“The lust for comfort,” wrote Khalil Gibran, is “that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.” Jonah, called by the word of the Lord to serve Nineveh, grapples instead with the tyranny of comfort. From the beginning, he chose the destruction of Nineveh over his…
Category: Jonah
Who is Wasting Whose Time?
Everyone thinks about inconvenience in terms of how it impacts their time and their personal comfort. Rare is the individual who thinks not of personal preference, but of the needs of others. A teacher burns the candle at both ends to make time to teach and we who have done nothing check our watch twenty…
How Many Times Do I Have to Ask?
Communities and individuals always overestimate their own importance and abilities. This illusion is reinforced by the self-serving narratives we create to bolster confidence in ourselves and in our institutions. Nations, religions, ideologies, communities, families—everyone—down to the last individual, is compromised by this dangerous lie. Jonah disobeyed the word of the Lord, yet, when questioned about…
The Word is in Control
Students of the Bible typically overstate the importance of Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the whale, assuming that he was vomited onto the dry land because of repentance; but a closer look at the text of the prayer tells a different story. Was Jonah vomited up because of a profound conversion from disobedience, or…
Remedial Prophecy
“Obey everything [your teachers] teach you, but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” (Matthew 23:3) Like the warning, “do not judge,” (Matthew 7) this beautiful admonition is often abused to lessen the burden of our accountability as disciples. We do not want to be corrected, so we…
The Sword of the Spirit
When faced with a conflict between two parties, our natural tendency is to assume that there is a right side and a wrong side. Why? Because we fancy ourselves to be right, or we imagine that we can become right, and thus fail to see what is obvious in Scripture: beginning with ourselves, in the…
Nahum and the Minor Prophets
This week I spoke to our adults and presented the book of Nahum in light of the other books we have been reading. I presented how reading Nahum in the context of the other Minor Prophets enhances the message of the opposing faithfulness of the Lord and the fickleness of Israel. In our Bible the…
I want to die!
I had the pleasure last Saturday of substitute teaching Dr. Benton’s church school class. After reviewing chapter three of the book of Jonah we moved into the fourth and last chapter which begins with Jonah being displeased and angry. “Why is Jonah upset?” I asked the class. “Because the king of Nineveh repented,” one child answered…
Jonah the Post-Modern Nihilist
The final section of Jonah opens with the prophet’s anger and displeasure at the reversal of God’s wrath. (4:1) In a reprisal of his teenager persona, Jonah justifies his selfish behavior from chapter 1, wagging his finger at Dad, “didn’t I tell you?” (4:2) Jonah’s childish rant teems with hypocrisy. Even as he is rescued from Sheol (2:2) he angrily…
The crazy guy vs. the one who listens to him
Chapter 3 of Jonah illustrates Jonah’s second chance to give the Ninevites a second chance. God sets Jonah back on track to warn the Ninevites. Jonah complies this time, and the Ninevites are fairly warned. The king of Nineveh responds with extraordinary piety when word reaches him, committing himself and his entire land–including the livestock–to…