Tweeting the trinity: because heresy is meh

I spent a few days compulsively tweeting on the doctrine of the trinity. I've just come to the end of a 12-week class on this doctrine and I enjoyed having the opportunity to collect my thoughts like this at the end. Say what you like about twitter, but it can be a good exercise to try to explain yourself in such a constrained form. Anyway I've gathered all the tweets together here, with a handful of additions and minor changes. Enjoy! And have a heresy-free Trinity Sunday!


I.  HOW TO AVOID TRINITARIAN HERESY

#1. Start by abolishing Trinity Sunday, that fateful day on which preachers think they have to explain the Trinity

#2. Teach children to make the sign of the cross when they say the words "Father, Son and Holy Spirit"

#3. When someone offers to tell you the practical implications of the doctrine, just smile and move along

#4. Have you come up with a really helpful analogy of the trinity? Well done! Now please don't tell anyone about it, ever

#5. The doctrine is not a mystery. It is simple & precise. The reality it points to is the mystery

#6. Don't try to get rid of the biblical words. Don't try to stick to them exclusively either

#7. In this doctrine every word is used in a very limited way. Even the numbers 1 and 3 can't be taken literally

#8. Don't partake in meaningless debates about whether "oneness" or "threeness" is more important (see #7)


II. TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY, EAST AND WEST

#9. Don't worry about whether you prefer Augustine or the Greeks. You don't have to pick a favourite, it's not Masterchef

#10. How does Augustine differ? He takes just one principle of "Greek" theology (the inseparability of persons in action) and proves that it's not absurd or unthinkable. That's all.

#11. Cappadocians: it's a simple doctrine even though we don't know what it means. Augustine: yes, and it makes good sense to believe it!

#12. Irenaeus (Greek tradition): this doctrine is shorthand for the unity of God in OT & NT. Tertullian (Latin tradition): ditto


III. TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY, ANCIENT AND MODERN

#13. The biggest change in modern trinitarian theology was one of scale: the most minimalist & modest of all doctrines became a Theory of Everything

#14. Ancients: it's the key to scripture (which in turn shapes practice). Moderns: it's the key to practice (even though it's not scriptural)

#15. Ancients: the choice of words is easy & their meaning is restricted. Moderns: the meaning of words is vast & the choice is impossible

#16. Ancients: the word "Father" must be stripped of all connotations except mere relation. Moderns: those ancients thought God was male!

#17. Ancients: the doctrine is a tonic against idolatry (since it names an undepictable mystery). Moderns: the doctrine depicts God as an advocate of my social cause

#18. Ancients: it's the worst theory about God apart from all the other ones that have been tried. Moderns: it's the greatest theory ever!


IV.  UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCTRINE

#19. The canonical principle. OT and NT are a diverse but coherent witness to one God

#20. The creation principle. The one God is creator of all things and so is not on the same plane as anything else

#21. The spirituality principle. God is spirit. God has no body and is not comprised of anything like a material substance

#22. The simplicity principle. Because God is spirit, and because the creator transcends space, time, & matter, God must be indivisible and without parts

#23. The abstraction principle. Words can be used to speak of God only if they are stripped of all connotations of space, time, & matter

#24. The revelation principle. How do we find the best words to use? We'd better stick to revelation. (These words will still need to be abstracted as per #23)

#25. The fitness principle. Language about God should be used in a way that’s fitting to God's character. (Early Christians had a special term for this: theoprepes)

#26. The fitness principle comes solely from Greek philosophy and is by far the biggest piece of "hellenisation" in this doctrine

#27. But this piece of Greek philosophy was used critically against the Greeks: it was used to distinguish monotheism from pagan anthropomorphism (where, e.g., the gods literally make love and “beget” offspring)

#28. So there is a true hellenisation at this point (and really only at this point) but it is a critical and subversive use of Greek philosophy. It distinguishes the one God of Israel from the gods of Greek culture


V.  THE CONTENT OF THE DOCTRINE

#29. The ingredients of the doctrine, supplied by revelation, are the words "one God", "Father, Son, Holy Spirit," "begotten" & "proceeding"

#30. From these words is constructed a formula that refers in shorthand to the knowledge of God revealed in OT & NT

