Monday, December 17, 2012

The Inkeeper, by John Piper

Wonder what it cost to bring the Messiah into the world? The world is a place of suffering and sorrow, and turning away from God only serves to make the hurt deeper.

Turn to Him this Christmas, because the truth about love is the only way to comfort deep wounds, and to provide full, everlasting joy.


Monday, December 10, 2012

The book of Jonah

I always like plots to have a nice conclusion a nice ending, and always hate it when a plot leaves me hanging... Did his dad finally abandon his drug habits? Did the pets reunite with the family in the end, will Batman actually settle down with Selina?

Jonah is one such story in the bible. I always wondered with that story ended with a question and I'm just left hanging. That was until I realised that I haven't been reading it correctly, in the right context. It wasn't a story, it was a narrative, a first-person account.

Most scholars believed it's very likely that Jonah himself wrote that book. In fact, there isn't any significant evidence suggesting otherwise. And for him to write such a book, to tell the whole world that he is such an ass, an ignorant bigot who hates the big city of sin, who is self righteous in every way, running away from God because he do not want the city to be given a chance... It must be the truth, in fact, I think nobody in their right mind would write such a story if it weren't true of himself, and even more unlikely for Jonah himself to have written this unless he have understood the question God gave to him, and have been overcome by God's unconditional and racially or culturally agnostic love!

The thought provoking question itself is the main theme of the plot, it is the resolution to the main climax. The question is a perfect conclusion to the theme in question.