Day Thirty-One - Epilogue

Well I was surprised that I saw this through to the end.

There's a lot of reading in the bible.  If you've never read the bible before, this probably isn't the best way to go about it.  In places it can be a bit of a slog, especially where there are long genealogies.  There's a load of rules in the first week, with plenty of kings and battles to keep track of.  Jesus doesn't get a mention until the middle of the fourth week, and then he's gone in a couple of days. 

There is a considerable time commitment involved.  There's probably a couple of hours reading each day. I'm a pretty fast reader, and I really enjoy reading, but even I found it slow going in places.  It's sore on the eyes after a while, although being able to increase the font size helped.  And there were occasions where I did fall a bit behind, mainly to save being rude to friends.  I'm fortunate that I can sit at my desk at break times, tea in one hand and phone in the other, reading my online version.  I've also been able to sit and read when I've had spare time, like when the bike was getting tyres fitted.

Reading the bible in one pass meant that I was able to join the various bible stories into one timeline.  As Nik notes, "The Bible's a cracking good read" but I think it's one that sould be savoured.  Now I'm planning on going back and spending a bit of time focusing on some particular books.  Job springs to mind, John's Gospel, and the letter to the Hebrews are my first candidates for real study.  But not this month.


In all, I've enjoyed it.  It's been good to catch up with old friends.  Just the next time we all meet up, I won't have them all round at once.

And I do feel a bit more ready to take on my placement next month.

In other news, I've had my first real pastoral care type encounter.  There's nothing I can blog about it, for understandable confidentiality reasons.  I think it went OK, sometimes all you can do is listen.

Day Thirty.

Revelation 22

¹And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.  ²In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
 ³And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
 ⁴And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
 ⁵And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
 ⁶And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
 ⁷Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
 ⁸And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
 ⁹Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
 ¹⁰And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
 ¹¹He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
 ¹²And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
 ¹³I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
 ¹⁴Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
 ¹⁵For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
 ¹⁶I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
 ¹⁷And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
 ¹⁸For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
 ¹⁹And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
 ²⁰He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
 ²¹The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Here endeth the lesson.

Flash mob

To anyone that thought having thirty of your friends turn up in a station and sing Hallelujah was an impressive feat, why not try bringing along the whole orchestra - strings, brass, drums and even a harp.

Enjoy.

Day Twenty-Nine

More letters today.  One of the books I'm wanting to go back and have a nose at in greater depth is the letter to the Hebrews.  There seems to be a lot going on there, but that's for another day.

Tomorrow is Judgement Day.

Day Twenty-Eight - The Letters

THUD!

That's the sound of a letter from Paul landing on a first century Corinthian doormat.  Never let it be said that he was a man of few words.

Tomorrow, more of the letters.

Day Twenty-Seven - Acts

Acts 2:15 "These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!"

Nine in the morning?

Long long ago in a holiday camp far far away, nine in the morning was just a state of mind, and the sun was always over the yard-arm somewhere. Peter, I've been employed there, done that, and in 1994 I even got the T shirt to prove it.

There's many a tale to tell...

Tomorrow, we find out what the Romans ever did for us...

Day Twenty-Five - Mark and Luke

Following along to someone elses reading plan meant that Jesus died yesterday.  He died today.  He will also die twice tomorrow.

But he rose from the dead yesterday.  He rose again today.  And I'm pretty sure he will rise again twice tomorrow.  That's pretty good.

Knowing he's risen.  Priceless.

Some things in life money can't buy.

Thanks.

I've had just over a thousand hits on this site since I re-started it.  Thanks for dropping by and I hope I've not offended too many people.

Day Twenty-Four ...And in With The New.

So today it was all of Matthew and a wee bit of Mark. 

When you do the whole bible in chunks, you realise that the whole of Jesus' ministry, or at least a gospel worth, can be read in a couple of hours.  Compared to some of the early prophets that went on for a couple of days, Jesus really wasn't with us for that long.  In fact, his disciples use up more words than he does.  Well it's not the quantity, it's the quality.

