In our last blog post we looked at what Jonah’s experience in the fish would have meant to the original audience reading his story. The ancient Israelites reading Jonah’s story would have experience great hope that though they had been swallowed up by the nations, they weren’t doomed to die there. In this post we’ll look at the end of Jonah’s experience - being ‘vomited out’ on dry land.   Read More

In the midst of Jonah’s larger-than-life elements, we might easily miss something: this story follows a common biblical plot line. Jonah is more than just a ‘fish story.’ It’s a story of sin, death, and resurrection.  Read More

The Bible leaves no doubt that there are deep connections between the story of Jonah and the story of Jesus, but it is easy to get caught up by Jonah’s story and not recognize them. Twice Jesus explicitly points to the Jews of His day back to the story of Jonah (Matt. 12:39-42; 16:4), indicating that this story of a wayward, disobedient prophet was, somehow, also the story of Him – the perfect, divine God-man.  Read More

To think of Jonah as little more than a simple morality story – or, worse still, as a straightforward retelling of an historical event – is to risk missing some of the most important points of the book.  Read More

Throughout our series in 1 John, I've been returning to one of the most profound books on Christian community - Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. Bonhoeffer's insights into healthy community and our human tendencies that fracture community are incredibly helpful. Loving our brothers and sisters well isn't always easy, but it is worth it! I wanted to share a convicting and challenging passage from Bonhoeffer on how we press into one another through the 'ministry of listening.'  Read More

There’s a legendary story about a village in Southern India that was being terrorized by a troop of small monkeys.  Read More