A Fresh Perspective

A pastor I know tells about a Bible study group in a church that he served a number of years ago that decided to study the book of Jonah. Well, this group got hung up on the whale scene. They read the story not as a parable, but as a historical narrative. And they concluded that Jonah must have been swallowed by a sea grouper because a whale’s mouth is not large enough to ingest a human. They were so excited about their discovery they even asked their pastor to make an announcement to the church about their findings. Well, the pastor was able to get around it by telling them that he didn’t want to take credit for their research, and they should find some other way to share their conclusions. I have no doubt those folks probably missed the whole point of the story. I don’t know why some religious folks have such a hard time accepting that fiction and parable and metaphorical narratives are better conveyers of spiritual truth than history. What I am about to say I hope will not soun...

A pastor I know tells about a Bible study group in a church that he served a number of years ago that decided to study the book of Jonah. They got hung up on the whale scene. They read the story not as a parable, but as a historical narrative. T hey concluded that Jonah must have been swallowed by a sea grouper because a whale’s mouth is not large enough to ingest a human. They even asked the pastor to make an announcement to the church about their findings. Well, the pastor got around it by telling them that he didn’t want to take credit for their research, and they should find some other way to share their conclusions. I don’t know, but I have a notion that these folks probably missed the whole point of the story of Jonah. A Native American was talking to a group about his tribe and before telling them a story he said, “I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true.” A story can be true whether it actually happened or not. This is a parable with a...