Holy Father, I thank you for blessing us with your word and the lessons that, that are there for us to learn. Most of all, that it teaches us about you and may we this morning, be able to truly get these lessons that are about you and about how we are to respond to you. Lord, we look forward to what you have for us today in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, we come to this study of, of Jonah and, as we're looking at today, Jonah is believed to be one of those, books in the Bible that rank right up there with, the 1st 8 chapters of the Book of Genesis as far as, as, as being, something that's to not be taken literally. And, yet, as we are gonna be looking at today, I believe we can, we can make a good case for the fact that it should be taken literally. It actually historically was. It was taken literally by Israel and so the ancient Jews accepted it as such.
And also in, in Christianity in the church, for, for many, many, centuries actually, it was taken literally as well. It wasn't until, the, the Enlightenment and, the liberal thinking that came along. Back about 150 years ago, it began or so. That, God's word began to be interpreted in different ways.
And we've covered those, those, different interpretations and so on. but I started with this, thought, question. Is it easier to believe that a fish swallowed a man Or that a whole pagan society would repent after a one-sentence sermon. Because what we have in Jonah is a series of miraculous or interventions by God into, into the world....