#31. The revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is an unveiling of the incomparable and unknowable uniqueness of the one God

#32. The "oneness" of God is not a number. It refers to God's incomparable mystery. This is mysteriously revealed (not contradicted) by the "threeness"

#33. The "threeness" is not a number. It refers to the incomparable fullness of the life of the one God, who is God as Father, Son & Holy Spirit

#34. So the words "one" and "three" have to be abstracted away from their ordinary numerical meaning, and from any image of three things. The doctrine is not a mathematical puzzle

#35. God is one. The divine attributes (love, will, power, goodness, justice, mercy, freedom, etc) are attributes of the one God, not of the Father or the Son or Spirit

#36. God is one. When we say that the Son acts, we mean that the whole triune God is acting in the revelation of the Son. There is no separate act of Father or Son or Spirit

#37. God is one. When we say that God is “personal”, we are referring to the one God. In God there is one mind, one will, one act, one who says “I”. Father, Son and Spirit are not distinct personalities with distinct wills

#38. According to revelation, the Son is begotten; the Spirit proceeds; the Father is neither begotten nor proceeds

#39. "Begetting" has nothing to do with the body or passion or temporal beginning. "Proceeding" has nothing to do with spatial movement. The one God of Israel is nothing like the Greek gods

#40. Abstracted away from ordinary usage, "begetting" and "proceeding" designate relations of origin, nothing more

#41. These relations of origin are distinct (the Spirit is not begotten, the Son does not proceed) but we don't know how, or what this means

#42. "Father" & "Son" have nothing to do with gender or procreation or superiority or a temporal before and after

#43. Abstracted away from ordinary usage, the words "Father" and "Son" designate relations, nothing more. The Father is the Son's source

#44. Because “Father” is a relational word, God cannot be “Father” unless there is also “Son”. If God is eternally Father, then there is also an eternal Son

#45. Apart from a relation of origin, in what other way does the Son differ from the Father? In no other way, or none that we could ever know

#46. Son and Spirit are different relations to the same source (the Spirit is not begotten; the Son does not proceed). In what other way do they differ? In no other way, or none that we could know

#47. So we distinguish Son and Spirit with words whose meaning is unknown to us. We can only confess that the two words (“begotten”, “proceeding”) mean different things

#48. That's how the language of revelation is used in this doctrine. The doctrine is an abstract minimalism that doesn't explain God but only confesses what is found in revelation

#49. The scriptural words are indispensable. But they are a guide, not a restriction. Sometimes other words are useful to clarify what we mean

#50. Examples of useful non-scriptural words: "being", "person", "relation", "homoousion", "light from light", "mode of being", and of course "trinity" and "triune"

#51. Such words are useful for clarifying the language of revelation, but are not central or indispensable in the same way as revelation


VI. THE USEFULNESS OF THE DOCTRINE

#52. In recent theology, much has been written about the grandiose implications of the doctrine. I think its usefulness is much more limited but also more precise

#53. The doctrine is not a revelation of God. But it is a reliable framework for reading OT & NT as a coherent witness to the one God

#54. The doctrine doesn't have any adequate words for talking about God. But it's a procedure for speaking faithfully and truly with inadequate words

#55. The doctrine doesn't have special insight into God's uniqueness. But it is a refusal of projection & a constant warning against idolatry

#56. The doctrine is not a special theory of spirituality. But it explains why responding to God is more about participation than about submission, adoration, obedience etc

#57. The doctrine is not "prayerful" in any mysterious way. But it explains the coherence of prayer. Whether you address the Father, Son or Spirit (or all three), you are praying to one and the same God

#58. The doctrine explains the logic of the economy of salvation. When we see the Son acting, it is the triune God acting in the revelation of the Son

#59. The doctrine shows how the language of revelation can be used confidently and with precision to speak of unknowable mysteries

#60. The mystery is in the reality, not in the doctrine. The doctrine is not "apophatic", unless by that we mean the way it reduces words to a minimal content

#61. So can we speak of God? Yes! (because of revelation). Do we know what we mean? No! (because what's revealed is a mystery)


VII. LAST THOUGHTS AND EXHORTATIONS

#62. Practical afterword: This doctrine doesn't create communal bliss, gender equality, social liberation etc. It just helps you not to be an idolator

#63. Philosophical afterword: This doctrine conveys very minimal knowledge. But Augustine argues that we still know God better than we know ourselves. (His proof: anything we know about God is unchanging and eternal; whereas our self-knowledge is doubtful because we're always changing.)

