Renaming the New Testament Books

A little challenge for the fun of it

This week I am taking a break from writing on leadership/innovation for something I found rather fun.

I often find myself caught up in word studies, paragraph outlines, and other forms of particularization. This true for Bible study of course, but also in my daily devotions. When I zoom out, it can really help me to see the movement of God. This is really where most of live day to day, asking the question, “What is God up to?”

Thus, in 2024 I have decided to spend more time in my devotional efforts on New Testament survey material. My goal is to build a stronger map around God working from Bethlehem to the corners of the Roman Empire and beyond.

I challenged myself to come up with extremely short substitutions for the names of the books of the Bible. It was intellectually stimulating to create this list, causing me to think about the larger themes in the books.

So… here you, the New Testament book names according to Ted:

The Testament of Jesus

Matthew - Jesus for Jews & Gentiles
Mark - Jesus for Romans
Luke - Jesus for Fact Checkers
John - Jesus for Gnostics
Acts - The Book of Missions
Romans - Systematic Theology 101
I Corinthians - I Shake My Head
II Corinthians - After All I Did for You
Galatians - Just Stop It
Ephesians - He's the Head
Philippians - Man, I Love You Guys
Colossians - Future Faith
I Thessalonians - That's How You Do It
II Thessalonians - No, It's Like This
I Timothy - Listen Up, Young Man
II Timothy - And Keep Listening
Titus - About that Church…
Philemon - Leading by Relationship
Hebrews -Jesus is the Best
James - No Easy Believism for You
I Peter - It's Hard, but Worth It
II Peter - What's True, is True
I John - My Little Children
II John - No False Teachers
III John - Flawed Leaders
Jude - Danger, Will Robinson!
Revelation - Jesus Wins

I had a lot of fun doing this. Feel free to provide alternate names in the comments, below.

[Image: Midjourney using the prompt “the apostle paul, sitting at a desk in a darkened room, writing on parchment in deep thought, studio portaiture, john lurie, sony alpha a1, studio portrait, performance.”]