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.