#64. Liturgical afterword: A fitting communal response is not “Trinity Sunday” but the whole church year as a symbolic participation in the economy of God’s saving work as Father, Son and Holy Spirit

#65. Pedagogical afterword: Doctrine is there to be taught; that's what the word “doctrine” means. The doctrine of the trinity is not practical. It has no direct application. It shapes imagination & practice in the long run but only if it's studied, taught, and understood. So learn it! Teach it!

#66. Doxological afterword: Worship the one triune God! (not the doctrine) - they’re not the same thing. “What can all our Christian statements be but a serious pointing away to the One who will himself tell those who have ears to hear who he is?” (Karl Barth).

#realacademicbios with David Hume

There’s a hashtag trending on Twitter right now of #realacademicbios. It’s pretty cynical and a bit too whiny for my tastes, but some of them are funny. The idea is to come up with an honest and realistic academic bio instead of the usual thing. For example:

#realacademicbios Her PhD focused on suppressing the pain and rage of constant sexual harassment and an edition of select monastic charters.

— Andrew Reeves (@AndrewSshi) January 24, 2016

"You're out of time," said her dissertation advisor & her gynecologist. #realacademicbios

— Nyasha Junior (@NyashaJunior) January 24, 2016

"Will never own a house." #realacademicbios

— kaya oakes (@kayaoakes) January 24, 2016

#realacademicbios His post-divorce crippling loneliness allowed him to better focus on this project that nobody will remember in 20 years.

— Andrew Reeves (@AndrewSshi) January 24, 2016

It reminds me of David Hume’s short autobiography written a few months before his death in 1776. He sent the piece, titled “My Own Life,” to his friend Adam Smith. His health was deteriorating rapidly and he wanted the bio to be added as a preface to the next (posthumous) edition of his collected works.

The two main threads of Hume’s narrative are (1) his efforts to earn enough money, and (2) his difficulties in achieving much success as a writer.

Like any modern academic, Hume documents the publication of each of his books. But instead of telling us how important his books were, he tells us how badly they sold and how little attention they commanded from other scholars. His first book, the Treatise of Human Nature, “fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.” So he tried again, with the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, which “was at first little more successful.” His collected essays performed better, especially when they were lucky enough to be attacked in the press by “Answers by Reverends, and Right Reverends.”

When Hume published his next major work, the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, he was convinced that it was by far his best book. Yet “it came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.” Later he began his huge multi-volume History of England, feeling that now at last he would achieve literary glory and a solid income. But the first volume was greeted with momentary hostility followed by indifference. Hume’s London bookseller “told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it.”

Still, by the time of his fiftieth birthday his books were bringing in enough income that Hume could live independently. That was his only aim in life, to be able to retire to the quiet and independent life of a writer. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he didn’t want to be indebted to powerful patrons or to generous friends. He worked variously as a tutor, a military secretary, a secretary to an embassy, and a librarian (the latter job was unpaid but gave him access to a lot of books). He lived very frugally and saved as much as he could. He tells us with joy that, after his years in the military, he had saved up “near a thousand pounds,” and that in his last years he was earning a thousand pounds a year – enough money at last for a life of philosophical ease, though no sooner had he begun to enjoy that life than he was struck down by cancer of the bowels, and died.

A tweet for every volume of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics

Yesterday someone on twitter suggested the idea of tweet-summaries of Barth's Church Dogmatics. Reader, how could I resist? I could not. As well as providing much-needed edification for the twittersphere, it gave me something to do on a long road trip. I was driving all day from Sydney to Melbourne, so I composed the tweets while driving and then gleefully posted them whenever I could find a spot to pull over. As you can easily imagine, an exercise like this adds a dash of excitement to the drudgery of hurtling along a highway at 110 km/hr listening to audiobooks of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky while the thunderstorms come rolling over the plains. So here are the tweets:

Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics

I/1: Before I ever thought of God, before I opened my mouth to speak, God is, God speaks, and what God says is "God!"

