UBC Wed For Life

                                When we think about the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus and Paul are probably the first to come to mind. Jesus, of course, is the focus for the whole New Testament. The Gospels cover his life and death while his teachings, resurrection, and the advent of the Holy Spirit are what provide the foundation for all the other books in the New Testament. Paul, on the other hand, was the prominent figure in the New Testament responsible for the spread of Christianity from the Jews to various groups of Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean Sea coast and Middle East. There is good reason that those two are the stars of the New Testament, but we shouldn’t forget that other voices are also present within the New Testament books. Jesus had twelve disciples and several of them have books that appear in the New Testament. They each bring interesting perspectives. When we learn about the disciples in the Gospels, they are studying under Jesus, and they aren’

                                         Several prophets have short, often overlooked books, dedicated to them in the Bible. Jonah is one example, though his name is more well-known among believers and others who have a casual familiarity with the Bible. It’s not that Jonah’s work was more important than that of the other prophets. His story simply had a component to it that made for better storytelling. We’ve heard about Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. They are all stories that illustrate who God is in fantastical fashion. Jonah and the Fish is a story that fits right along them. The problem is that in boiling Jonah’s story down to his experience with the fish, we miss out on a lot of what the Book of Jonah is trying to teach us. That’s unfortunately a mistake that we sometimes make with the Bible as a whole. We try to find the big lesson or get caught up in the more amazing aspects of the various Biblical stories and wind up overlooking the