Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
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Pick as many as you like: any of them matches within a group.
224 summaries, page 8 of 10
Bible - Book of Nehemiah
The king's cupbearer gets leave to rebuild Jerusalem's ruined walls, finishes them in fifty-two days against threats and plots, and then fights to reform the community inside.
Bible - Book of Esther
An orphaned Jewish girl becomes queen of Persia and risks her life to stop a decree to destroy her people, in the only biblical story besides the Song of Songs that never names God.
Bible - Book of Job
A blameless man loses everything, refuses his friends' easy explanations, demands an answer from God, and receives one out of a whirlwind that he did not expect.
Bible - Book of Psalms
Israel's songbook: 150 hymns, laments and thanksgivings in five books, from the shepherd psalm to the rivers of Babylon, still prayed and sung every day.
Bible - Book of Proverbs
The Bible's handbook of wisdom: a parent's speeches, Wisdom's own voice and hundreds of sharp sayings on work, words, money, anger and the fear of the LORD.
Bible - Book of Ecclesiastes
A king who has tried everything looks hard at work, pleasure, wisdom and death, calls it all vapor, and concludes that the best we can do is enjoy our days as gifts and fear God.
Bible - Song of Solomon
The Bible's great love poem: a woman and her beloved seek, praise and long for each other in gardens and city streets, in verses read for centuries as both human passion and divine love.
Bible - Book of Isaiah
The great prophetic book of judgment and comfort: Jerusalem's fall and renewal, the holy God enthroned, the suffering servant and a peace that reaches every nation.
Bible - Book of Jeremiah
A reluctant prophet warns a doomed kingdom for forty years, argues bitterly with God, and still holds out the promise of a new covenant.
Bible - Book of Lamentations
Five ancient Hebrew poems that mourn Jerusalem's fall to Babylon with unflinching honesty, and still find a hope that is new every morning.
Bible - Book of Ezekiel
A priest exiled in Babylon sees God's glory on a chariot of wheels and living creatures, watches it leave the doomed Temple, and foresees dry bones living and the glory's return.
Bible - Book of Daniel
Court tales and visions from exile: the fiery furnace, the writing on the wall, the lions' den, and dreams of beasts, kingdoms and the end of days.
Bible - Book of Hosea
A prophet's broken marriage becomes the picture of God and Israel: betrayal, judgment on the northern kingdom, and a love that takes the unfaithful back.
Bible - Book of Joel
A short, blazing prophecy in which a locust plague becomes a warning of the day of the LORD, a call to repent with the whole heart, and a promise that wasted years can be restored and God's spirit poured out on everyone.
Bible - Book of Obadiah
The shortest book of the Hebrew Bible: one fierce vision against Edom for gloating over Jerusalem's fall, with a promise that what you do will be done to you.
Bible - Book of Jonah
A prophet runs from God, is swallowed by a great fish, preaches to Nineveh and is furious when the city is spared: a short, sharp story about mercy.
Bible - Book of Micah
A village prophet takes on Jerusalem's powerful, then sets beside his warnings one of the Bible's great visions of peace and its most famous answer to what God requires.
Bible - Book of Nahum
A three-chapter prophetic poem announcing the fall of Nineveh, Assyria's great capital, and naming God as both patient judge and refuge for the oppressed.
Bible - Book of Habakkuk
A prophet argues with God about injustice and the coming Babylonian invasion, is told that the just shall live by faith, and ends by rejoicing with nothing left to count on.
Bible - Book of Zechariah
Eight night visions encourage a discouraged people to rebuild the Temple, and later oracles look ahead to a humble king, a pierced figure mourned by a nation, and God reigning over all the earth.
Bible - Book of Malachi
The last of the prophets confronts a weary, cynical community after the exile in six sharp disputes about love, worship, marriage, justice and giving, and promises a messenger to come.
Bible - Book of Matthew
The first Gospel presents Jesus as Israel's promised Messiah and great teacher, from his birth and the Sermon on the Mount to the cross, the empty tomb and the Great Commission.
Bible - Book of Mark
The shortest and earliest Gospel: Jesus as healer, exorcist and misunderstood Messiah, racing from the Jordan to the cross and an empty tomb.
Bible - Book of Luke
The third Gospel tells the life of Jesus as a carefully ordered story for outsiders, the poor and the lost, from the manger to the road to Emmaus.