The Rebel Prophet – Training Pastors

“In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed.”

It’s the shortest message of any prophetic book in the Bible. It’s a crisp warning to a wicked nation that God’s terrible judgement spares no evil. Or is it? What exactly is the message of Jonah? Is it a story about a misguided soul who found his way back to God? Could it be a warning that if God calls you to the mission field, you’d better go or risk something bad? Maybe it shows us that storms in our life are always because of our sin.

I think all of these are wrong answers, but how are we to know? Paul enjoined Timothy to “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved… rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 3:25 ESV). This instruction was written to a pastor; we count on pastors to teach us in the Word. But what if no one is teaching the pastors?

In a place like La Mosquitia, it is very difficult for pastors to receive Biblical training. Many of them don’t have a complete general education and struggle to read. If they read well, it’s in a language which is not their primary. Most often Biblical instruction is missing in the family setting, so they don’t grow up in the scripture. Many pastors are simply ill-equipped to accurately and maturely teach the scripture to their congregations.

This morning, a group of pastors ventured northwest from their home town in Nicaragua toward the Coco River. They spent a couple of hours wrangling with immigration control, then hired a dugout canoe to cross the river into Honduras. There, a certain Ohioan missionary was waiting with a truck to take them another three hours’ journey west. We arrived to our home village of Rus Rus in the afternoon.

This week, they’ll be studying the book of Jonah. The message of this book, unlike all the other prophetic books, isn’t really about what Jonah had to say, it’s about Jonah. Likewise, this week’s study isn’t so much about Jonah, but about how to study.

“This week’s study isn’t so much about Jonah, but about how to study.”

We ask you to be in prayer. Pray for this group of about a dozen pastors who gather with a desire to seek the Lord. Pray for the training staff to have clear purpose and open hearts. Pray that all of us would be open to what God wants to teach us.

It turns out that Jonah knew that God would forgive the wickedness of the Ninevites if they repented. He said he would rather die than give them that opportunity. Our prayer is that God would soften our hearts to the needs around us and give us wisdom to approach them well.