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JONAH: Juxtaposed - How an Unbiblical View of Racism Can Harm a Ministry
Have you ever seen red? No I’m not talking about the color red. I’m talking about being angry. It is believed the term originates with the art of bullfighting and how it seems the read cape of the bullfighter enrages the bull, and causes it to charge. Or have you ever been beside yourself… with anger? People of ancient history believed that under times of great emotional stress, the soul could temporarily leave the body, and exist in close proximity to its host. As silly as it sounds, these characterizations are how we essentially find Jonah at the end of the biblical account of his ministry. In fact, Jonah told God that he was mad enough to die. I guess that’s similar to phrases like “Just shoot me” or “Kill me now” which many people flippantly use today. But believe me, Jonah wasn’t playing. He was so livid he could die (see Jonah 4:3)! But wow! How did a prophet of God get to the point in his life where he was literally angry at people’s positive response to his message...
God sent Jonah on a mission of mercy and grace. Jonah was to preach that Nineveh had 40 days to turn to God from their wicked ways or God would overthrow their city. It wasn’t about restitution or reparations. It was simply about being reconciled to God. We know this by the very last verse of the last chapter of Jonah where God says that there are 120,000 people there who don’t know their left hand from their right. God was interested in the souls of lost Ninevites.
Jonah only saw people that deserved to be punished the way they had punished others. And he was worried that God would give them the same opportunity He had afforded his own people the Jews, though they were never as wicked as the Ninevites, and were usually the ones oppressed by other people.
I’d like to illustrate by saying that Jonah foresaw the wicked, deplorable Ninevites essentially pole-vaulting out of sin, over and across the slime-pit of all of the heinous atrocities they committed in the world (and to the Jews), and right into the loving arms of the God who is not a respecter of persons! And boy! Jonah did not like that!
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By Keith L. BellHave you ever seen red? No I’m not talking about the color red. I’m talking about being angry. It is believed the term originates with the art of bullfighting and how it seems the read cape of the bullfighter enrages the bull, and causes it to charge. Or have you ever been beside yourself… with anger? People of ancient history believed that under times of great emotional stress, the soul could temporarily leave the body, and exist in close proximity to its host. As silly as it sounds, these characterizations are how we essentially find Jonah at the end of the biblical account of his ministry. In fact, Jonah told God that he was mad enough to die. I guess that’s similar to phrases like “Just shoot me” or “Kill me now” which many people flippantly use today. But believe me, Jonah wasn’t playing. He was so livid he could die (see Jonah 4:3)! But wow! How did a prophet of God get to the point in his life where he was literally angry at people’s positive response to his message...
God sent Jonah on a mission of mercy and grace. Jonah was to preach that Nineveh had 40 days to turn to God from their wicked ways or God would overthrow their city. It wasn’t about restitution or reparations. It was simply about being reconciled to God. We know this by the very last verse of the last chapter of Jonah where God says that there are 120,000 people there who don’t know their left hand from their right. God was interested in the souls of lost Ninevites.
Jonah only saw people that deserved to be punished the way they had punished others. And he was worried that God would give them the same opportunity He had afforded his own people the Jews, though they were never as wicked as the Ninevites, and were usually the ones oppressed by other people.
I’d like to illustrate by saying that Jonah foresaw the wicked, deplorable Ninevites essentially pole-vaulting out of sin, over and across the slime-pit of all of the heinous atrocities they committed in the world (and to the Jews), and right into the loving arms of the God who is not a respecter of persons! And boy! Jonah did not like that!