I/2: God's mighty Word is humbly hidden in the human flesh of Jesus, the human words of scripture, and the boredom of the Sunday sermon.

II/1: God's friendly Word is unconditioned by anything in us. That's why God is better than anyone, because God is free to love everyone.

II/2: Why is God so good at freely loving us? Because God had so much practice before we ever existed.

III/1: We were summoned into being by God's freely loving Word. From that day on, God has spared no expense in trying to befriend us.

III/2: Our nature fits God like a glove: God wore it first then let us try it on, and Jesus shows us how to wear it right.

III/3: God's freely loving Word holds the world in being and keeps at bay the dreadful power of nonbeing. (P.S. There are angels.)

III/4: How good it is to be a creature! To be freely ourselves, never more or less, within the constraints that God has lovingly set for us.

IV/1: When I saw how Jesus used his deity to become small and humble for my sake, it took my breath away (and then my pride).

IV/2: When I saw Jesus triumphant in his humanity, it roused me from a deadly boredom: I became freely and fully human, almost a god.

IV/3: The human messenger is the divine Message: Jesus, the living truth that unmasks my self-deception and makes me a disciple of truth.

IV/4: So cheer up! God's faithfulness frees us for faith. God's loving address frees us to answer. God's gift frees us for gratitude.

V: And the rest, my friends, is Mozart.

Tweeting the Psalms: Book II

Psalm 42: There came a day when deep called to deep, and all the world's sorrow was compressed into a parched cry: "I thirst!"

Psalm 43: O Joy of my joy, with hands lifted high I drag my heavy heart into Your presence

Psalm 44: You loved my parents and all my ancestors. When Your love for me seems doubtful, I will cling to Your love for them

Psalm 45: Faster than a typewriter, as fluent as a twitter timeline, my tongue pours out praises to Your Messiah

Psalm 46: O doom of the earth, I love You! You doom armies to dust. You break their weapons. You condemn the nations to peace

Psalm 47: Creation is a feast, and You recline at the head of the table

Psalm 48: If I travel far enough in any direction, starting from anywhere, I will arrive at the axis: Your presence, Your love

Psalm 49: I brought nothing into the world (except Your love); when I depart again I'll take nothing with me (except Your love)

Psalm 50: What can I give You that is not already Yours? Only my thanks, the gift of empty hands.

Psalm 51: If only You'd open my lips: then I would sing. If only You'd rebuild me: then my crushed bones would dance the salsa

Psalm 52: When You come to weed the garden, will You leave me planted here? Am I an olive tree? Or one of the weeds?

Psalm 53: We deny You with our deeds before we ever deny You with words. O make my life good so that my lips will not deny You!

Psalm 54: Even before You rescue me, I will give thanks. I see You rushing to my aid, and my song flies out to meet You

Psalm 55:
Que selah selah
Whatever will be will be
Your love will be there for me
Que selah selah

Psalm 56: You seek me in my wanderings. You have counted all my tears; You keep them in a bottle

Psalm 57: My praise is truer than time; you could set your watch by it. Even the sun doesn't get up until it hears me singing

Psalm 58: I'll have such revenges that all the world shall—I will do such things—What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth.

Psalm 59: Wolves prowl the empty streets. Above their hungry whining, I raise my voice and sing of Your love

Psalm 60: Well. This is awkward. Just after I told everyone You were on my side...

Psalm 61: I want a thousand years with You. I'd bring You gifts each day; I'd sing till my heart was wide enough to contain You

Psalm 62: I will sing You one love song, two songs will I sing: a song of Your loving power, and a song of Your powerful love

Psalm 63: Parched, I thirst for You more than water. Famished, I feast on memories of You. Lost, I long for You more than home

Psalm 64: When they saw me, they shot arrows at my heart; when You saw me, You turned their arrows into boomerangs

Psalm 65: The fields reach longing leaves towards You; the seas sigh restlessly; the rivers sing psalms over stones

Psalm 66: The water lifted itself up in a heap and gave a bow, and all Your people marched across on dry land

Psalm 67: As the sun rules day and night, so Your shining face makes nations rise and fall

Psalm 68: Judah praises You, Zebulon sings, Naphtali too! Even the little tribe of Benjamin has struck up a tune!

