In Jonah 4, we saw that when you run without God’s love, God runs to make you love Him so that you will begin to love people the way God loves people – more than anything.
Jonah became vehemently angry when God spared Nineveh. He prayed, which is a good thing, but how he prayed leaves quite a bit to be desired: 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”
The LORD is not going to allow His servant to have this wrong attitude, so He confronts Jonah with a question: 4 Then the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
This is a conversation between God and Jonah. We’re third party. Jonah is saying to God, “I’m mad that You spared the Ninevites and forgave them and showed Your love and mercy!”
God responds by asking Jonah a question: “Is it right for you to be angry?”
So what would
…show more content…
Look at verse 5 ~
5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.
What does Jonah do here? He made himself a little shelter and watches, pouting, he’s still mad!
What does it mean ~ till he might see what would become of the city ~ it means that he is still holding out hope that GOD changes His mind and lets them have it!
I hope they start doing evil things again so You can blast them into oblivion! That’s Jonah! He has absolutely no love for these people!
He’s running without God’s love. And God is not going to let up on him any more than He’s going to let up on you and me until we get hearts like God’s ~ and start loving people like God loves people!
The rest of this story demonstrates how God is so creative in the way that He deals with people. Look how He deals with Jonah in verse 6 ~ 6 And the LORD God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the
“Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object or person. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things (Net 2).” From the beginning, Jonah received the word from the God, who asked him to dissipate the evilness in city of Nineveh. But he did not obey God’s command, instead, he ignored what God’s saying and became evasive, setting forth to another place in the presence of the God. Here his deportment is a direct sacrilege to God’s authority.
In the book of Jonah we see the vast amount of tension between both God and Jonah. He is one of the prophets who also believes in tolerance of non-Jews opposite to Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s stress of an unadulterated blood race of Jews under a restrictive Jewish God. Jonah is one of a vast line of important people in the bible who argues with God. As you see in past books of the bible everyone has stood their own against the Lord. Jonah though decides to try and run from God. The Lord called to Jonah and said “Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry against it,” but Jonah flees to Joppa, setting sail on a ship duty-bound for Tarshish, assuming he can evade the Lord. Jonah views the Lord as sort of a indigenous God of restrained power that his hand would not reach as
One of the many choices he makes is the decision for others to decide. At first he wants the ability for people to choose what they want, but he later decides it would be unsafe if people choose their own mate and job. The following quote states: “It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it? The Giver asked him Jonas nodded… ‘Or what if... they choose their own jobs?’ ‘Frightening, isn’t it?’ The Giver said Jonah chuckled. ‘Very frightening. I can’t even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices” (Lowry, 124). A second choice he makes about keeping the community safe is agreeing to what the Giver told the Elders about adding an extra child to a family unit. He first thought it was a good idea, but the Giver said that there could be famine and starvation and with Jonah already knowing about the hunger he willingly agreed. A final choice is Jonah agreed to letting the pilot go. In the novel the Elders were prepared to shoot it down, but advice from the Giver told them to wait. In the novel, it states “Do you remember the day when the plane flew over the community? ‘Yes. I was scared’ ‘So were they. They prepared to shoot it down, but they sought my advice. I told them to wait… I used my wisdom, from the memories. I knew that there had been times in the past—terrible times– when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought down their own
He begs to cease his anger and to not destroy sinners this way. “I God, am called to vengeance. It’s my pleasure to take revenge on sin and wickedness. I shall give my signs to the dying, let them take steps to provide for the
Jonah was given the task of delivering God’s message of impending judgment to a society that Jonah despised.
Dr. Bledsoe is extremely enraged because he I shocked that the narrator refused to lie to Mr. Norton and took him to the slum, I which the uneducated black people reside, thus showing Mr. Norton a different type of black person, one which brings shame to the college in the eyes of Dr. Bledsoe.
