Publishers
or agents often ask authors to condense their books for proposals to sell the
stories or provide back cover copy once the manuscript is sold. In the case of
the proposal, those synopses may last a few pages, but for back cover copy,
only a few paragraphs. And in what has been called an “elevator pitch” some
have suggested that books be condensed to as few as thirty or less words. (Hypothetically, this is a pitch you could
give to an editor in case you were in the same elevator).
Honestly, taking a 60,000-to-80,000-word book and reducing it to its bones is hard work. In fact, it’s some of the hardest writing anyone ever has to do, but it’s necessary to communicate the story’s message and get it out there.
I
was thinking about this the other day in terms of God’s story.
The
Bible is composed of sixty-six books, thirty- nine in the Old Testament and
twenty-seven in the new. Depending on the version you use, the Bible has
somewhere around 728,000 words. How would anyone condense that volume of
information into just a few words? It seems impossible.
God’s
story builds from the first words in Genesis and through all the twist and
turns, we find the prophecies of old resting on the shoulders of one person—Jesus
Christ. And I believe it is the apostle John who best captures the essence of
the message God is bringing to the world through His Son.
We
find it in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only
Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Twenty-six
words that capture the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
After
writing this, I was encouraged to find that the protestant reformer, Martin Luther,
said about John 3:16, “It is the Bible in miniature.”
So, if you’re ever in an elevator engaged in a conversation with someone about the gospel and they ask you to sum it up. It’ll only take a couple of floors. You know what to say.