Jonah Was a Jerk!

[n david]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

The Ninevites were funded by the CIA?

John McCain was seen meeting with them ...

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by n david

John McCain was seen meeting with them ...

Wow that's deep.

[n david]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Jonah believed the Nenevites were not worthy of God’s mercy. I have studied this and I don’t have a source but, the way I understand it the Ninevites were incredibly mean, cruel people. The comparison would be similar to the Isis of today. Jonah did NOT want to be any part of their salvation. God scolded him for caring more for the gourd plant that had shaded him, when it withered and died than he did for the 120,000 people and the cattle.

Good thoughts, and when you compare the cruelty of the Ninevites to that of isis, I can't say I would blame Jonah. Perhaps I would have been the jerk, would I have been Jonah.

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Do we sometimes feel like some people are not worthy of salvation, while others are “too good to be lost “?


I used to have thoughts like this, but this story convicted me of believing this way.

Reading the book and the comments here, it is a bit convicting.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Do we sometimes feel like some people are not worthy of salvation...

Matthew 10:37-38 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (38) And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Matthew 22:8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.

Luke 20:35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:

Luke 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

2 Thessalonians 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

2 Thessalonians 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

Revelation 3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.

Revelation 16:6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

[Aquila]

I believe references regarding worthiness should first be used for us to check ourselves, not to render a judgment about others. Next, it should be applied to those aspiring to leadership. And finally within the body, those who continue in willful disobedience.

I don't know how much of this is true, but I was told...

I had been told that Ninevites worshipped a fish-like god. And so, after the great fish (whale) had spat Jonah up on dry ground, God called him to go forth and prophesy, the people not only heard his message, but saw that he was draped in sea weed and covered in fish bile. Rumors of this prophet being delivered up on the beach from a fish also spoke to their superstitions, and this caused them to heed Jonah's words because it looked like Jonah's God had total control over the sea, and provided Jonah taxi service in the belly of a fish, demonstrating God's authority over the sea, proving their God false. And that's why they didn't kill Jonah on sight and repented so readily.

God used Jonah's desire to go to Tarshish to set up what it would take to bring the city to repentance, because God wanted to spare them and give mercy. However, Jonah wanted to see them perish.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Foreshadowing the Judeans dispising the Romans coming into the church. So much that they wanted them to be circumcised to be physically part of Israel. So, they could continue in the Law. Jonah hated the Ninevites they were uncircumcised, they had no covenantal right to mercy. They were equal to rocks, and beasts of the field. Dogs, yapping at the heels of Israel. Jonah hated the Niveites because they weren't of Israel.

I also think of the Apostle Paul, who was zealous for the Law and couldn't accept the New Covenant which they called "the Way". Acts 9:2

I think there were people who were selfish jerks and those that held so tightly to the Law that they would have laid down their life for it as Saul/Paul appeared to be prepared to do later. He was assuredly protecting the LAW against the Way at all costs.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Aquila

I believe references regarding worthiness should first be used for us to check ourselves, not to render a judgment about others. Next, it should be applied to those aspiring to leadership. And finally within the body, those who continue in willful disobedience.

I don't know how much of this is true, but I was told...

I had been told that Ninevites worshipped a fish-like god. And so, after the great fish (whale) had spat Jonah up on dry ground, God called him to go forth and prophesy, the people not only heard his message, but saw that he was draped in sea weed and covered in fish bile. Rumors of this prophet being delivered up on the beach from a fish also spoke to their superstitions, and this caused them to heed Jonah's words because it looked like Jonah's God had total control over the sea, and provided Jonah taxi service in the belly of a fish, demonstrating God's authority over the sea, proving their God false. And that's why they didn't kill Jonah on sight and repented so readily.

God used Jonah's desire to go to Tarshish to set up what it would take to bring the city to repentance, because God wanted to spare them and give mercy. However, Jonah wanted to see them perish.

I was thinking about a comment I heard Jeff Arnold say - Words to effect - "You are stupid for not liking me, because God LOVES me. How does someone hate what God loves?"

Same with Jonah and Tarshish. How could Jonah hate what God loved?

Psalm 36:6 "Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, LORD, preserve both people and animals."

Psalm 145:9 "The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made."

Or maybe we don't understand that he felt that Tarshish would have a shallow repentance and come after them later. Maybe he didn't want to be viewed as a false prophet.

[BuckeyeBukaroo]

It was always my understanding that Jonah just didn't want God to forgive them because they were abundantly violent cruel, especially to children.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

I also think of the Apostle Paul, who was zealous for the Law and couldn't accept the New Covenant which they called "the Way". Acts 9:2

I think there were people who were selfish jerks and those that held so tightly to the Law that they would have laid down their life for it as Saul/Paul appeared to be prepared to do later. He was assuredly protecting the LAW against the Way at all costs.

[votivesoul]

I'm not saying Jonah was right, but I don't think calling him a jerk tells the full account. Or even calling him a racist bigot. It's more complex than that.

Jonah's people were pretty much annihilated by the Assyrians in or at least by 722 BC. It wasn't a pretty sight. Assyrians used to skin their enemies alive, impale people on poles, and lead their slaves around with fish-hooks through their lips attached to ropes or chains, and otherwise, completely brutalize their conquered subjects.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f4a...d13832cd46.pdf

So, if you are a prophet, and you know the Word of God so far written up to that point, you know the LORD is good and His mercy endures forever, and you know that His prophets of old have ever spoken of His great grace and steadfast love, even for heathens.

So, deep down, you know that God could very well spare the heathen Ninevites, and grant them mercy in repentance, because that's something God has been doing with your people since day one, even when your people have acted worse than the heathens surrounding your nation.

So, you know it down to the core of your being, but you just can't bring yourself to desire to see it come to pass, because you know how horrifically your people have suffered under their reign of terror.

Put yourself in his place for a moment. If someone invaded your home, slaughtered as many as they could, raped and pillaged across the land, brutalized your women, your children, your elderly, enslaved however many they didn't outright kill, and took them all away never to be seen or heard from again, and then, sometime after that, God speaks to you and tells you to go and preach to that invading force because He desires to save them from their wickedness: that's Jonah.

And, you could even scale back all of that, and just speak to a home intruder that murders half your family and kidnaps your children, or some other terrible, but closely related crime, then imagine that God tells you to go and visit the perpetrator in prison and share the Gospel with them.

Can you forgive such atrocities so easily and just go and be a saint? If not, does that make you a jerk? A racist bigot? Not at all. It makes you someone so hurt and enraged and inflamed with feelings of hatred, that getting past all of that requires a sovereign, miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, something Jonah wasn't prepared to experience.

The story, therefore, is designed to show us that even though we might be God's people, we sometimes don't understand or refuse to comprehend, the lengths God will go to to save His creation, even when they are at their most vile. So, Jonah teaches us that we must learn to be like God, to forgive the worst humanity has to throw at us, to care more for lost, corrupted, despicable, horrible humans, than our own petty concerns of comfort and religiosity. That even our worst enemies can still repent, while they live, and that their eternal life is more important than the pain or hurt they've caused us.

Because if we don't, there's nothing left for us but being swallowed by Sheol at the bottom of the ocean.