But today took me past Matthew 7:24-27 about the wise and foolish builders.  This reading was used for the Young Church last weekend.  By way of demonstration, the house had shoogly foundations until the words of Jesus were used as underpinnings.

Perhaps not the best illustration, but you had to be there...

 Tomorrow it's on to Luke 15 via the rest of Mark.

Day Twenty-Three. Out with the Old...

So this is the end of the Old Testament.  Through the last of the prophets.  Realising that an atheists bible would be so much shorter, as atheism is a non-prophet organisation...

So I went through Jonah.  He was regurgitated on the shores near to Nineveh, where he went and proclaimed the Lord's message.  The Ninevans (Ninevehans?) immediately agreed to dress in sackcloth, sit on ashes and repent from their wicked ways.

It was a pretty prompt result, but if you're presented with a man standing there, dripping in whale puke, you'll agree to pretty much anything he says, as long as the scary man goes and stands downwind...

Tomorrow it's the New Testament, The Gospel according to Mark, and, alas, more begatting.

Day Twenty-Two

Up to the end of Amos via the furnace and the lions den.  A risky day for all concerned.

Apparently only people without beards can survive the lions den, because in tests, 8 out of 10 cats prefered whiskers.

Let's have a blast from the past (about 3,000 years ago), pop pickers, with some Boney M. (because I forgot to put this in when I did the psalms)

Day Twenty-one

So now we're up to Ezekiel 47.

This takes us past Ezekiel 37 verses 1-14 where the prophet saw the valley of "Dem Bones"

Now hear the word of the Lord!

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Harryhausen,  I've been a fan of stop motion animation for years, and Ray is the inspiration for many a modern animator, so much so that the bar in Monsters Inc is named after him.

So once you've seen Jason and the Argonauts, the only thing that can possibly enter my head when I hear about the valley of the dry bones, is the scene where the teeth of the Hydra are sown and the skeletal army rises from the ground.  If you've not seen it (where have you been?), please enjoy the following from the film.

Long Term Car Hire (or Italy and back in a banger)

Over at The Year of Living Frugally, Fran is in two minds about keeping a car.  They are expensive tings to keep, even if they don't turn a wheel.

A few years ago, Mrs Gerbil and I were having a discussion that centred around hiring a car for the summer.  We were in the process of arranging car hire for a trip to New Zealand, and some of the prices from the main companies were eye watering.  We worked out that it would be possible to buy a car, tax it, insure it and run it for a whole summer before selling it when you wanter rid of it for a whole lot less than hiring a car for a week.  Following on from this, one of us suggested that it would be fun to take an old banger for a final hurl round Europe.  And Mrs G thought this would be a great idea.  I was surprised she went along with the idea.

So when you're doing something like this, you just have to get it sponsored.

And so began what became known as Bob's Big Adventure, named after "Bob the Bible" thechurch mascot that was accompanying us on the trip.

The car was a pretty basic Citroen AX diesel that had 125,000 miles on the clock when we departed on our trip.  I paid £500 and the mechanic I bought it from gave it a very thorough service before we left.  The challenge was to leave immediately after the morning service, take the car through 10 countries and arrive back in time for the same service two weeks later.

Well we thrashed the bum off that car.  Over the Forth Bridge then down through England, into France, while blagging our way onto the bridge of the ferry, then through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, back into France, for the night.  Next day it was an adventure through Switzerland, passing the army knife factory, before stopping at the foot of the Splugen pass.

Well this was the point that the car started misbehaving. It was tuned for sea level, and here we were, 1475m (4839)  above sea level telling it to climb another 700 or so metres to 2113m, just so we could set a wheel in Italy.  20% less oxygen at the top of the pass meant that the can was pouring out white smoke and misfiring all the way up.  But we did it.  Italy ticked off the list.

Now all we had to do was come back down - a 700 metre descent.