John Walton’s The Object Lesson on Jonah 4:5-7 and the Purpose of the Book of Jonah is a very enlightening work of research. In this article, Walton seeks to reveal to us that Jonah chapter four and particularly the object lesson in verses 5-7, holds the key to our understanding of the purpose of the book of Jonah. He highlights Jonah’s anger which is caused by how God responds to Nineveh’s repentance. Walton also reveals to us the significance of the author’s intended purpose for including this incidence in the book. He concludes that the message of Jonah is a theological message. Before reading this article, I must admit that my understanding of Jonah has always been from a missiological perspective. I had never considered the fact that the
Before he went to the island of San Lorenzo, Jonah was floating on a cloud, not really paying attention to too much detail. However, as he met more people on the island things started to click for him, and he was able to make sense out of some of the puzzle that would eventually become his book. Jonah also makes some dumb mistakes, just like humans do. I don't think that his agreeing to become the president of San Lorenzo was a smart move, but at the time all he could think about was marrying Mona, and that in itself was enough motivation for him. "Love is blind" is a very popular saying, and it rings true in most humans, and in this case, Jonah.
The prophet Jonah was an angry, hateful man who lived in eighth century B.C. During the reign of King Jeroboam II, he was commission by God to go to Nineveh and tell them to repent of their wicked ways. While it is not known, who wrote the book of Jonah is it widely believed to be have been penned by the prophet himself. The passage I have chosen takes place after the people of Nineveh repent and God has shown compassion for them. Jonah is stubbornly angry at God’s compassion and leaves Nineveh. The passage picks up with Jonah sulking on a hill overlooking the city.
Friend… what has God been tugging on your heart about, and you haven’t obeyed Him yet? The temptation could be to join Jonah in his downward spiral, to turn away from the rich life God desires for
Do to the idolatry in the days of Abraham, God love for his people and his wiliness that none shall perish he gives a mandate to Abraham to become a blessing to the world as a whole. The only this could be done was that Abraham had to embrace the call which was the first part, but not only that he had to accomplish the promise God. The last one before mention would be that of Jonah. A man that would have a world win view of how to obey the call of He that is greater. Jonah one that was given a message that had the power to change a nation of people that was not of his lineage, but yet the same were the calling of God. Would take upon himself to know the mind of God and would become disobedient to his calling and go the oppose way from where God sent him. Jonah would be the first to show that disobedient will not be tolerated by God. The book of Jonah tells the story of a unenthusiastic missionary who resisted the calling of his life, by not being obedient to his calling by denying a people that was racial and culturally different from him, by not giving what he was called to deliver. The love that God has for humanity is evident throughout the Old Testament, and reflected through his passion for mission. God's heart is reflected
God called Jonah to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry aginst it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” (Jon 1:2) Jonah fled Gods calling to Tarshish. During his escape a great storm came upon the boat that he was on. So the crew cast him into the sea where “the lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” In Matthew 12:40 Jesus refrences this as “Jonah being in a whales belly for three days.” While in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed to God to let him out. “the Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land”.(Jon 2:10) Jonah then went to Ninevah “and cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”( Jon 3:4). Ninevah repented and turned back to God and he showed mercy. Jonah was still angry because God showed this savage nation mercy. God then explained to Jonah that everyone needs mercy even your greatest
“Jonah, by contrast preaches a short, reluctant sermon in Nineveh (of all places!) and the entire city repents, from the greatest to the least.” (Hays,2010, P.171). “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.” (Bible.org, N.D). repentance to me is the social justice part, If God’s people repents He will heal the land. The bible says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2nd chronicles 7:14).
2. Background and Introduction: Jonah was instructed by God to go to Nineveh and preach the message of repentance to them.
In addition, the city of Nineveh is described in Nahum as “bloody, full of deceit, and full of plunder” (Bolin 117). The Ninevites’ actions therefore justified Jonah’s decision to disobey God’s command because of how ruthless they were. The nature of the great city disgusted Jonah and made him believe that the Ninevites were not worthy of God’s forgiveness. Although Jonah’s intuition to ignore God’s command seems admissible, we later learn that it is not up to Jonah to determine the Ninevites’ fate.