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.

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

Bible Study Notes

A Community to Redeem 

Jonah 3:10 to 4:11 Part II

Jonah 3:10 to 4:4 – Jonah Seethes in Anger

This passage centers upon two central themes, dividing evenly between Jonah’s fury over the Lord’s forgiveness of the Ninevites and our Heavenly Father’s enduing desire to teach humankind to love each other as He does.  The final verse of the third chapter details the success of Jonah’s preaching and the subsequent repentance and revival.  The Ninevites’ religious reforms successfully engender the mercy of Almighty God.  Surprisingly, Jonah is not pleased with the results of his preaching or God’s responses to the Ninevites.  Rather than relishing in this monumental and unparalleled spiritual success, Jonah ignites and nourishes his anger which represents his maniacal thirst for the annihilation of the city of Nineveh.  Nonetheless, God steadfastly teaches Jonah the radical, scandalous and incredulous nature of His love.  Moreover, although Jonah relegates the Ninevites to being worthless in terms of his time, talent, treasure and temperament, God perpetually sees them as a community to redeem.

Why does Jonah waste so much emotion fretting over his unfulfilled expectations of doom in Nineveh?  Initially, you assume Jonah does not wish to go on this missionary journey because he thinks he will fail.  Now that he succeeds, we understand his negative assumptions about the odds of success actually cloak his prejudice toward the people.  He thinks they are beneath him and people like him.  Jonah reveals his heart felt thoughts when he frankly discloses to God in prayer his contempt for the Ninevites.  “O lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?  That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.”  More significantly, Jonah did not want to travel to Nineveh to announce gloom and doom because he correctly suspects in the final analysis the Lord’s heart would yield to the repentance and humility of the people.  If God were going to destroy the Ninevites, He did not need Jonah to travel to the city and preach a very bleak sermon.  Also, if their repentance could constrain the mighty and avenging hand of God, then the trip was equally unnecessary.  Essentially, Jonah reasons this missionary expedition is appropriate if the Ninevites received their due punishment and the Lord air lifts Jonah out of the city before the onslaught of any hellfire and brimstone.

Startlingly, Jonah castigates God for being “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”  In seeking to denigrate God’s attributes of love, mercy and kindness, Jonah ironically describes a wonderful and majestic Heavenly Father whose infinite grace and compassion extends to a thousand generations forevermore.  Additionally, Jonah’s tirade discloses God’s patience toward humankind.  God is longsuffering in His willingness and capacity to wait for us to choose to live in right relationship with Him.  Having created us in His image and with the express desire of enjoying holy fellowship with us, God does not desire to punish us unnecessarily.  Like earthly parents who thoroughly enjoy friendship and communication with respectful, obedient, likeable and loving children, Almighty God greatly wants us “to get it right” with Him.  Accordingly, He quickly forgives when we are sincere about repentance and reestablishing our relationship with Him.

After defining those magnificent divine characteristics, Jonah prays for His death. Jonah determines he would be better off dead than alive.  The Ninevite revival disgusts the prophet to the degree of actually pleading with the Lord to take his own life.  Notice Jonah’s pathology grows to the insanity that he persuades himself that his one life holds greater worth than the collective lives of 120,000 citizens of Nineveh.  Examine how deeply twisted racial and religious discrimination can poison the minds and hearts of otherwise well-meaning believers!

The Lord asks Jonah about the prophet’s righteous indignation.  “Have you any right to be angry?”  It stands to reason that Jonah previously experienced immeasurable grace, mercy and love from God.  In the preceding chapter, he receives a blessed second chance after his stint in the belly of whale.  Should not Jonah’s thankfulness have motivated him to appreciate the revival in Nineveh?  Does he believe only Israel comprises the singular people to whom God bestows His compassion?  Jonah cloaks his cultural and religious chauvinism under the socially and theologically respectable designer garments of holy anger.  He posits God is wasting the divine self upon people who cannot appreciate such an incalculable gift.  However, God’s question reminds and exhorts Jonah the same God who had sympathy upon Jonah also loves the Ninevites with similar kindness.  What right does Jonah have to be angry?

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

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.  Imagine Jonah’s disdain and disregard for a city of one hundred and twenty thousand people (120,000) plus livestock!  Consider further the fact that Jonah is an anointed and commissioned prophet of God.  How do we balance his divine office with the utter indifference Jonah’s holds in his heart for the Ninevites? 

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.