It was similar to working on the mains electricity of a house, but doing so with the electricity still switched on!
This was how the scholar-clergyman J.B. Phillips explained the experience of working on a paraphrase of the Bible some years ago.
It was an extraordinary experience – the book was ‘live’; it was powerful and energising. As the 16th-century Reformer Martin Luther put it: ‘The Bible is alive – it has hands and grabs hold of me, it has feet and runs after me.’