Showing posts with label Humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humour. Show all posts

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Mining the Minors: Jonah (19)

In the last five months I have written slightly under 26,000 words and 19 blog posts about the book of Jonah. That’s less than many, but more than most. Needless to say, I take the story of the rebel Israelite prophet very seriously indeed. Jesus viewed it as historical, and that seems to me the way it ought to be regarded.

Nowadays we are being told Jonah is actually a comedy. My idea of comedy basically begins and ends with Dick Van Dyke and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Jonah most definitely is not in that vein at all.

So did I miss the boat, so to speak? Is laughter really the best medicine? While the view of Jonah as satire, parody or farce is not common in the churches in which I normally circulate, a few liberal Bible scholars with degrees and big reputations have written to that effect, and we should probably take at least take a few paragraphs to consider their position.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Mining the Minors: Jonah (13)

My cat starts talking incessantly about ten minutes before breakfast, which is probably about how long it takes me to pry the pillow out of my ears and give in to her pestering. My dog doesn’t bark much, but he too will let you know if dinner is taking an unreasonable time to hit the bowl.

Hungry, stressed-out cattle also make noises. They do not suffer in silence. Underfed lambs bleat and cry. So do goats when they are hungry or thirsty, and their bleating gets louder and more obnoxious over time. (They will also butt you when they are hungry, but that only makes a sound if they happen to connect when you’re not expecting it.)

Friday, April 29, 2016

Too Hot to Handle: To Bee or Not to Bee?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Immanuel Can: I found this websiteand I’ve got to admit, Tom, I laughed. And then I thought to myself, “You know, that isn’t all that funny”. Actually, it’s quite common, and quite tragic.

But I guess that’s what irony does: it strikes us at first one way, and leaves us feeling another.

So let’s talk about having a sense of humour. Maybe I can begin with the obvious: God seems to have given us all a sense of humour; but how is a Christian to use it?