Reasoning Behind Preaching in Mainland China Jonah Style
The Book of Jonah and the Book of Revelation are the first two books I read in the Bible. I laughed out loud the first time I read the story of Jonah, partly because it’s quite a funny story, but mainly because it’s the story of my life metaphorically speaking and no I didn’t get swallowed by a great fish in real life. Jonah tried to run away from God after his first calling. I had my first calling during COVID whilst in Scotland and believed in God for about a week afterwards, but concluded that I must have been hallucinating. Additionally, whatever Jonah tried to do with full effort failed and whatever he did half-assed succeeded without much effort. I tried to find the meaning of life without God and ended up with existentialism, nihilism, and anti-natalism. I put little effort into my education and ended up in the university whose alumni are the culprits behind the mess in British politics today. I sought after truth and knowledge my entire life and turns out they are written on the best seller in mankind’s history, and took a 540 degree turn in life. 🥲
I went south and moved back to London after completing my degree at RCS. Fell asleep on the ship of capitalism and got burnt out. I voluntarily got swallowed by a gay/bi naturist campsite and was vomited out three months later. Had my second calling in late August 2024 and finally decided to comply.
By some magical and wishful thinking, I wanted to stop the Book of Revelation and considered the book to be the disaster that God had said he would do to mankind. And in this specific context, the great city of Nineveh represents both China and mankind for me. I managed to develop a massive saviour complex and thought it would be worth a try, just in case I’m the sign of Jonah as described in Matthew 12:39. I had this fantastical idea that if somehow the entire China repents and becomes Christian, mankind would follow suit and repent. Hence stopping the book of revelation. But I guess it’s a moonshot and I probably failed. Well, it was worth a shot anyway. 🙁
However, not all hope is lost yet. Following the insane logic of mankind as the great city of Nineveh, Plan B would be to evangelise the world, but perhaps I should finish reading the bible first. I have only read revelation (more than half a dozen times now), Jonah, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and bits and pieces from the other books. 😰
In case anyone is wondering for some weird reason, the message I preached in mainland China is the same as the one in the Book of Jonah, except with Nineveh replaced with the People’s Republic of China. I turned myself in to police stations in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, confessed to the (metaphorical) attempted murder of God almighty by living the first 27 years of my life as an agnostic, and preached the main message to police officers and signed/fingerprinted police statements on record.
