“The final verses of the book tell us that the mark of those who have been immersed in the grace of God is compassion and love, not contempt, for people who aren’t like them. God challenges Jonah for confronting profane, ungodly people without weeping and compassion. Certainly error and evil must be denounced. However, God is both just and loving, and he rebukes Jonah for preaching to the city without loving the city.” – Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet, 224.

“A Jonah lurks in every Christian heart, whimpering his insidious message of smug prejudice, empty traditionalism, and exclusive solidarity. He that has ears to hear, let him hear and allow the saving love of God which has been outpoured in his own heart to remold his thinking and social orientation.” – Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah, 234.

This is a sermon from guest preacher, Gavin Breeden.

Sunday's open discussion.

“Man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit for the grace of Christ. The proper preparation for the grace and goodness of Christ is the awareness that I need them.” – Martin Luther

“Jonah had come face-to-face with death, had experienced God’s grace toward an obstinate rebel, and had affirmed that ‘salvation comes from the LORD.’ Yet he still had the audacity to deny certain groups,… faced with the same reality of death, that same mercy. Thus chapter 2 plays a vital role in the author’s characterization of Jonah by showing, in the larger context of the book, just how inconsistent his double standards really made him.” – Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., Interpreting the Minor Prophets, 126.

“… if there is a God who cares about us, and who wants to reveal himself to us, and to use supernatural events as a pointer to his revelation (which is the most common purpose of these events in the Bible), it makes plenty of sense to suppose that he did so in such a way that there would be testimony, and there is no need to suppose that he would do it afresh in each generation.” – C. John Collins, The God of Miracles, 150.

"God is love. This means more than ‘God is loving’ or that God sometimes loves. It means that he loves, not because he finds objects worthy of his love, but because it is his nature to love. His love for us depends not on what we are, but on what he is. He loves us because he is that kind of God, because he is love.” – Leon Morris, “1 John”, in New Bible Commentary, 1406.

“If we say ‘I believe in Jesus’ but it doesn’t affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard work to our faith so much as that we haven’t truly understood or believed in Jesus at all.” – Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, 124.

“…individualism is a cultural system with many advantages. Yet recent culture seems to have crossed the line from individualism to hyperindividualism. For example, the self-focsued phrases are not just individualistic – they’re also, well, wrong. ‘Just be yourself’ sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. ‘Believe in yourself’ is fine, but ‘anything is possible’? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But ‘you have to love yourself first’ has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.” – Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me, 65.