March 31, 2014
What do you have to say for yourself… in 140 characters or less?
The Bible remains the most successful publishing venture in the last 2000 years. They’re everywhere; as long as there are hotel nightstands, a market exists for new copies. Every president needs one, for the first day of their term (many never consult it, again). Brides and babies often warrant a new one; in America, they can be ubiquitous.
But… they don’t get read much.
Lots of people have one – or, more – but haven’t checked inside to make sure they have all of the pages they paid for. Written uniquely, it claims Divine Inspiration: that God supernaturally (that’s no big deal for Him; He works in that space, all the time) communicated His truth and wisdom through mortal authors whose personality gave the results their own personal flavor, without messing it up.
If you had one shot at giving mankind all it (we) would need, to get from a lousy beginning to a heavenly ending… how much space would you need? Word count for the King James version runs just under 800,000; most folks find that daunting.
What if God had waited… and decided – instead – just to tweet His truth in bite-sized nuggets?
David Javerbaum is a comedy writer and lyricist who graduated from Harvard – where he was a contributor to the Harvard Lampoon – and now lives in New York, where he leaves his mark around town with books, plays and television scripts. He wrote a risky book, The Last Testament: a Memoir of God, about which the Washington Post said it was as “…if the Bible were narrated by Mel Brooks on crack-laced manna…” To promote his book (not God’s), Javerbaum launched @TheTweetOfGod. Some of his jabs:
– Why does the universe keep expanding? Because I run a successful operation.
– If hell existed it would be filled mainly with people who spent their lives telling others they were going there.
– The trick to successful prayer is to ask for something that was going to happen anyway.
– Seriously, what is wrong with you people?
– When you type "omg" you simultaneously blaspheme, abbreviate and lower-case My name. But hey, no worries.
– Many religions worship Me but only one does so correctly. The others are in procedural error, and thus all of their members will go to hell.
– North Korea shows that you don't need religion to be crazy.
Thank God that God doesn’t live in New York and write for Stephen Colbert. He’s left that to Javerbaum; He’s no competition.
What if God did open a twitter account, in an effort to communicate with a faux ADD (attention deficit disorder, if you need me to spell it out) generation of time-frenzied techies? What would He say?
To quote Ken Cochrum, who leads the digital platform strategies team for Campus Crusade for Christ, world-wide, "If Jesus had a Twitter account, His message:
- "Love God. Love people. Follow Me. Make Disciples. Coming soon."
There you have it: 66 books, captured in 62 characters. Truth of the Ages, with tweet space to spare. Read the whole book and miss those 10 words: you miss heaven. Live that short blast, and you get where you always wanted to go. Get it?
Bob Shank