The September edition of Church Executive just arrived, featuring Pastor Mark and the ministry of Mars Hill Church.

Here’s a question the magazine asked Pastor Mark about biblical interpretation, using Jonah as a timely example:

How literal do you get? The old Jonah and the whale thing, what do you make of that literalism?

Yep, Jonah was literally in a whale. Jesus says as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, he’d be in the grave. So it’s just as literal as Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection to me.

We take it all literally, literal creation, literal Adam and Eve. We are a very conservative Bible-believing church, but if you walk in a lot of our people have Mohawks and piercings and tattoos and they’re smoking cigarettes and just became Christians. So they don’t look like your typical church crowd.

For the full story, head to the Church Executive website.