Rescuing Scripture, Theology, & Church from the Shackles of Religion
Jonah 3 begins in almost exactly the same way as Jonah 1. Jonah 3:1 is nearly identical to Jonah 1:1.
Jonah 3:1 reveals that God is a God of second chances. After Jonah’s blatant rebellion and shameful disobedience of chapter 1, and after Jonah’s self-righteous, unrepentant behavior in chapter 2, God still calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to it the message that God to him.
Many Christians say that if you are truly a Christian, you will have the good works to prove it. I argued in last week’s post that this is not true.
Let me provide three more reasons that good works do not prove that we are a Christian (and that the lack of good works do not prove that we are NOT a Christian).
I have written a new book called Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. It comes from a much larger and longer online course I am teaching. The book looks at 5 words and various texts related to each one. The course looks at 52 words, and various texts. Yes, the course is going to be HUGE! Buy the book to get a flavor for the course.
Today we are going to look at Jonah 1:10-12 in which Jonah teaches some very bad theology to the sailors. We will look at what he says that is so wrong, and then try to find an explanation for why he would teach theology that he knew was so obviously wrong.
I love it when I am teaching about grace, and someone in the class objects by saying, “But if what you are saying is true, then why can’t I just go sin all I want?” When I hear this question, I know I have been properly teaching grace. If you do not hear this question when you teach about grace, you are probably not teaching grace.
