100 minutes, or the rest of your life?
The red pen of (Tony) Payne is rightly to be feared. He trains all of us editorial types to wield our pens like katanas, slicing potential articles up until they are but a shadow of their former selves. “This one's 1500 words”, he'll say, “cut it down to 50! And this one? Just pick a word or two and we'll publish that. This one? Rubbish: just pick your favourite letter...”
I may be slightly overstating the case for our own editorial procedure, but something similar has happened with the release of The 100 Minute Bible (as pointed out by a CHN reader).
The 100 Minute Bible is an edition that aims to suit the “hurried and harried” generation, that can be read cover to cover in under two hours. To do this, they've wielded the editing pen with ferocity. Out go the genealogy and the law books! Four gospels? That all tell the same story? Stick them all together and cut it into a quarter! 150 Psalms? When they all say the same thing?! Just pick the best two.
(One somewhat cheekily wonders if the 100 Minute Bible manuscript of 2 Timothy looked something like this: ‘All sScripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.’)
If we are to be trained in the knowledge and love of God: we need more of the Bible in our lives, for the rest of our lives. A rough outline might be all well and good for giving someone a vague grasp of God's plan of salvation, but as the unedited version of 2 Peter goes:
We have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
(2 Peter 1:19-21)