Proclaimer Blog
Ups and downs of Jonah
We've enjoyed hearing Angus MacLeay (author of PT title, Teaching 1 Peter) at our Women in Ministry. He's been teaching very pastorally and helpfully on Jonah – the gospel according to Jonah, in fact. It won't surprise you to know that this is the same as the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for the gospel is always the same.
Angus explained very helpfully how he looked at and studied the text (not just how he preached it). This is the value of PT conferences where we ask our speakers not just to preach to us (though we ask them to do that) but also to "show some workings" – something that as a preacher you would not normally do.
What Angus has most helpfully done is to show how important the language of direction is in the book of Jonah:
The low point is "you cast me into the deep" (Jonah 2.3) and the high point "you brought my life up from the pit" (Jonah 2.6). In fact, when you stop to read it, you find the language of direction (down, up, into, low etc) crop up time and time again. And of course, implicitly, this is how Jesus reads Jonah too – for the sign of Jonah is about going down into the whale three days and three nights followed by resurrection (see Matthew 12.38-40).
It reminds me of Dale Ralph Davis at the EMA on Jonah, resources that are worth searching out, three parts, here, here and here.