Psalm 69: Crushed and humiliated, I sink down into the pit, with nothing in my mouth except vinegar, gall, and praise

Psalm 70: I'll sing the first line, You sing the second line: my poverty and Your mercy make a rhyme

Psalm 71: In youth You were my strength. In old age You are my comfort. In the grave You will be my brightness and eternal joy

Psalm 72: Your Messiah will be lifted up; the songs of the poor will pierce his heart, and his justice will fall like dew.

10 rules for preaching on the parables

After hearing a Bad Sermon today on one of the parables from the Gospel of St Matthew, I tweeted ten rules for preaching on the parables – I've listed them below. 

Personally I believe the parables are probably the hardest parts of scripture to preach on. It's like trying to explain a joke: no matter how well you do it, you still end up feeling that you've missed the point. Some of the better sermons I've heard on the parables are sermons that take a cluster of parables instead of just one: Luke 15 is an obvious example, with the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son; even if it's not always as clear-cut as that, there are plenty of other cases where the evangelists' arrangement of multiple parables can provide a larger theme that helps to guide the preacher away from over-explaining the individual features of a particular parable. At times a sort of reader-response approach to the parables can be a good idea too: elaborating on the way the parable affects the hearers can again steer the preacher away from the deadening evils of allegorical and moralistic interpretations. 

I also reckon preachers on the parables would benefit from a healthy immersion in the great tradition of Jewish humour – from the Talmud, with its quirky rabbinic anecdotes and preposterous legal examples, right down to modern Jewish comic geniuses like Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Jack Benny, and Woody Allen. I'm not an expert nor the son of an expert, but my feeling is that Jesus' teaching makes just as much sense when you see it within this tradition of Jewish humour as it does when viewed within traditions of the travelling sage, apocalyptic prophet, messianic revolutionary, or whatever else is in vogue at the moment.

Anyway, here are ten rules for preaching on Jesus' parables (intended more for use by preachers than by parishioners!).

Rule #1: Don't assume that God is necessarily one of the characters in the parable.

Rule #2: Don't assume that the parable is trying to tell you how to improve your life.

Rule #3: Don't assume that you're the goodie in the story (and that other people are the baddies).

Rule #4: If you can explain the whole parable without mentioning the words "kingdom of God," you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #5: If it ends up having anything to do with going to heaven when we die, you're probably doing it wrong

Rule #6: If Jesus seems more like a headmaster giving orders than like a comedian cracking jokes, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #7: If you feel perfectly confident and untroubled while expounding the parable, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #8: If your sermon on the parable leaves people with nothing to look forward to and nothing to hope for, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #9: Now go back and repeat Rule 3 (because every preacher forgets this at least once in every sermon).

Rule #10: Finally, if you've preached a lousy sermon, just remember: as long as the parable was read aloud before you started, it won't be a total loss.

I'm serious about that last point too. It's often struck me how even after the most soul-crushing exposition of a parable (my own included), people go away afterwards thinking about what was read before the sermon. It's a testament to the extraordinary power of Jesus' teaching that it cannot be defeated even by its most dedicated expositors.

Tweeting the Psalms: Book I

I've been tweeting through the Psalms, with one tweet for each Psalm (using the hashtag #psalmtweets). I've just finished the first book of the Psalter and have pasted them below – in case you're one of those Normal people who don't sit around reading tweets.

Psalm 1: The bad life is a busy life, full of bluster and bustle; the good life is a reading life, full of the joy of Torah. 

Psalm 2: While the righteous sit reading (Psalm 1), the Messiah (who is their shade) sits too, observing history like an umpire.

Psalm 3: Surrounded by a thousand enemies, all armed to the teeth, I lie down for a nap while You disarm them, breaking their teeth.

Psalm 4: At night I lie down in the darkness, and Your face shines over me like a lamp.

Psalm 5: When I wake in the morning, Your love covers me like sunlight and receives my song.

Psalm 6: At night I lay in my bed and wept; but it was Your heart (softer than pillows) that I rested on and drenched with my tears.

Psalm 7: I'm surrounded, defeated, ruined! Oh my love, rise up! Arise in Your beautiful justice and doom!