Brakes slow your car down by converting motion into heat.

Brake fluid can boil if you brake too much

Brake fluid doesn't work if it's boiling.

brake discs can shatter if excessively heated.

Adrenaline is brown.

Remember the Italian Job.  Whistling the theme tune does very little to reassure your passengers as you career from one hairpin to the next, and all the while this mad German was flashing his lights at us, pulling allongside to tell us "you haf duzt coming from your auto.  you vill break down soon!"  Thanks for the warning, but this car is made of tougher stuff - it is one of the best bits of engineering to ever leave France.  Which is a shame, because they hang on to the best engineering for themselves, leaving us in this upholstered rollerskate.

But survive it did, and it even allowed Mrs G to discover that a three figure speed on the autobahn is possible, even if the car feels like it will shake apart around you.  So all that was left was a mad dash accross Austria, Germany and into the Netherlands.  We stopped to visit the CofS minister in Amsterdam, before re-entering England, through Wales and back To Scotland.  We even had a bit of time to kill so we visited INdia, or at least set foot on Indian diplomatic teritory by going to their embassy, and managed a photo call with the First Minister of the time, Jack McConnell.


We raised around £2,000 for a leprosy centre we were helping, and had an amazing holiday at the same time.  3000 miles in a car that should have been scrapped.  I hang on to the car to the end of the summer, and used it as our little runaround.  It was still giving around 60 to the gallon.

But all good things have to come to an end, so the AX was sold on Ebay after 4 months for £420.  While I was sorry to see it go, it was surplus to requirements.  The car had tax, so I needed to insure it which cost around £120ish.  So 4 months car hire for £200 less fuel.  By way of comparison, 1 months car hire for a similar sized car from a major company is £800.

Would I do it again?  Well it's not that far from Africa to the Arctic Circle...

Edit.  Mrs G mentioned that we MOT'd the car before selling it.  So add £50 or so.  £250 for some great motoring.  

Day Nineteen

ne ne ne ne ne ne nineteen

A shedload of Isaiah and 37 chapters of Jeremiah got me back up to date.  My head is now buzzing with warnings of false gods and false idols.

But there was mention of a new covenant and someone who is still to come.  Who could that be?

But of course, tonight Mrs Gerbil started talking about some of the things in Revelations. Typical.  You start reading an interesting book and some sod has to give away the ending!

Day Seventeen and a Quarter

When I saw Song of Songs described in my Bible as "Solomon's Most Excellent Love Song" I realised that Bill and Ted must have paused their time travels to do a bit of translation.  They probably overshot on the way back to find Socrates. (Dust... Wind... Dude)

I just think that "God gave rock 'n' roll to you" is a much better lyric than "Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep  coming up from the washing place"  I tried this line out on Mrs Gerbil and she seemed unconvinced - she gave me THAT look. There's probably a lot lost in translation here, so while I work out what the two of you, the maidens and the night watchman are on about, would the lot of you please just take the portable couch and get a room.

That's all for now.  Party on, and be excellent to each other.

Day Seventeen

So today I finished the psalms, then went on to do Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Nothing much to report.  Solomon seems like a wise old chap, despite his earlier worhiping of flase gods.  If only he had listened to his own proverbs.

I've caught up to being a day behind. 

Day Sixteen

Today I got up to Psalm 100, or about halfway through day 15's reading.  The psalms are where modern hymwriters go to seek inspiration, or in other words, to steal a line or two.

The version of the bible that I'm reading has captions above some of the psalms describing them as a well written psalm.  I'm not sure how much significance this has to a modern reader, given  that these same verses have been translated into english from the original, probably through translators who want to put their own spin on things.Some bits feel as if an early version of Bad Translator has been at work.  For example, the first three verses of psalm 23 translated at random 56 times comes out as...

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I do not know. I think the watershed. Give me your real name and spirit."

or

"My pastor said. Water transport is high. I feel good, he thought the street."

or even

"One of my friends did not rest in peace. This is the name of my mind." 

