The story of Jonah who was in the belly of the big fish is a familiar story to all Christians. However, the debate around the historical character of Jonah has made many Christians forget about the main message of this book. Therefore a number of interpreters suggest that we should get out of this historicity debate and focus on its theological themes and messages. Through this paper, the authors try to focus on exploring the main theme and to answer this, the author conducted a qualitative research using “God's mission” as a hermeneutical framework for the text of Jonah 3:1-4:11. Through this framework, proposed by Christopher J. H. Wright, the Portrait of God and His Mission is the theme that the book intends to carry. The message is that the church as its readers can understand the portrait of God and His Mission. This sort of understanding is then expected to become the foundation for the church in carrying out its mission activities.AbstrakKisah Yunus dalam perut ikan besar merupakan kisah yang akrab bagi semua orang Kristen. Namun demikian, perdebatan mengenai historisitas tokoh Yunus akibat kisah ini telah membuat sebagai orang Kristen lupa mengenai tema dan pesan dari kitab ini. Karena itu sejumlah penafsir menyarankan agar kita sebaiknya keluar dari perdebatan historisitas ini dan berfokus pada tema dan pesan teologisnya. Melalui tulisan ini, penulis mencoba mengikuti usulan tersebut dan berfokus pada penggalian tema apa yang hendak disampaikan melalui kitab ini. Untuk menjawabnya, penulis melakukan penelitian kualitatif dengan menggunakan “misi Allah” sebagai bingkai kerja penafsiran (hermeneutical framework) terhadap teks Yunus 3:1-4:11. Melalui bingkai kerja yang diusulkan oleh Christopher J. H. Wright ini, maka Potret Allah dan Misi-Nya adalah tema yang hendak diusung melalui kitab ini. Pesannya adalah agar gereja sebagai pembacanya dapat memahami potret Allah dan Misi-Nya. Pemahaman tersebut selanjutnya diharapkan menjadi fondasi bagi gereja dalam menjalankan aktivitas misinya.

Salah satu dasar pernikahan Kristen adalah Matius 19:4-6, namun demikian Yesus dalam Matius 19:9 justru disimpulkan membenarkan perceraian dengan sebuah persyaratan. Di tengah-tengah terus meningkatnya angka perceraian suami dan istri di Indonesia, mendiskusikan lagi ayat ini tampanya cukup relevan. Frasa "mē epi porneia" (kecuali karena zinah) dalam ayat ini telah menimbulkan perdebatan. Melalui frasa itu, sebagian besar penafsir menilai bahwa Yesus membenarkan suami menceraikan istri yang berzinah, hanya sebagian kecil yang menolaknya. Menolak terjemahan frasa "mē epi" sebagai "kecuali karena" merupakan alasan yang umum digunakan untuk menentang pendapat bahwa Yesus membenarkan perceraian. Sayangnya argumentasi semacam ini telah ditolak oleh sebagian besar penafsir karena sintaksis Yunani dinilai tidak mendukungnya. Kali ini saya akan menggunakan tema utama serta hakikat retorika injil Matius ini sebagai bingkai kerja penafsiran untuk menafsirkan teks tersebut. Dengan pendekatan di atas, Yesus dalam Matius 19:9 secara implisit tidak membenarkan seorang suami menceraikan istri yang berzinah. Kata Kunci: Bercerai, berzinah, retorika Injil Matius, bingkai kerja penafsiran. ABSTRACT. One of the foundations of Christian marriage is Matthew 19: 4-6, but Jesus in Matthew 19: 9 is concluded to justify divorce with a condition. In the midst of the continuing increase in the number of divorce in Indonesia, discussing this verse again seems quite relevant. The phrase "mē epi porneia" (except for adultery) in this verse has caused debate. Through that phrase, most interpreters consider that Jesus justifies a husband divorcing an adulterous wife, only a small percentage rejects it. Rejecting the translation of the phrase "mē epi" as "except because" is a reason commonly used to oppose the idea that Jesus justifies divorce. Unfortunately, this kind of argument has been rejected by most interpreters because Greek syntax is seen as not supporting it. This time I will use the main theme and nature of Matthew's gospel rhetoric as the hermeneutical framework for interpreting the text. With the above approach, in Matthew 19: 9 Jesus implicitly did not justify a husband divorcing an adulterous wife.

