Jonah Compare And Contrast Essay

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

Jonah was a faithful servant of God, living among his own people and sharing God’s words for them. Then God suddenly asks him to do something that was a little outside the norm.

The book of Jonah is the story of God’s plan of redemption for mankind. It is a book that has received much criticism from many who would question the historicity of the book and has received heavy debate regarding different aspects within the book, from the conversion of the sailors, to the cause of Jonah’s anger over the city of Nineveh being spared.

He spoke of how Jonah was very determined to disobey God. Jonah said, “He would rather die, than do what God told him to do.” Stowell explained that God does not let one get away with that type of thinking. The story of Jonah described how he planned to disobey God and not follow His instructions. Jonah was so committed to not follow

In the Hebrew Bible, due to its anthological nature, there are a wide variety of viewpoints that are expressed from different periods of time. While some books have mainly a negative view on foreign nations and peoples, there are a few that are somewhat positive. The books of Joshua, Jonah, and Esther all illustrate distinct perspectives and approaches that the Israelites had to people of foreign nations, which help to create an overall picture of the different beliefs that the various authors of the Hebrew Bible carried.

Jonah is one of the more well-known books in the Old Testament, as it contains a familiar story to Christians and non-Christians alike. As a child growing up, most of us would be familiar with the story of Jonah and his being swallowed up by the fish. Even many non-Christians I know who did not grow up in church have made mention of this Biblical story. While the story of Jonah and the fish is often romanticized or even changed (i.e. changing the fish to a whale), the story and moral lesson contained within it is incredibly applicable both to the Israelites of Jonah’s time, as well as to us today. Jonah is believed to have ministered around the time of 746-786 BC due to a reference in 2 Kings 14:23-25 of, “Jonah, son of Amittai” (Hays 299). Despite the events contained with the book happening before the Assyrian conquest, it is easy to sense the tension between the Israelites and the Assyrians when reading the book of Jonah.

Obadiah & Jonah they had become something that God did not like. God is a great illustrator. He is always using pictures for us so that we can understand truth more easily, more graphically. We are children in this respect. We like to have a picture. We would rather see something than hear it, so God has many pictures. He has taken these two men and the subsequent nations that came from them and used them through the Bible as a consistent picture of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit.

The book of Jonah is short, compassing four brief chapters of 48 verses. Despite brevity, it is a powerful story of God’s grace to Gentiles and a reflective study into God’s character and mercy. Jonah is a story of contrasts. It reveals God’s greatness and man’s pettiness. God was gracious and Jonah peevish. It is a story of repentance. The sailors repented from following false gods to trusting the one true God. Jonah repented from fleeing God to obeying Him. The Ninevites repented from wickedness to righteousness. Some think God is absent from the world’s affairs and that the world goes on unnoticed by Him.  Jonah 1:1-2 should arrest one’s attention. God is aware of all man does. In most cases, He allows man to do as he will and

We see that Jonah himself states that God is "compassionate, merciful and forgiving," "slow to become angry," and "rich in love." Unfortunately, God's love, mercy and grace is set against Jonah himself, who is a mobile representation of judgment and unforgiveness. Another real topic in chapter four is the strangeness of human childishness and self-importance. Jonah’s heart was hard to the lives of the Ninevites; he needed to see them annihilated. He didn't understand the value of human life given that all individuals are made in the image of God. Thusly, he place value into a plant over a huge number of individuals essentially so he could have some shade. The content uses Jonah's state of mind and activities as a protest lesson that depicts how hard our hearts can be; and to the point at which we judge our adversaries instead of offering

After giving his speech here in this very town, Jonah left to go PREACH TO NINEVEH! Nineveh is a horrible town of beastial people he claims that God told him to do so…He then sets out on his journey to preach to the Ninevites. But, first he needed a ship he gets “the pirates who don’t do anything” to take him to a different place because he was scared…but one night a terrible storm came and they found out Jonah was running. “The pirates who don’t do anything threw him overboard! After that he got swallowed up by a whale sadly… but wait, He was then spit out…AT NINEVEH! He preached to the masses and they turned to God, and a legend was

In Sunday school I learned about Jonah; he was one of God’s prophets who was supposed to warn the Ninevites of their destruction if they didn’t change their ways in forty days. Even when Jonah ran away, God commanded a whale to swallow him so that he could reflect on his selfish acts and preach God’s word to those who needed to hear it. After his release, Jonah did what was previously instructed to do without complaint. Jonah was pleased with his actions until he realized that God would not smite them all; so he became filled with anger, allowing God the opportunity to teach him a lesson so that he would understand why God couldn’t destroy a whole city of people.

Memory Verse: "Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this?" (Jonah 1:10a).

When Jonah was aboard the ship headed for Tarshish, the Lord provided a great storm to prevent the boat from reaching Tarshish. Instantly Jonah knew the outburst of this storm was his fault. So he said “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” This act of selflessness is similar to the event in Jesus’s life when he sacrifices himself on the cross. “When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.” Jesus’s sacrifice ensured that humanity would be saved and enter into a new everlasting relationship with God. Similarly, Jonah saved his shipmates from a potential shipwreck by casting himself into the sea. This shows that Jonah is like Jesus because he sacrifices himself to save

Jonah is one of the books of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. The main character Jonah was called by God to prophesy against wickedness in the great city of Nineveh. The themes are obedience, compassion, love, mercy, and salvation. Jonah refused God’s calling, boarding a ship to Tarshish in an attempt to flee from the presence of God. A fierce storm tossed the ship causing Jonah to be thrown overboard. Jonah was swallowed by a great fish where he cried unto the Lord. Graciously, God heard his cry and delivered him. When Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of the fish, he served as a symbol of Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. Jonah quickly obeyed God by prophesying to Nineveh. Although the city’s inhabitants

We often read stories in the Bible without taking the historical context into consideration. As a result, we become unaware of the story’s historical validity. In some cases, stories are used to share a moral concept, or used as a tool to teach a lesson. The Book of Jonah is an example that will be used to determine if this particular story describes an accurate recount of history, or if it teaches the readers a lesson. In the Book of Jonah, Jonah (the prophet) is instructed to go to a pagan city (Nineveh) to preach to the Ninevites, hoping that they will repent for their sins. However, he challenges God and travels to Tarshish instead. Jonah receives consequences for his actions and Nineveh is eventually forgiven by God. Although the