(please note that this is most certainly not the word of God.)

So it might have been a well written psalm when originally written, but it's a bit rough now.

For a bit of entertainment, in the spirit of  hymn writers everywhere, and in particular, as tribute to "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" let's try a version of Psalm 23 to the tune of "Tiptoe through the Tulips"
  

Day Fifteen

I've done all of day 12 and a good chunk of day 13, that includes Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra and Job.  Not too keen on Job - he was a bit of a slog.  I may do the first 20 or so psalms later to take me up to the end of day 13.  If I was on track, I should have finished the psalms today.

Day Fourteen

I'm a bit behind.  I was visiting some friends all weekend, and I didn't want to be as rude as to spend hours staring at my phone.  I'll catch up soon enough.

Church News

We had a streaker in our church last Sunday.

After a short chase, we caught him by the organ...

Thanks.  I'm here all week.

Day Eleven. To the end of Chronicles

Glad to see the back of Chronicles.  Most of it has been told in the preceding books, so it was a bit dull.

Tomorrow it's on to Job 5.

England disruption

Would calm heads please prevail in England.  It's not a protest, it's not a riot.  It's theft, arson and violence.

A few months ago I praised social media for helping to bring reform in the middle east.  Now this is the darker side, as social media is ised to cause trouble.  While the trouble makers may feel they have a gripe with the UK state, in other countries if you go on a looting spree, you find yourself dangling from a lamp post.

Let's have some prayers for calm, support for the broomstick army, and lets have a lot of rain for England for the next week or so.

And to anyone that is stupid enough to steal a phone and try and use it, don't you know they log the serial numbers...

Day Ten. Of Kings and Chronicles

So I'm a third of the way through.  It's heavy going, as it's a lot of reading to fit around work and sleeping, but I'm still going.

Today took me through the last of Kings whch led up to the exile in Babylon.  Chronicles is a bit dull, as there's a lot of geneology, or if I was reading an older translation, a load of begatting.

Tomorrow it's on to 2 Chronicles 33, and probably more begatting.

Day Nine. Kings, Kings and more Kings.

Today I encountered King Solomon.  At first glance he seems like a wise old chap, but by the end he's off worshiping false gods.

It's getting a bit repettitive.  God leads these folk out of Egypt, shows miracle after miracle, and says in no uncertain terms that bad things will happen if you worship false gods, and they still go off and do wrong things.  Israel, would you just get a grip on yourself!  Do you want God to put it in thousand foot high burning letters above Jerusalem?  "THERE IS NO OTHER GOD THAN ME!!!"  Would they get the message?

Probably not.

Tomorrow it's the remainder of 2 Kings.

Day Eight. More Samuel

Twentysix thousand odd words later and the best I can come up with for today is...

I don't really like David.

I might expand on this later.  Probably not.

Tomorrow, onto 2 Kings 8

Day Seven. Judges, Ruth and Samuel

An odd day.

Starting off with Samson.  Strength in folicles, brain in testicles.

A good tale of Loyalty in Ruth.

Samuel, offered up at the temple before he has much of a choice in the matter.

Finishing off with David, Goliath and one hundred foreskins.

Tomorrow the instructions say onwards to 1 Kings 1, although I'll probably just stop at the end of 2 Samuel as I'm not leaving a read with only one chapter hanging.

Day Six, Joshua and Judges.

Joshua sent his priests with trumpets round the city walls.  The trumpeters sounded, the people gave a great shout, and the walls collapsed.

Sometimes you just have to let the praise band cause a bit of chaos.

And being nailed to the floor with a tent peg?  That's got to nip.  Sisera probably needed that like a hole in the head.

Tomorrow it's on to 1 Samuel 22.

P.S. Please feed my fish. ======================================>

Day Five. Deuteronomy

The whole of Deuteronomy today as I wasn't stopping at chapter 32 out of 34, leaving Moses alone on a hillside.