Matthew 22:32 contains a tradition of mentioning the God of Israel which was no longer popular in the time of Jesus. That tradition is often called Theos patros, the God of the ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In a dialogue between Jesus and several Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead, Jesus “revived” the tradition. Studies concerning that text, however, seems to overlook such tradition of mentioning God. If Jesus implicitly states that the ancestors of Israel lived, what kind of life did Jesus mean? This article attemps to answer the above question by considering “God with Us” as the main theme and “Rhetoric of Fighting Leadership” as the essence of this gospel rhetoric. Both become what is often referred to as the Hermeneutical Framework.Matthew 22:32 contains a tradition of mentioning the God of Israel which was no longer popular in the time of Jesus. That tradition is often called Theos patros, the God of the ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. In a dialogue between Jesus and several Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead, Jesus “revived” the tradition. Studies concerning that text, however, seems to overlock such tradition of mentioning God. If Jesus implicitly states that the ancestors of Israel lived, what kind of life did Jesus mean? This article attempts to answer the above question by considering “God with Us” as the main theme and “Rhetoric of Fighting Leadership” as the essence of this gospel rhetoric. Both become what is often referred to as the Hermeneutical Framework.

Criticism to the church in carrying out its mission is often raised. A number of churches are considered no longer world-oriented but only Heaven-oriented. In his book, Meng-hari-ini-kan Injil di Bumi Pancasila, Ebenhaizer I. Nuban Timo suggests that there are four erroneous paradigms about the mission. This paper is an attempt to assess whether these four erroneous paradigms also exist in the Batak Karo Protestant Church (GBKP) Namo Buah Silebo-Lebo (NBS), Deli Serdang district, North Sumatra. The purpose of this assessment, of course, is to get a real picture of the GBKP NBS. This research is qualitative research through literature study and interviews. A literature study was carried out by tracing a number of writings on the mission of the church and also a number of GBKP NBS documents. Meanwhile, the interviewees included: Former NBS Village Head, GBKP NBS church leader, a number of members and administrators of several GBKP NBS categories. As a result, the four mission paradigm errors concluded by Timo above were also found in the NBS GBKP. AbstrakKritik terhadap gereja dalam menjalankan misinya sering dikemukakan. Sejumlah gereja dinilai tidak lagi berorientasi pada dunia tetapi hanya berorientasi pada Surga. Dalam bukunya, Meng-hari-ini-kan Injil di Bumi Pancasila, Ebenhaizer I. Nuban Timo mengemukakan adanya empat paradigma yang keliru tentang misi. Tulisan ini merupakan upaya untuk menilai apakah keempat paradigma yang keliru ini juga ada di dalam Gereja Batak Karo Protestan (GBKP) Namo Buah Silebo-Lebo (NBS), kabupaten Deli Serdang, Sumatera Utara. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif melalui studi kepustakaan dan wawancara. Studi kepustakaan dilakukan dengan menelusuri sejumlah tulisan mengenai misi gereja dan juga sejumlah dokumen GBKP NBS. Sementara itu, wawancara dilakukan terhadap beberapa komponen masyarakat. yang diwawancarai antara lain: Mantan Kepala Desa NBS, pemimpin jemaat GBKP NBS, sejumlah anggota dan pengurus beberapa kategorial GBKP NBS. Hasilnya, keempat kekeliruan paradigma misi yang disimpulkan oleh Timo di atas ternyata juga ditemukan dalam GBKP NBS.

Several theologians unanimously accorded well with the notion that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew was a pastoral theologian. Nevertheless, the pastoral dimension of Matthew 22:32 has not been subjected to much scrutiny. In the text, Jesus celebrated the tradition of calling the God as the ‘God of the Fathers’. The tradition revealed that Jesus adapted the pastoral approach, which is termed as nostalgia in psychology. In empirical psychology researches, utilising nostalgia provides many positive benefits for people who have psychological problems, including an identity crisis. By using a psychological text to sharpen the understanding of the biblical text, this research showed the nostalgic construction in the tradition as a pastoral approach to the readers who were in a situation of a major crisis.Contribution: By using the nostalgia as a psychological text, this article attempts to explore the pastoral dimension of Matthew 22:32, which seems absent in the study of Matthew 22:32.