Jonah 1: When God gives a mission, don't give your own version

The book of Jonah, while short simple to follow, contains a wealth of lessons for us Christians. It highlights God's love, forgiveness and mercy on those who love Him... and on those who don't!

We find several characters in this story who will play important roles in the story. God, of course, is the main man, as with all other books in the Bible. He calls His prophet, Jonah, who decides not to do what God wants.

Jonah runs away from the mission (literally in the opposite direction), and even pays to get on a ship to go someplace far. There, he meets some sailors, who worship other gods.

When God sends a storm, Jonah confesses that his disobedience is the cause of the storm, and the sailors eventually throw him off to save the ship from disaster.

Jonah gets swallowed by a big fish, where he prays. After three days, God tells the fish to spit Jonah out. Jonah finally goes into Nineveh and preaches. It is surprising that the Ninevites and their king respond positively, and repent.

After Jonah leaves, he finds a spot to sit, where he could watch the city of Nineveh (he was waiting for God to do something to the Ninevites).

Out of nothing, God puts a plant to protect Jonah from the heavy heat, which makes Jonah very happy. Only a day later, though, a worm destroys the plant, and Jonah gets angry. The story ends abruptly after God explains His mercy to Jonah.

While there are arguments that the story is fiction not to be taken as factual, it is completely possible that these things happened. Jonah was a real person – and a real prophet who spoke on God’s behalf – who really did exist.

In the second book of Kings, Jonah gave God’s word to Jeroboam II, who listened, and “recovered the territories of Israel between Lebo-hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had promised…” (2 Kings 14:25).

Jonah must have also been quite a popular figure. In the New Testament, Jesus Himself compares Himself to the prophet (Mt 12:38-41).

What is it about Jonah that he deserves four chapters, one book, in the Bible? What can these four chapters, 47 verses in all, do for us, who live in today’s society? Maybe you, like I did, think you know the story, but a closer look will prove that this ocean is deeper than we thought.

God gives the mission, don’t give your own version
God gives Jonah a mission: to preach to the people of Nineveh (in Assyria). It was obviously not something out of Jonah’s prophetic calling. He was pretty good at his vocation. Why did he run away then? It was not because he didn’t love God. It was because he loved himself more than he loved God. He decided (and overruled God’s choice along the way) that the Ninevites did not deserve forgiveness. Assyria was the dominant power of those days, threatening to overpower Israel – it was pointless to forgive people who were rooted in evil and hungry for world dominance.

It was only natural that Jonah would have wanted them destroyed so that his own life may be spared. Furthermore, if the people of Israel had heard about Jonah going to preach and save the Ninevites, what would they have thought of him and what would they have done to him? Lastly, it is not logical the Ninevites would listen to an Israelite preach repentance. Oh yes, Jonah loved God. He just loved himself more.

Like many of us would today, Jonah had talent and was gifted, but he preferred to choose how he would serve God and who he would preach to. We also tend to forget that, some times – many times – God wants to use us to help our enemies! We also tend to walk away from trouble, from difficulty, from His mission.

Through his experience, he would experience several types of people who would reveal a little more to us, about discipleship and conversion.

The gods must be crazy
The first group of people he encountered while running away was an interesting bunch. These were sailors on the ship who worshipped “their own gods” (Jon 2:5). They obviously did not belong to the one true God of Israel. When the storm comes (thank you, Jonah), they start to offload their items into the waters and praying to their own gods.

They were probably praying to the god of the waters, and to the god of the sky, and the god of the winds! Wouldn’t this be such a slap in the face for these ‘gods’? They are ‘in-charge’ of the section, but they had absolutely no power over it. Are we guilty of worshipping other gods? Grades, money, friends make up a little of our happiness, but they have little power compared to God.

We know that Jonah was “fast asleep” (Jon 1:5), but was it because he was tired? It wasn’t logical at all! The waters were choppy; the ship was violently shaking to a “point of breaking up” (Jon 1:4). Anyone who could sleep though that, would be dead (in every sense of the word! He was trying to ignore the problems he had caused. He was still trying to “run away” from it. Are we asleep in our faith – do we sleep away during mass? Have we been caught not know why we do certain things in church? Is there someone we are being called to reach, but like Jonah, we’re refusing, for one excuse or another?

Here’s the thing about the sailors: when he finally confessed, Jonah suggested being thrown overboard so that the ship would stabilise. What did the sailors do? Many of us would see that they did. But read it carefully, and we’ll realise that they did not want to do it; they were extremely reluctant: “Still, the men rowed hard…” (Jon 1:13).

Killing a man was their last resort! We begin to appreciate this when we remember that these were not “God’s people”. Jonah, who was a prophet and close friend of God’s, couldn’t wait to kill the Ninevites (indirectly), for pathetic reasons, but here we had the sailors who had very good and valid reason to kill, but did not want to. Perhaps we are guilty of being less Christ-like than people who don’t even know Christ?

Jonah described God as “the [One] who made the sea and the dry land” (Jon 1:9). And when he chose to run, he ran to… the sea. The very place God created and had every power over. Aren’t we all guilty of lip-service sometimes? We proclaim Jesus as Lord of our lives, but we try to control everything in our lives.

Still, even when Jonah was in total disobedience, God used his life. When the storm died off, the sailors were “struck with great awe” (Jon 1:16). It is not definitive, but there are clues that point to the sailor’s acceptance and conversion.

They “offered sacrifice” and “made vows” (Jon 1:16) to God. Such is the power of the Lord we serve, that He is able to use someone useless and unwilling positively. How awesome is our God. Poor ‘gods’ of the sea, sky and wind. They sure lost some fans there.

- Updated 20 Jul 2007