Over the last several weeks, we’ve been taking a look at a man who can best be described as an anti-prophet. Jonah was told to go to one of Israel’s mortal enemies, to preach a message that could potentially lead to their repentance. Knowing how gracious God can be, Jonah…
I have a deep, personal connection with the worm from the book of Jonah.
When last we left Jonah, the reluctant prophet was deep in the belly of a fish. Why is he in a fish? Because he tried to run from God and the fish was God’s way of getting Jonah back on track. After the fish spits Jonah back out again, God…
After trying to run from God to avoid going to Nineveh, Jonah found himself on a bit of a detour. He’s thrown into the sea, only to be swallowed by a giant fish, where he stays for three days. I’m guessing that when you’re trapped inside an aquatic creature, it…
Last week, we saw how Jonah wound up running in the opposite direction when God called him to go preach to the city of Nineveh. It’s kind of understandable that he did; the Assyrians weren’t exactly the most loveable of people. Given Jonah’s understanding of God and His grace, he…
Like I said last week, Jonah the prophet is sort of unusual in terms of his ministry. He’s very much an anti-prophet and he doesn’t behave as he we think a prophet should. Maybe that’s understandable because of his unusual call. Most prophets were called to deliver a message only…
One of the stories that we tell our kids in Sunday School is that of Jonah and the whale. It seems tailor-made for children: a dramatic storm, a friendly whale, even a worm and plant. It’s a great story. But if all we see this as is a story for…
In the opening stories of John’s gospel, we have a curious story about how He called two of His disciples, namely Philip and Nathanael. After Jesus called Philip, Philip found his friend Nathanael and told him, basically, “We’ve found Him! We’ve found the Messiah, the one that we’ve waited for…
If you come from a more liturgical church, then yesterday was known as The Baptism of the Lord, a day when we remember that Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by His cousin, John. This one event is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and the stories…
So what do you picture when you see or hear the phrase “wise men?” A lot of you, I suspect, had a flash of a nativity creche: Mary and Joseph huddled over an infant resting in a feeding trough; clean-cut and respectable shepherds coming in from the fields with their…