By Derek Wenmoth
A missions drama to introduce the story of Jonah, the reluctant missionary.
Lecture theatre, hall, or similar.
Narrator
Dr Cold Bath (an ancient scholar)
NARRATOR:
It is my pleasure this morning to introduce to you one of our guest speakers. This man needs no introduction - but you're going to get one anyway so I get my moment of glory!This man is a world renowned Hebrew Scholar, and since completing his doctorate in Dimittery in 1936 he is currently 43 degrees below (the equator).
His musical interests include playing the fool on the linoleum. He speaks 14 languages (13 of which are dead) and he's hoping to add English to the list in the not too distant future.
Ladies and gentlemen - I give you the imminent theologian... Dr Cold Bath!!!! with his talk entitled "The reluctant missionary" or "Word studies in the book of Jonah".
(music....)
DR COLD BATH:
Good morning, kinder. If you haff your bibles with you our lesson for today is from the book of Jonah - page 1396. Ve vill be looking at some key words in this book.The first is JONAH. You can see that this word is just one word. However, in the original Hebrew it is two! "JO" the prophet's nickname, and "NAH" which is a teenager's cute way of saying "NO"!. So we see from this that JONAH actually means "the Joe who said no". Which he did after the good Lord sent him to Ninevah to tell them to smarten up their act.
These people from NINEVAH were naughty, naughty, naughty - which we can see from the meaning of this word...."NINE" being in my mother tongue "NO" and "VAH", again in my language, is "WAY". In udder words - "NO WAY"!
Now Joe got this idea of running away to TARSHISH because he thought God was sending him there.
"TAR" is the short version of the English word of gratitude - "THANKYOU" and the second part of the word, "SHISH" means Shaddup or be quiet - dep[ending on how big your family is.
So we see that TARSHISH means "Thankyou for keeping your mouth shut"!
There is another theory that his sister loaned him the 42 drachmas to buy the ticket for the fare to Tarshish and that he said "Ta - Sis". However, I would like to state categorically that this interpretation is quite wrong, based as it is on an incorrect reading of Judges 12 verse 6 where we see SHibboleth and Sibboleth - Joe's family were not Ephrainites but were from Thailand - a fact plainly seen in his father's name "AM-I-TAI"!!! Which of course he was - dumkopf!!!!
Now, how Joe found out it was God's will that he take the boat to Tarshish is an interesting story. His available credit was exactly equal to the cost of the ticket - 42 drachma - another miracle of guidance???
Moving right along...
Let's look at how the sailors knew that Joe was the trouble maker? See verse seven in chapter one "and the lot fell on Jonah". Now, as you can imagine Joe was pretty unhappy about this - if these silly sailors had tied down the cargo properly the lot would not have fallen on him would it.
So, you know the story, they throw him in the water and (Jaws theme music) NO NO NO NO NO - wrong fish!!!! It was Moby Dick - not him!
Now Joe prayed reverently and with feeling. "HEEEEELPPP!!!! I'll do whatever you want if you get me out of this mess I'm in" - and it was messy - with all the juices and half eaten fish and all that seaweed - but it just gets messier. So Joe just sits there - feeling - how do you say - down in the mouth!
But then that naughty whale VOMITS him out on the beach - yuk - now that's disgusting. But there has to be an up side to the story - if it weren't for the whale, Joe would most certainly have drowned - which all goes to prove, you can bank on the whales!
So, Joe preaches and they all repent and all that - and do you think Joe was happy - NO VAY!!
He's pretty septic! He'd rather be dead.
Now we move to our next word in verse 6, chapter 4 - "BOOTH". Some people think this is some form of umbrella made out of old leaves and stalks - but no - my research reveals that it is really the founder of the Salvation Army - William Booth! Amazing.
Now we must think about GOURD - this is a big plant - and this gourd was about to find out that the problem with life is not what you eat, but WHAT EATS YOU!!! Because we see in verse 7 the "WORM". Now this leads us to our second great Christian Leader who appears in the story of Job - Martin Luther, who, in 1521 had a diet of worms.
And that's all we have time for today, kinder.
Good morning.
© Derek Wenmoth 1997
All rights reserved
This play may be performed free of charge, on the condition that copies are not sold for profit in any medium, nor any entrance fee charged.
In exchange for free performance, the author would appreciate being notified of when and for what purpose the play is performed.
He may be contacted at: dwenmoth@xtra.co.nz