Psalm 8: The stars are a minor achievement (Your finger-painting). Humanity is Your masterwork; the stars gaze down admiringly.

Psalm 9: At the doors of death I met You and we rose together, singing all the way.

Psalm 10: They prey upon the poor, turning misery into profit; they think You (who live among the poor) will not see.

Psalm 11: When I am hiding from the world, Your eyes find me; You keep me like a secret.

Psalm 12: Lies, lies, lies! The whole world lives by lying. But You are allergic to falsehood; Your words are purest truth.

Psalm 13: "Why have You forgotten me? Why are You hiding?" (sung to the tune of Pharrell Williams, "Happy".)

Psalm 14: The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." I feel that way sometimes myself. What do You think?

Psalm 15: As my mother always said, wash your hands before you come to the Table.

Psalm 16: Even in hell Your song won't leave my heart. I will follow Your path out of the darkness, and sing my way to You.

Psalm 17: Oh look at me forever! And like a holy Narcissus I will study my reflection in Your eyes, and sink into You.

Psalm 18: When You saw me in hell You were furious. You struck like a thunderbolt; hell quaked; You plucked me like a flower.

Psalm 19: What the Law says, the stars say too; nature and Torah rhyme. (O let my heart rhyme with them too!)

Psalm 20: Some put their hope in politics and some in the economy, but we remember You.

Psalm 21: The family of Your anointed one will stretch its branches through history; the family trees of Your enemies will be shrubs.

Psalm 22: O why (I will shout Your name) have You (and the graves will be emptied) forsaken me (and all nations will praise You).

Psalm 23: My life is a day in the desert, but You know where the wells are; my death is a night in the desert, but the things I fear fear You.

Psalm 24: Even the creaking hinges sound like music when the doors swing open to admit You.

Psalm 25: My life has been one false step after another, and at every step I've only met Your kindness; Your love is my path.

Psalm 26: You are my only path (so judge me!), my only truth (so test me!), my only vision (so burn my heart clean!).

Psalm 27: Each day I seek You as if I'd never found You, and find You as if I never had to seek.

Psalm 28: When You were silent, my heart lay down in the grave. But You answered! And my heart stood up singing.

Psalm 29: The wind and the rain and the lightning and the flood – even in bad weather, everything reminds me of You.

Psalm 30: O You magician of the heart! You turn mourning into dancing, death into Disneyland, the howling of hell into a choir!

Psalm 31: Like a bird that sings once before dying, I will die into You and my death will be my song.

Psalm 32: When I finally got the courage to confess my sins, I realised You weren't even listening. You were singing to me.

Psalm 33: I will sing to You, Maker and Lover and Keeper of all things; I will take up a part in the song the whole earth sings.

Psalm 34: I cry (and You are near); I am destitute (and You are the light in my face); I am crushed (and You treasure my bones).

Psalm 35: Remind my heart of Your goodness. Remind my weary body how to sing. And I will teach every aching bone to praise You.

Psalm 36: Your Love is my mind's home; Your Wisdom is my life's well; and by Your Light (my sun, my lamp) I live and drink.

Psalm 37: You are my home, my inheritance of unaffordable real estate, my utopia; You are a world good enough for my children.

Psalm 38: When I forgot You, I lost myself. O remind me! Tell me Your name! Tell me who I am, and that's what I will be: Yours.

Psalm 39: Like a series of still images projected on a screen, each human life is only a frame: but You see the moving picture.

Psalm 40: Your Torah is planted deep in my body. Therefore I will speak. I will act. I will trust. I will wait.

Psalm 41: Because I remembered the poor (Your friends), You will remember me when my friends forsake me.

#CanonFodder: The shortest ever commentary on the whole Bible

Well I've finished tweeting my way through the books of the Bible, using the hashtag #CanonFodder ("canon fodder" meaning something like "Bible snacks"). I've listed them all below (thanks to Darren Wright for copying all the tweets into plain text). Although I suppose it's cheating, I've also made a few changes and improvements to the list below, though I haven't extended any of them beyond the mandatory 140 characters. 

Thanks to everyone on twitter who followed this series – it was a lot of fun. And I believe I can now state on my CV that I have written the world's shortest (and most unreliable) commentary on the whole Bible. You can also read an interview about the tweets over at the Unitive.

