Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Mackie, and this is my podcast, exploring my strange Bible. I am a card-carrying

Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you

have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 20 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've

been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission

of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can all be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts and classes about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find all those resources at Bibleproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

All right, we're going to continue on in this series exploring the book of Jonah,

and this is a teaching series I did back in Door of Hope in 2013 when I was the teaching pastor there.

If you haven't listened to

parts one and two in the previous podcast, I'd recommend doing that for context. We're jumping

into Jonah chapter two this week, and we're going to explore that very strange and beautifully

intricate poem that Jonah utters while in the belly of this marine beast, so strange.

But this is actually a very powerful moment in the story.

I'll address some of the oddities about this man being in a fish and what's going on there.

But whatever you think about what's happening there in terms of history,

this poem represents a moment when one of God's people is at crisis,

hitting bottom. And it's actually God's work in their life to bring them to the end of themselves.

And so Jonah's experience and his prayer, which may be genuine, it may not be, becomes a way for

...