The parent says "...be careful crossing the road."

The teacher says "...study hard."

The wise man says "...don't feed them after midnight."

The mad scientist says "...don't cross the streams."

They all have one last attempt at reminding those in their care of the important rules.

Moses spends Deuteronomy reminding the Israelites of God's rules, and why it's exceptionally important to pay attention.

But we all know that as soon as they are out of house/school/shop/converted firestation/the Jordan it will be "rules?  I don't remember no rules...

Well done Moses.  You got them this far, and you tried hard.

But I particularly liked the idea of stoning rebelious teenagers.  I might not state that on my Disclosure form....

I will admit that today was a bit of a slog.

Tomorrow it's on to Judges 9

Tithing

While there may be some small details to sort out, I think we may almost have found a replacement for the tithe.

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be in the Gerbil Tavern. Saving the world.

Day Four. Numbers

So where else to sit and read Numbers than that Edinburgh building known only by its number, 121. I didn't see a bible there either, but I didn't do much searching.  There was three copies of "Life and Work" which is almost an acceptable substitute.

When I read Judges, I'll do it in a court house,the letter to the Corinthians will be in the Post Office, and I'll read Romans in Pizza Hut.


Today we had numbers.  Lots and lots of numbers.  Censuses of all the people present at that time went to show that there were a shed-load of genuine, original Red Sea pedestrians.

Also, at this point it becomes abundantly clear that you should be grateful for the food you have, don't go whinging because you don't have meat, fish, or cheeseburgers.  And under no circumstances do you want to piss off God.  He's a good and caring God, so be happy with what you've got.

But the best bit of all has to be the talking donkey.

 Hoping for Shrek tomorrow as I head into Deuteronomy 32.

Day Three. Leviticus

Today I had to get the tyres replaced on the bike.  Having a few hours to kill, I went to a local tourist attraction church to carry on reading.  Glad I brought my own bible, because I'm not convinced they had any..  Plenty of hymn books though. 

As I sat in the pleasant Victorian interior, I got to the bit about not mixing fibres in your clothing.

A quick audit revealed cotton fibres from head to toe.  At last, a bible rule that I passed!  But then I realised that the stitching was probably polyester.  Bummer.  I took consolation in the fact that, to my knowledge I have never mated different kinds of animals.

Tomorrow it's onwards to Numbers 31

Day Two. Exodus

Exodus was easier reading than Genesis.  So far today, Moses has had a lot written about him.  A short chase through the desert by the Egyptians then you get the Ten Commandments and a bit of interior design.

And not much begatting.  Good. 

Tomorrow.  Exodus 30 to Leviticus 25.

Day one. Genesis

Got off to a good start.  So far I've had everything from "In the beginning..." to Joseph and his quite attractive coat* with Adam, Eve and a drunken naked Noah thrown in,  That's the bit that they never taught me in Sunday School.

And Lot needs to learn to keep his hands to himself, and not be so free and easy with his daughter's virtue.

Tomorrow we are on to Genesis (probably the Phil Collins part)   chapter 43 and onto Exodus 29.


*Can't call it an A*****g T****ic****r D***m C**t as that's © The Really Useful Group**

**Apparently named after a book by the Rev WV Awdry***

***Creator of The Island of Sodor, amongst others.But you knew that...  Didn't you..?

Thirty days

I've got 30 days to kill.

I'll not be doing anything enquiry based until my minister returns from her holidays.  So I'm going to make the time fruitful.  So inspired by this video on Mrs Gerbil's blog I've got a cunning plan.

The whole bible in 30 days.  Or about 26,000 words a day, allowing for lots of begatting.  And boy, is there a lot of begatting...

I'll be guided in this venture by Glenn Brooke's guide here.  With the Bible itself being the New English Translation, a freee edition on my phone.

So today, day one it's everything up to and including Genesis 41.  (I'm told that was when they still had Peter Gabriel.)