Vicar Janssen continued the Memorial Lutheran Church Bible study on Jonah. Some notes:

1:9 Verse nine is the height of a chiastic pattern in Hebrew. Jonah’s confession of his God, his first spoken words in the book, is the turning point in the story of the storm. Previously, the sailors had been praying to their own gods; Jonah gave them the true God to pray to.

1:12 Jonah is willing to sacrifice himself to save the sailors, but he didn’t even want to preach to save Nineveh. He really wanted the Ninevites to get what was coming.

1:13 The sailors are initially unwilling to throw Jonah overboard. If Jonah really was God’s prophet, they likely didn’t want to make God any angrier by killing him.

1:16 Jonah really didn’t want to convert anybody, but even before Nineveh he converts the sailors on the ship.

1:17 Three days and three nights — referred by Jesus in Matthew 12:38-42 and performed by Jesus later. The “Sign of Jonah” is a fish, but it is also the conversion of people when the Word is spoken.

2:2 Jonah’s praise reads like a Psalm, and verse 2 borrows from Psalm 120:1 and 18:6.

Pastor Murray led Vespers. One of the students from the school, about 7th or 8th grade, was assigned to light the candles before the service, but was having trouble lighting the candles above his head. The student’s wick had gone out. Pastor Murray helped him. It would have made a good picture, but the phone camera’s zoom feature was worthless.