Bible Stories for Grown-Ups Chapter 3
How will we love our enemies?
It’s one of the most vexing questions we face, not just in Christianity but as human beings co-inhabiting a planet with people who embrace beliefs and values that are often in direct conflict with our own.
Interestingly, the book of Jonah from the Hebrew scriptures may offer some unexpected insight. Whether you believe the reluctant prophet was actually swallowed by a large fish for three days or not, his story is about much more than whether or not he obeyed God, as is so often taught. In Chapter 3 of Bible Stories for Grown-Ups, author Josh Scott invites us to think about Jonah’s story in terms of what kind of people we’re going to be:
A universal understanding of God, one in which God’s love is boundless for everyone and everything, also changes how we see our responsibility in the world. […] The author of Jonah uses him as a foil, a character in contrast, to demonstrate the immense largeness of God’s love, even for those we would deny, exclude, and erase.
Josh Scott, Bible Stories for Grown-Ups, p.51
This week at New Wineskins we’ll continue our study of Bible Stories for Grown-Ups with a conversation on the many layers in Jonah’s story and how they might help us learn more about our collective quest for liberation for all people.
Join us this Sunday, May 14, in the New Wineskins Virtual Theology Pub powered by Zoom as we take a deep dive into the story of Jonah through the lens of liberation.
6:00pm ET: Happy Half-Hour (informal meet & greet time)
6:30pm ET: Presentation & conversation begin
Click here to view this week’s video
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Join us every week for a new discussion!
Sunday, April 23: IntroductionSunday, April 30: Chapter 1 – Noah’s ArkSunday, May 7: Chapter 2 – The Binding of Isaac- Sunday, May 14: Chapter 3 – Jonah
- Sunday, May 21: Chapter 4 – The Parable of the Talents
- Sunday, May 28: Chapter 5 – Zacchaeus
- Sunday, June 4: Chapter 6 – Healing the Blind Man
- Sunday, June 11: Postscript – Where do we go from here?
Bible Stories for Grown-Ups is available through several booksellers. Here are some links to the most popular sites:
- Click here to order from Amazon
- Click here to order from Abington Press
- Click here to order from Cokesbury
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