May 21, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Jonah? Here’s today’s reading:
Jonah 3-4 (NIV)
Jonah Goes to Nineveh
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”...........Continue Reading
Jonah 3-4 done
Jonah 3:4 is the classic verse: Yet forty days, Ninevah shall be overthrown. Ninevahvites, from the king to peasant, repented, to the glory of God. How great the glory of God, had Pharaoh repented? Romans 9:17 demonstrated God wanted repentance, but Pharaoh would not. God does not want glory by judgment, but repentance. Peace, -gy
Jonah 4:9-11 impresses me, gotta give it to Jonah, he told God just the way he felt, he pulled no punches! So even after Ninevah repented, he was still angry. God made a gourd that brought Jonah comfort and rest. The gourd was destroyed, and Jonah was infuriated. He was double angry!
God did this as an object lesson, for Jonah did nothing to create the gourd, nor destroy it, but he gained physical comfort from it. Yet God did create Ninevah as a people, a city that could not discern right from wrong, and had mercy on them. Ought not Jonah to also have spiritual comfort and rest in the repentance of Ninevah, as he did for the gourd? Just thinking out loud, gy
The message came to Jonah from God a second time. This time Jonah obeyed God and preached to the people in Nineveh that unless they repent they all be destroyed. All 120,000 of them. The city of the people repented including the king. At Jonah`s dismay he kept hoping that God would destroy them anyways. When God forgave them, Jonah was very angry toward God. He told God , this is why I went away to Tarshish because I know that you are a gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest of evil. Jonah would had enjoyed their destruction. This reminds me of King David when he sinned against God by numbering the people. 2 Samuel 24 10 and the prophet Gad came to him three choices. 2 Samuel 24; 11–13. David chose to fall into the hand of the Lord who is merciful instead of man who isn`t. verse 14. Even with Jonah`s bad attitude God is patiently trying to teach him and comfort him. In the end God saids to Jonah shouldn`t I have compassion on this people that can`t discern between their right hand or their left hand. According to history this was during the 8th century , probably around 760BC. The Assyrian Empire was from 800 to 612BC. Because of their repentance God delayed His judgement on them. As prophesied by Nahum, Nineveh would be destroyed and they were by the Medes and Chaldeans[ Persians] in 612BC and by 500BC were laid waste. So by this time scale Nineveh had at least 150 years give or take. I used a few of my reference guides. They are; [ Holman Bible Dictionary and The Teacher`s Commentary]. Looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.
We read the whole book of Jonah this morning. I mentioned that Jonah ends on a cliff-hanger and Steve talked about a teaching he heard with the kids at Berea camp one year that he thought was really well done. He said that the teacher posed to the kids the question that God poses to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
Jonah poses many questions that we should put to ourselves:
Do we regard our own personal comfort over the lives of others?
How do we regard God’s forgiveness for others? Are we angry?
Do we withhold God’s message of grace and mercy from those we don’t like or those that have done evil towards us?
I’m sure there are more applications.
Jonah 3-4
Jonah is a book that really forces us to look at ourselves and how well we not just obey God but the things we put before Him. How much are we caught up in our own comfort, our own selfishness really, that we forget the eternal plan of others. It is not for us to worry so much about the temporal things of this life but the eternal and how many people need to hear that there is so much more than this world and yet we let the things of this world distract us from our ultimate purpose here!
I love the questions it leaves us with like Amy mentioned and I think the whole point of this book is really a look at ourselves and how much are we doing to bring glory to God!
God is certainly a God of second (and third and fourth and fifth……) chances. How gracious is He to work with us until we get it right and do what He can to teach us what we need for our lives. Jonah is unique in being a disappointed successful evangelist. But when we understand that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, one of the more brutal empires the world has known, who terrorized Israel, we get some understanding of Jonah’s regret. And so it does beg the question, who would we rather not see saved? But what a statement of God’s mercy to send Jonah and it is interesting to see Jonah knew that about God. It is humorous to hear Jonah speak the way he does about his knowing God was going to save them and that is why he fled. And yet Jonah takes a front row seat to see if He actually does…wishing all the time that judgement will come on them. But wow did the city recognize their sin and humble themselves before God. May all who hear our words from God repent in such a way….hearing, believing and changing!
But like a spoiled brat, Jonah stomps his feet and wishes He were dead. And in a “where are you Adam?” sort of way, God asks, “do you really have the right to be angry?” And the God who always finds ways to teach us gives Jonah an object lesson by growing and then destroying a plant. And asks again, “do you really have a right to be angry?” In the same way Jonah cares about the plant, God cares about the city of Nineveh, especially those who don’t know about or are not complicit in the evil that Assyria has done….and there are 120,000 of those in the city…and the cattle and other animals are not evil either. So in the same way Jonah is upset about the plant being destroyed, God would be “upset” if He destroyed Nineveh. SO He had to at least give them a chance to repent…because people are always more important than plants…..
The people of Nineveh did what God commanded of them, and as a result, they were saved. But Jonah continued to have resentment against the city, and this caused him to feel very depressed. We must not let anger and bitterness towards the wicked bring us down. Sometimes this happens to me when I watch or read the news excessively. I must be careful not to dwell upon the evil and injustice that is prevalent in the world today. And take the time to pray about these things, and focus on what the will of God is for me each day.
Amen, Shelly!