Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh when God told him to in chapter 1. In Jonah 4 we find out why. It’s because he knew that God was patient and kind. He knew that God would offer mercy and what he wanted to see was the wicked and violent people of Nineveh get what they deserved. That is never what God wants.
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The United States has taken a solid lead in the number of total medals but still trails China in gold. Some have noted that the US is not dominating the Tokyo games the way they did in Rio and London. Heat and humidity have played a hand in many competitions and like everything else in 2020 pandemic protocols have created additional stress factors. There are some high points for the US at these games. Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky won gold and set records in the pool and Molly Seidel took bronze in women’s marathon. That’s the first medal in that event for the US since 2004. There’s still a lot to watch as many events will final today. There will be televised events throughout the day on NBC with Track & Field finals (several events for men and women) scheduled tonight at 8 PM. The United States will face Spain in the women’s water polo final in prime time, US vs. Japan in the women’s basketball final at 10:30 PM, women’s volleyball final US vs. Brazil at 1:30 AM. Closing ceremonies air Sunday evening.
UPDATE: Allyson Felix becomes the most decorate Olympian in Track & Field history with 11 medals!
Update on stormy weather in southeastern Kentucky. Michael can’t remember what he ate for lunch. Summer school students are not interested in learning anything.
Fathers Day weekend. 1) recommendation for Andrew Peach The Demise of Fatherhood on First Things. One of the biggest problems we are facing is the unwillingness of men to be fathers. 2) Michael discusses the problems with his relationship with his own father and the eventual resolution of some those.
If you have read about Jonah in a Children’s Bible or heard about him in a Sunday School lesson or Vacation Bible School, it was probably chapter 1 and maybe chapter 2 that you learned about. In Jonah for Kids Part 1, based on Jonah chapter 1 in the Bible, there is a storm at sea and Jonah is thrown off a ship. He is swallowed by a great fish – perhaps you’ve heard whale, it’s not worth arguing about because that is not the point – and all of that happens in just the first chapter. In Part 2/chapter 2 we learn that after three days in the fish’s belly Jonah decided it was time to pray. Children, adults, Old Testament prophets; stubbornness is common among many different people. You may have never read or heard about what happened next. Jonah’s story is not done and if you are willing to keep reading we can continue this journey together.
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Tokyo Meal Count – The United States is tied with China for the number of total medals but falling even further behind in the quest for gold. China is really showing up and showing out this year. This is a busy weekend with track and field events starting up and overlapping swimming and gymnastics that haven’t finished. Daniel Jepsen is back from vacation and has a full Olympic special edition on the Saturday Brunch. He covers some events that have been dropped over the years (such as live pigeon shooting and solo synchronized swimming) and unveils the 2024 Olympics in Paris logo. The internet is having some fun with it, per the usual.
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Intro music by Christy Nockels.
Q1: Is evangelicalism child abuse? Q2: Should evangelicals apologize?
Trevin Wax interview with Danny Akin, who is still the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Akin put together a plan for the Great Commission Resurgence. His observations on the state of the SBC and the need to engage younger leaders is very relevant today.
Begin by reading Jonah chapter 2, either in your own Bible or one online.
Have you ever put something off that you didn’t want to do? It might have been homework, washing the dishes, cleaning your room, mowing the grass or any number of things. You planned to do it later, just not right then. Later the job has gotten bigger so you really don’t want to do it. If you keep putting it off then the assignment will come due, you will run completely out of dishes or the grass will be so tall it is almost impossible to cut. Sometimes we know what the right thing to do is but putting it off until later keeps making things worse.
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The Satur-deja Vu turns 100! In number of posts, not years. Post #100 was actually last Saturday, this being post #101. Even that technical detail is not precisely correct. Back when this weekly column started in 2019 it took a few weeks to come up with a good title. Double Take 5-4-19 was the first weekly review that would in time become the Satur-deja Vu. I tried Hindsight, Saturday Doubletake and even one post simply titled Still Need a Title. So if you count those we are actually up to 106 posts as of this week. Don’t overthink it. With 52 weeks in a year it took about two years to reach 100 review posts. Happy Monday has been posted weekly since 2012 and is now well over 400 posts. The Master’s Table has been online since 2008 and this post will make 1,633. There have been 2,469 comments made over the past 13 years. There are currently 668 WordPress followers, 192 Facebook followers and another 24 email subscribers. All right, enough numbers. Thank you for being a part of what we do here!
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I have not listened to this one yet. Back in 2009 Michael wrote “This week: a few stories from Advance 09. Friendship. Answers to the ‘Too God-Centered’ Objection.”
Note: this is the third episode in a row he has identified on the air as #142. When he posted it to Internet Monk it was labeled 143. (I listened to the first minute just to make the audio file uploaded correctly.)
Maybe think of this as a creative writing project. I’m not entirely sure what my motivation for this endeavor is, perhaps divine inspiration. I have an 11-year-old at home and this is sort of a children’s sermon version of the Jonah Runs sermon I preached on Sunday. I printed it out for her and turned in her illustrated children’s Bible to Jonah 1. If you or anyone you know could be served by this series then please share and God bless.
Jonah is the story of a prophet that did not listen to God. In Jonah 1, he does exactly the opposite of what God tells him to do. When God spoke and told him to go to Nineveh and preach, he tried to flee (run away) from the presence of the Lord. It can’t be done and our hero will learn that lesson the hard way. Notice everything in chapter 1 goes down. He went down to Joppa, down in the lowest part of the ship where he then laid down and went to sleep. Later he is thrown into the sea. The Bible does not use the word down again but we can reason that he goes down into the sea and into the belly of the whale. When the chapter ends he is somewhere under the Meditterarranean Sea.
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The Master's Table 