“Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. This was the message of Jonah when he finally delivered the message God gave him. Maybe the message included more, maybe not, the Bible does not tell us. However, given Jonah’s typical attitude and lack of care for the people of Nineveh, I think it’s very likely those few words were the entirety of his message.

Here in Matthew 3 we have the religious leaders showing up to interrogate John the Baptist. Here in the passage, we see he is teaching and baptizing people, telling them to repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He was preparing people for Christ’s ministry. People were getting saved and were committing themselves to walk in newness of life. John was preaching what Roman’s 6:1-14 reaffirms.

I believe that the Christian Church, at least here in the United States, has numerous problems it needs to address in order to be healthy and reproduce. Today I will be sharing just one of the reasons I believe that the Church is not what it should be.

I think the Church could do a much better job with inclusivity. Now when I say that I am sure many people will already jump to conclusions, but I can assure you that nobody else sees this the way I do. What you think I am talking about is probably not what I am actually trying to talk about. I always seem to come at things from a different angle that does not appear to be the norm. Honestly, though, nobody is talking about this. So let’s start by defining what the word inclusivity even means.

Have you ever been arguing and fighting with your wife or husband, close friend or family member and eventually reach a point where you just want to start over? Do you ever reach a point where you wish you could take back everything that has been said or done by simply pressing a reset button? A good reset, second and forgiveness are hard to pass up when the are offered to us.

Let’s face it, we all mess up from time to time. Sometimes we do something wrong at work, wrong a friend or wrong someone within our own household. As bad as this feels, it sure does feel great to get a second chance and move on from your errors. This is exactly what happens to Jonah starting in chapter 3. God comes to him a second time and allows him to push the reset button, and try again. 

 People often say that soulwinning is no longer an effective way of getting people saved or doing outreach. They say soulwinning is “outdated” or that it simply “does not work in our culture today.” Let me be straight up with you. If there was a more effective way of getting people saved than just approaching their door uninvited and dealing with the awkwardness that brings, I would jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat.

We all have a sincere and human desire to be a part of the right tribe. From the sports teams we follow and root for, to the brands we choose to wear on our bodies, we are constantly making decisions on what and who to endorse because of some particular reason or another.

The Bible gives us the facts that Jesus was killed on a cross, and that He rose again the third day. With this in mind, many find themselves wondering where Jesus was for during the cross and his resurrection. I am going to lay out for you what I believe, and why I believe it. Let me, however, begin by stating the Bible is sometimes not as black and white as people try to make it. Sometimes, you put together a belief based on what you see in scripture, and you present that idea in a logical manner, but ultimately it is going to be up to you to come to your own conclusion. Scripture does not always spell things out for us as clearly as we would often hope for.

Let us look at the part in Jonah that everyone knows, but approach it with some extra care for what we are reading. Today you will see that this chapter also foreshadows the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

I believe that many people describe legalism incorrectly. A lot of people will assign the label of legalism to someone who is adding human merit to one’s salvation. I do not believe this is accurate, that isn’t really legalism in my opinion, that is simply a works based salvation. In fact, ironically, I think using this as a definition for legalism is actually a tactic used by people who are legalistic.

Did Jesus teach Nicodemus that baptism is required to be saved? The Belief that a person must be baptized in order to be saved is called “Baptismal Regeneration”.

What is worse than being exposed as a phony and fraud? Well, possibly waving back at someone in public who wasn’t actually waving at you, but still, being seen as a fake is pretty awful. We have seen that Jonah is sort of a fake. He sure claims the title of “Man of God” but his actions do not support this. We’ve seen so far that Jonah doesn’t care about the well being or the souls of others. While the mariners were doing their best to protect their lives, Jonah was asleep at the bottom of the ship.

What are Christians like? Depending on who you ask this question, you are probably going to get different answers. Some may say these people are “compassionate, loving, kind” and some may say “terrible, hypocritical, rude”. Why the mixed review? Well, it all depends on what kind of interactions people have had with Christians.

So far in our Bible study through the book Jonah we have not seen anything that really redeems this guy. He is asleep at the wheel. His lack of concern is damaging not only his life, but the life of those around him. Last time we saw that he does not care about others, now we will be looking at the prayer life of Jonah. We will see that he cares about praying just about as much as he cares about others.

Every word of God is important. As followers of Christ, we love Him and His word! Although this is a commonly held belief, how many people have actually read the whole Bible?