I was reading one of my emails the other day. You know, the emails that come weekly that are supposed to help me in my ministry. This one came from Michael Duduit, editor of PreachingNow online:In an age of declining attention spans and busy lives, British churchman Martin Hinton has come up with a solution: a Bible you can read in 100 minutes.
The 100-Minute Bible, in the words of Hinton's website, "picks out the principle stories of the life and ministry of its central character, Jesus Christ. The social and theological context of these stories is provided by outlining the ups and downs of the history of his nation, the Jews. It then proceeds to record the story of the growth of Christianity during the first century; firstly amongst the Jews themselves; then amongst the other peoples living in Israel and then throughout the eastern Mediterranean, even as far as Rome."
Hinton adds, "The 100-Minute Bible is primarily intended for people who have an interest in Christianity but not the time (nor tenacity!) to read the whole Bible. As the title indicates most people will only take 100 minutes to read it, making it ideal for an upcoming rail or aeroplane journey." (Click here if you'd like to read a sample -- a brief sample)
In the spirit of The 100-Minute Bible, I thought of some other literary works that could be abridged for a modern, attention-deprived reader. Perhaps I should publish The 10-Second Classic, with such entries as:
Romeo and Juliet. New version: "Two crazy Italian kids from warring families fall in love, sneak off to get married, then die."
Don Quixote. "A crazy old Spanish guy tilts at windmills to right wrongs."
The Iliad. "Greeks fight Trojans because of a woman, then ride a wooden horse to victory."
Moby Dick. "Captain Ahab chases a great white whale to the ends of the sea. The whale wins."
My thoughts: When will we realize that there are some things that we cannot and should not make short-cuts on (i.e. "In the age of declining attention spans and busy live"). Scripture is one of those. Part of becoming a disciple in today’s world is to learn to slow down, take scripture, pray about a passage, and let it work on you for a little while, in order to bring about the transformation to be like Christ. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that somebody will read this Bible and get something out of it, possibly even coming to Christ because of it, I don't want to limit God here. I just want to make sure we move to the "real" thing eventually. While I am all for conveniences, making the Word of God "convenient" to read, like some time-management tool, misses the point… (I do like the 10 second classics idea though…)
2 comments:
Maybe ol' King Agrippa would've become a Christian if Paul would've had 100 minutes. I LOVE how man can take God's word and water it down to fit his own needs.
As for me I, too, am for the 100-minute classics...but don't mess with "Of Mice and Men" or "War of the Worlds." Pure GREATNESS!!!
I agree with you, Jim.
However, I can't help but put the shoe on the other foot and thing about the times I've tried to learn about other religions and they've been summed up in pages of a textbook, or a small handbook like this. By the way this dude words it, this is nothing more than a breif textbook excerpt of what we take as our faith.
So maybe then if we are to go into all the world and preach the word we should stick to the real thing. And if we want to have any hope of helping other people see where Christianity holds true and other religions fall short it might behoove us to read their texts in full as opposed to their 100-minute brochures. eh?
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