Introduction to Jonah
The story of Jonah is familiar to most of us as a children’s story about foolishness. What is often not familiar to us is the story of Jonah as a very real story of God’s grace and forgiveness both to His own people and to people who repent because of His message.
Jonah was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel at the height of Israel’s power during the period of the Two Kingdoms. The Book of Jonah tells of God’s call to Jonah to call the city of Nineveh to repentance during a time when that city had descended into great sin.
Within this tale is woven for us examples of man’s arrogance against God, God’s forgiveness of both the elect and sinners when they repent, and God’s mercy toward all mankind, each and every one of us, even when we directly sin against what God wants us to do.
As with all Bible studies, commentaries or guided studies are useful resources to help keep the study on track. A good place to start is with the People’s Bible Commentary available from the Northwest Publishing House of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Here also is a link to a public domain commentary available at BibleGatway.com, the source of the Bible references used in these Bible studies.
This study is part of the three-year Bible study available from the WELS and begun on 1 January 2006 on this weblog.
Context for Jonah 1-2
The prophet Jonah should remind each of us of ourselves. Here is Jonah, a man to whom God directly revealed His will, who chose to do his own thing rather than Gods. In the same way, we have God’s word, in its entirety, available to us, yet how often do we turn away from its clear message to do whatever we want? And in the same way as Jonah, we suffer the consequences of our actions as a result.
Jonah bravely ran away. God called on Jonah to prophecy to the people of Nineveh as to the nature of their sin, but Jonah thought he knew better. Nineveh was an evil city full of people that hated the Jews, why would Jonah want to go there? Maybe if he just ignored God’s command, it would just go away.
Of course, Jonah learned the lesson we should all take heed of, and that is God does not take no as an answer. In the same way that Jonah received God’s divine inspiration, we have received God’s word through the Bible. In the same way, we have the choice to run away from what God tells us or to just do it.
Granted, God will not likely have us swallowed by a fish, but when we are actively resisting God’s clear will for us, He cannot bless us with the strength and perseverance to walk the difficult path we have toward Heaven. And if we cannot walk that path, how can we get where we are trying to go?
Thanks be to God then that He lets us suffer the consequences of our actions. Sometimes those consequences are a fish, sometimes they are just things not turning out the way we knew they should have. Either way, such consequences drive us back to God and to His Word, from which we derive the strength and the courage to do His will.
DLH
