, and (borderline Asperger’s) symbiosis with a smartphone. It also helps me practice brevity – not one of my strengths, as you can tell from the length of this post. Thus a daily opportunity to aim for what my team director describes as “crispness” while trying to avoid sounding terse.

I also read aloud the psalm most mornings while some of our family drives to school or work. There are sometimes shared themes between the psalm and the other texts, if I’m alert. Between those times and the tweets, I’ve sensed the Lord renewing my thinking about both the big themes of scripture and the particulars that don’t seem to fit very neatly.

For example, it’s been instructive for me to hear in some of Jesus’ sayings not-so-faint echoes of the prophets’ occasionally harsh words of stinging rebuke. Feeling something of the emotional life of God has been a fresh theme that’s stood out in many passages that I can no longer read without a more whole and human response.

All this to say that I’m grateful for the opportunity to bring more of myself to scripture, reinforce the daily pattern of meeting God in his Word, give space for the Spirit to speak, exercise summarizing skills, and in a bite-sized way sharing the insights God gives. Eat This Book has built my awareness of the overall arc of scripture’s Story. I’m being better equipped to live into and communicate the rich texture and content of God’s whole, living Word.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if any of this is worth further interaction for you.