Bible Study Notes - Jonah 3:10 to 4:11 Part III

Bible Study Notes

A Community to Redeem 

Jonah 3:10 to 4:11 Part III

Jonah 4:5-11 – A Definitive Dialogue on Love

In the latter portion of this passage, God uses a vine to demonstrate His love to Jonah.  After uttering his self-aggrandizing prayer about his death, Jonah goes to the eastern part of Nineveh, builds a shelter for himself, sits in the shade and waits to see what develops.  Providentially, a vine grows up over Jonah’s shelter and expands the shade and comfort it supplies.  Jonah, again in total indifference to the Ninevites, excitedly welcomes the vine as it eases his discomfort.  Pause and evaluate just how extensive Jonah’s self-seeking ways are. 

The next morning, the Lord afflicts Jonah’s by sending a worm which chews upon the vine, thereby causing it to wither.  The rising sun and scorching east wind eliminate any comfort Jonah previously had.  The blazing sun makes the prophet faint.  In fact, it coerces him to repeat his prayer for death.  Ignoring God as he persists within his oblivious attitude toward the Ninevites, Jonah once more thinks only of his needs.  Jonah cannot see God’s will within His mission to the Ninevites.  For that reason, God once more reproves Jonah by asking whether the prophet has the right to be angry about the vine that disappears as quickly as it grew.  Not surprisingly, Jonah steadfastly defends his right to be angry about the vine.  It stands to reasons his enraged emotions continually include his disdain for the Ninevites and the mercy God extends to them.  Jonah’s stubbornness exposes the spiritual bankruptcy in which he operates as a prophet.  His displeasure about the dead vine culminates in a suicidal rage because of the loss of shade in the blazing sun.  Yet, he never finds concerns about the potential loss of one hundred and twenty thousand (120,000) lives.

The Lord finishes this exchange about love with Jonah with sharing clues about the basis of His forbearance toward the Ninevites.  He describes them as a people incapable of distinguishing their left and right hands.  How could God justly condemn them given their extensive moral, ethical and spiritual ignorance?  Incredulously, Jonah maintains the loss of the vine which comforts him means more than the collectivity of the citizens of Nineveh.  God’s final question to Jonah reveals the Ninevites as “A Community to Redeem.”  If they are spiritually blind and practically hopeless, then are they not in need of wholesale transformation?  Those hard facts compel a loving, merciful and kind deity to show His compassion rather uncritical and unrestrained judgment.

This dialogue about sacrificial, selfless and redemptive love instructs us as we consider people whom we wrongfully judge and negatively describe; they really comprise communities in need of redemption.  The U. S. Census Bureau and the U. S. Department of Justice publishes annual statistics about the quality of life and different types of crime in local municipalities.  We often associate these pathological stats with certain races, cultures and socio-economic classes.  The two million people who are incarcerated in the United States, the largest raw number and percentage of citizens than in any other Western developed country, are a community to redeem.  The millions of children, who are wards of the State, as they pray for permanent adoptive homes while waiting in temporary foster care placements, are a community to redeem.  The millions of students in the public education system who dream of upward social mobility if they graduate from high school and college are a community to redeem.  Like the Ninevites, these hapless people probably have never been taught the love of God.  Instead of “throwing the book at them” with scriptural sanction, the community of believers known as the Church could resist the prevalence of retributive judgment in the dominant culture.  We could esteem their worth as equal to ours.  More importantly, in gratitude for the gift of God’s redeeming love, we could share freely what we receive.

Concluding Reflections

The Church, ecclesia, is the “called out” community of God’s people who uniquely and particularly dedicate their lives for God’s especial purpose.  One connecting link between each member of the Church is the experience of God’s redemptive love.  Although we came from very different walks of life, each of us stood in need of redemption before we came to Christ.  Together, we were a community to redeem.  As we walk progressively with the Lord and fellowship with each other, in order to fulfill “The Great Commission – Matthew 28:16-20,” we reach back and live the love.  We are called to look for communities to redeem just as we were.  Rather than pegging people as pathological statistics, we look at them with the eyes of the heart and spirit. 

Three Personal Objectives

• Evaluate Jonah’s anger (righteous indignation) toward God for His mercy toward the Ninevites.
• Learn to estimate the values of all human beings as equal to your own.
• Practice sharing God’s unlimited and unconditional love with everyone and seeing hurting people as communities to redeem.

Prayer

For the gift of your redeeming love in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee.  Teach us always to recall that we were in need of Your gracious and loving redemption.  Daily remind us we stand perpetually in need of Your sustaining grace, unfailing love and enduring mercy.  Help us, by the power and might of Your Holy Spirit to live our gratitude as channels of Your peace, messengers of Your grace and instruments of Your love.  May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and Redeemer.  Amen.