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It is amazing to me that after Jonah preaches to Nineveh and its inhabitants repent, Jonah gets all salty because some plant/gourd leaf withered, leaving him in the hot sun. I like how the Old King James translation puts it: "But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. " Smote, now that is a word that has fallen out of favor. Jonah had gone outside the city to sit in the shade and was hoping that God would crank up the hellfire judgment regardless of the true evidence of repentance. Now Jonah needed to get thrown back into the Sea to cool off his hot head! How soon he has forgotten. We never hear what happens to Jonah after this situation...probably not a good sign. Although Jesus does mention that he is a Jonah-sign of sorts to people who act a lot like Jonah but are blind to it. Jonah was in need of some serious remediation. The Bible does not candy coat the saints and to say that this little incident puts Jonah in a ...

Jonah 1:5 "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep." T.S. Eliot wrote in his poem "The Waste Land" that April is the cruellest month. This opening stanza captures the spirit: "April is the cruellest month, breeding, Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing. Memory and desire, stirring, Dull roots with the spring rain." Although I was not an English major in college, and only recently read "Catcher in the Rye" (which shows my untutored nature), I see this poem as identifying April as too late for winter but not quite summer. Rain comes, the ground gets soggy, and we slosh around. Apathy sets in..waiting out the rain, hoping for the sun. This part of spring is squishy and flaccid. Although I am not sure that I agree entirely that April is the cruelest month, apa...

In working through lessons in Jonah, it brought a book to mind written by Carl F.H. Henry in 1947: "The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism." In this book, more true than ever, Henry shows how Liberalism (i.e. the Social Gospel) is in error. Fairly, Henry also shows the Fundamentalism (attacking or retreating from Culture) is also wrong. There are so many parallels in Jonah to his concerns. I am going to be brief today and just take one particularly prescient quote out of the book and leave it at that. Ponder this: “Contemporary evangelicalism needs (1) to reawaken to the relevance of its redemptive message to the global predicament; (2) to stress the great evangelical agreements in a common world front; (3) to discard elements of its message which cut the nerve of world compassion as contradictory to the inherent genius of Christianity; (4) to restudy eschatological convictions for a proper perspective which will not unnecessarily dissipate evangelical strength in con...

Jonah 4:2 "And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." When Jonah went away from Nineveh and hopped on the boat to Tarshish, he was fleeing from the presence of God (Jonah 1:3). Although scholars are not sure where Tarshish was, there is great unanimity as to where the ancient city of Nineveh was located (close to modern day Mosul in Iraq). There is no doubt that Jonah knew where Nineveh was....first clue, it was East and not West, and boarding a ship in Joppa would not be the way to get there. He was "Going the wrong way" like this clip from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." The film of Jonah's trek would be "Ships, Whales, and Walking." Before going to Nineveh, we might surmise that Jonah has afraid for his...

Jonah 2:8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Last Sunday, Lina and I spent an entirely enjoyable afternoon with good friends, good food, and good beer at the Iron Hill Brewery on Harrisburg Pike in Lancaster. I really could not imagine a more fun way to hang-out on a Sunday afternoon...my back was also to the wall which is always a good thing when one is a hunted man with bounty on my head. Remember, that the Devil roams the earth seeking whom he may devour. Beer in excess, like the Devil, devours. For the record, the Devil should not be tampered with at all. He is unsafe in any amount. Several of the guys at our table belong to Iron Hill's "Mug Club." It is one of those programs with a nifty plastic card that one has to pay for but then you enter a special level of privilege. Primary of which, Iron Hill Supersizes your beer like McDonald's does with fries and drinks but at no additional cost. The cost is paid up ...

Jonah 2:8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Our church, Wheatland Presbyterian , is presently engaged in a study on the book of Jonah. The pastors are preaching on it and the small groups are discussing a book by Sinclair Ferguson written about Jonah called "Man Overboard." It is wise to have the preaching and small groups working off of the same text. Good educators know that until information is personalized, it has little chance of being remembered. And a primary means of personalization is discussion...a give and take...which is not how our traditional church service is designed. I was recently in an pleasant conversation with a godly woman where she mentioned that she loved her pastor's sermons, saying that they were practical and helpful. Interested in knowing more, and in no way attempting to trip her up, I asked her what her pastor had preached the previous Sunday. She drew a complete blank only two days after ...