Old Testament

Genesis: Under numberless stars an old man stands amazed; his wife cries out in the pain of childbirth, laughing.

Exodus: Barefoot on the hot sand, he stares into the flame and haggles with a god whose name he cannot say.

Leviticus: At the mountain they wait in love and terror, while holy words pass through them like a sword.

Numbers: Count the murmuring tribes, count their slain, count the wandering long years.

Deuteronomy: I love you, I love you. Not because you are so good or great, but because you are so lost and little.

Joshua: In the walled city a prostitute undresses to the music of trumpets and the sound of many feet.

Judges: As soothing as a therapist, she runs her fingers through his hair and says, "Now lie back and tell me everything."

Ruth: He wakes in the night to find a woman, a foreigner, touching his feet. He rubs his eyes. He had been dreaming of kings.

1 Samuel:
Grief + God = Samuel
Israel - Eli + Samuel = Monarchy
Monarchy - Saul = David
David - Jonathan = 0

2 Samuel: Victory! A riot of joy! The victor covers his face: O Absalom, my son, my son.

1 Kings: So, you really want a monarchy huh? Don't say I didn't warn you.

2 Kings: I told you so.

1 Chronicles: And behold, in those days all the begetting was done by the menfolk.

2 Chronicles: If we build it, he will come.

Ezra: When we saw the Temple we thought we must be dreaming, or that all our lives had been a dream from which we had awoken.

Nehemiah: When he read the scroll it was as if, after a long dementia, I remembered my name and wept to hear it spoken.

Esther: The orphan queen is glorious at her feast. In her glittering eyes are sex and armies.

Job: He scrapes himself with broken pots, cursing his mother's womb. In the distance, Leviathan circles silently in the deep.

Psalms: The invention of antiphony: when my heart broke in two, I taught both parts to sing.

Proverbs: What a fabulous woman! I'll marry her! (She left her fingerprints all over me.)

Ecclesiastes: Life is an empty sink. Someone has pulled the plug and all the meaning has drained out of it. So enjoy yourself!

Song of Songs: With the turtledove singing above them in the apple tree, the lovers took off their clothes and made beautiful poems together.

Isaiah: When the four corners of creation are picked up like a tablecloth, all the crumbs will slide into the middle, into Zion.

Jeremiah: The Word is at the bottom of the well, burning like a naked flame in the mouth of the weeping prophet.

Lamentations: A Bear Crouches. Destruction Envelops. Flee God's Holy Implacable Judgment! Killed! Lament! Mourn Nakedly! O Pray!

Ezekiel: Four flashing creatures, four wheels rimmed with eyes, one scroll, one Spirit, one Temple, one million creeping bones.

Daniel: I pray (each day) towards the city of the Son of Man; to him all kings (all things) shall bend like grass in the wind.

Hosea: She has given birth. Another son! Tenderly her humiliated husband gathers the little prophecy into his arms.

Joel: Through the cracks in our broken hearts the grasshoppers have come swarming in.

Amos: Hallelujah! The Lord is here! Run for your lives!

Obadiah: I made you as numerous as the stars. Watch now while I rub out every star and wrap the world in darkness.

Jonah: When the prophet disobeys, even the fish of the sea are against him. When Nineveh repents, even the animals fast and pray.

Micah: We call you a minor prophet. But you are mountains rising behind mountains; all the world's wealth is minor next to you.

Nahum: Grinning from ear to ear, he sings a lament for the fall of Nineveh.

Habakkuk: He sings of joy in God's salvation, his face wet with indignant tears.

Zephaniah: Cry out with horror, for I will sweep you from the earth. Cry out with joy, for I will sweep you into my arms.

Haggai: After the return from exile, the prophets spoke in prose. It took captivity to wring the poetry from their souls.

Zechariah: If only you could have lived to see the day he read your scroll, and loved it, and told his friends to fetch a donkey.

Malachi: You've got a new temple; now get new hearts to go with it, before the temple's Lord appears and turns the tables on you.


Deutero-canonical writings

Tobit: In godless Nineveh one man keeps the faith alive, one cold grave at a time.

Judith: Ever noticed how men can lose their heads over the sight of a pretty woman?

