Jonah: Every Which Way But Right

Jonah’s book is short, only four chapters long, and what we know of his ministry is consigned to this brief account. He is not remembered like the other prophets of old: not like Moses, who was faithful as a servant in all God’s house (Heb. 3:5), not like Isaiah, who was so aware of his sinfulness that he declared himself a ruined man when he saw God in His temple (Isa. 6:1-13), not like Elisha, who understood God’s ministry extended beyond the people of Israel to their pagan enemies around them (2 Kgs. 5).

Yes, Jonah is remembered as the man who was swallowed by a fish, and vomited to the land God called him to go to, because he is the prophet who ran away from the LORD (Jon. 1:3).

It is easy to look at Jonah, to shake our heads, and wonder: how could he be so foolish to try and run from the Living God? How could he be a prophet, with such a selfish inclination towards his plans, his wants, and his desires? And how could his heart be so callous, to know and understand that God does not delight in the death of the wicked, and yet somehow still yearn for their deaths when God sends him to call his enemies to repentance?

We do not know Jonah’s ministry before his call to Nineveh, but we know he understood exactly who God was. Jonah knew that God would relent in the destruction He had threatened against this city when He saw how the people turned from their evil ways. Jonah knew that God is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jon. 3:10-4:2). He speaks these things from his very mouth. The book of Jonah does not leave us in question as to whether Jonah knows God. We are left with the understanding that he does. But for all his knowledge, his heart is nothing like the LORD’s.

We are called to go into a dying world and proclaim the Gospel of Christ anywhere, at anytime, and at any cost. He has called us into the marketplace, into society, into the homes of our friends and of our enemies. It is easy to go somewhere when that somewhere is safe and filled with people who are easy to love. It is much harder when that somewhere He has called us is filled with people who have hurt us or the people we care for, and is much harder when that place or those people are ones we know that others will look at, shake their heads, and simply ask us why?

Why? Because every man and woman who does not know Christ is one “who cannot tell their right hand from their left,” and indeed, God has great concern about these ones who remain separated and without Christ to reconcile them to Him (Jon. 4:10).

We know so much of God, and we know Jesus commands us to go.

But will we listen?