Bible Study Notes
A Community to Redeem – Jonah 3:10 to
4:11
The Infinite Love of
God for Humankind
What an awesome, amazing and incredible God whom we serve! God’s infinite character extends to His
unconditional and limitless love to humankind.
His heart is big enough to love each and every single one of the seven billion
(7,000,000,000) people on earth. His
love extends freely to every person regardless of race, creed, color,
ethnicity, culture, language, religion, politics or national origin. Unfortunately, many well-meaning believers
confuse God’s love with their personal preferences. They fallaciously and misguidedly assume God only
loves the people whom they love. Equally
falsely, they presume God’s judgment extends more greatly to people who are not
like them. Other uninformed believers choose
to love people whose values and mannerisms are most similar to their own. They mistakenly suspect God mimics their
behavior as it relates to loving others.
In contrast, multiple biblical writers reveal an ever-present, all-kind,
all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving God whose affections for humankind
does not adjust to the limited and often erroneous ways in which we relate to
each other.
Biblical Background
Biblical authors in the Old and New Testaments depict a loving Heavenly
Father who liberally supports humankind with an unfailing love. People who genuinely apprehend and comprehend
God’s unqualified love possess its ability to share with others without
condition. The book of Ruth tells the
story of a Moabite woman who learns of God’s love from her marriage to a Jewish
man whose mother in turn extends to her widowed daughter-in-law the grace,
compassion and love of Almighty God. Rahab,
a prostitute, helps the Israelite spies as they conquer the Promised Land. They, in gratitude, show her and her family
God’s love. Actually, she ends up in the
genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
story of “The Good Samaritan” in the gospel of Luke demonstrates that God’s
love transcends religion, race and culture as two priests (contemporarily Christian
pastors) pass by a man in distress; the interracial Samaritan (descendant of
both the Assyrians and the Israelites) whom the Jews despised had compassion on
the victim on the Jericho road. The
great apostle of love in John’s gospel says God’s love in Jesus Christ is
available to whosoever believes. The
apostle Paul prays the Ephesians will know the height and depth as well as the
length and width of the love of Christ. Paul’s description equates with infinity of
the universe. This image perfectly
symbolizes God’s love has no limits.
In this passage, we observe the prophet, Jonah, who insists God should
reserve His love for people who are most deserving of it. Jonah actually becomes very angry toward God
for squandering His compassion upon the Ninevites. Although he eventually relents and obeys
God’s call, Jonah harbors a twisted and gleeful expectation in his heart that God
will destroy the city of Nineveh
Jonah’s hard hearted attitude provides a mirror with which we examine
our understanding of God’s love. As
committed disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, do we esteem all people
throughout the world as equal recipients of God’s love regardless of their personal
and national histories? Spiritual
maturity equips us with desire and willingness to show God’s love, pardon and
compassion to all people. Nevertheless,
Jonah pitifully determines a withering vine which provides him shade possesses greater
worth than the entire population of a small city. Perhaps, we like Jonah only assign value to
people who directly enhance our lives.
Usually, they are people who look, act, speak, dress and live just like
us. But, people whose lifestyles differ
from ours are children of God, too. Our
second lesson of this disgruntled prophet provides another chance to consider
the many ways, intentionally and unintentionally, we regrettably imitate
Jonah’s loveless behavior.
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