Wisdom of Solomon: Surrounded by a harem of a thousand wives, Solomon yearns for his one true Bride.

Sirach: Adapt your life to Wisdom's discipline, for her yoke is easy and her burden is light.

Baruch: A pocket-size edition of the whole shebang – the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

Letter of Jeremiah: Some advice about idols: if it can't clean the birdshit off its own face, don't worship it.

Song of the Three Jews: Inside the fiery furnace, the three boys were so cool that they struck up a tune to keep warm.

Susanna: A side-splitting tale.

Bel and the Dragon: Too much greasy food is really, really bad for you.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Esdras: It's complicated.

2 Esdras: Our dead children are playing hide and seek. Soon God will find them and they will come out giggling from their graves.

Prayer of Manasseh: This part of our liturgy was written by an idolatrous king. In church, even the gargoyles have a place.

1 Maccabees: The false god's broken altar is soaked in blood, for the Law has wielded a hammer.

2 Maccabees: It was God's wrath that made us feast and sing among strange gods. Now wrath is kindled into an apocalypse of mercy.


New Testament

Matthew: We thought his teaching was a mirror of God's Law, but we were wrong. The Law is the mirror, reflecting him.

Mark: Just as we were killing him, God whispered a secret. No one heard except the soldier who raised his bloodied hands in awe.

Luke: After careful research I have prepared an objective scholarly account of what happened. It all began with an angel...

John: Because we could not find the way to God, he used a spear to open a door in his side, and said, "Look, I am the way!"

Acts: Proof of the resurrection: the powers of this world submit to a handkerchief on which an apostle has blown his nose.

Romans: Adam lost it, Christ found it, the Spirit gives it, faith holds it, creation yearns for it, death yields to it.

1 Corinthians: When the last trump sounded we didn't hear it. We were too busy arguing and bragging about our spirituality.

2 Corinthians: O how I love you, you darling scalawags, you dear sweet blockheaded scoundrels, you infuriating puppies!

Galatians: We felt insecure without our chains so we hired experts to repair them. Then Paul came back, wielding a sledgehammer.

Ephesians: When the human race had split apart, God (who loves to renovate) took wood and nails and fastened it back together.

Philippians: Even in chains, Paul is freer than wild horses. Even in prison, his joy is boundless as the skies.

Colossians: God assembled all the pieces of the universe as one huge jigsaw puzzle, a perfect picture of Christ.

1 Thessalonians: In Christ there is no night but only one eternal morning in which the living and the dead awake and embrace.

2 Thessalonians: When I told you, brothers, that he's coming back soon, what I really meant was soonish.

1 Timothy: Dear Paul, Thanks for your letter & for all the advice. The part about wine: ok! The part about women: huh? Yours, Tim.

2 Timothy: The dying apostle writes his will: "To my dear son Timothy I leave all that I possess: my gospel and these chains."

Titus: Don't adapt the gospel to your life. Adapt your life to the pattern of the gospel.

Philemon: Then one day, for the first time in history, a slave and his master cried out in stunned recognition: "Brother!"

Hebrews: Look in the mirror to see the face; follow a shadow to find the thing; wade through blood to a place where bloodshed ceases.

James: Faith is a picture taken by the beggar at your door, not a selfie.

1 Peter: In the midst of a strange land all the strangers assembled in one place, and called it Home.

2 Peter: "Paul's letters are hard to understand": the calm judgment of a pseudonymous letter full of riddles and obscurities.

1 John: Love is the order of things; hatred is rebellion against reality.

2 John: Pure spiritual love is a delusion. Love has come among us in the flesh. It's with our bodies that we walk in love's way.

3 John: Oh my dear friend, I need to see you face to face to tell you what love means. Love can't be sent by mail.

Jude: If ever the world is burned to ashes in a nuclear holocaust, let the last human being recite the epistle of Jude, and die.

Revelation: When she finally arrived at the wedding, she kissed him and said, "Sorry I'm late. The traffic was hell."

Tweeting the books of the Bible

Over the past couple of days I've been having a lot of fun writing a tweet for every book of the Bible. Here's where it's up to so far – and thanks to @KristaNDalton for showing me how to storify these tweets. If you'd like to contribute your own versions, we're using the tag #CanonFodder.