Now it's time for Jonah - you might say "Jonah has been done to death" and I would agree with you but if you'll bear with me - I don't intend to draw a little picture of Jonah in a whale's belly sitting at a table reading the paper with a lamp on.
If you would like to brush up on Jonah he has his own book in your bible and only 4 small chapters so you should be able to woof that down real quick.
I want to write this blog because I think poor old Jonah has been badly maligned by preachers and teachers everywhere as a disobedient naughty boy who got his comeuppance first in the whale and then in the desert with the dying plant. No one mentions that in the book of Nahum 100 years after Jonah, Nahum pronounces the complete annihilation of Nineveh as they were right back at their old tricks again.
Further to that I would like to say that the Ninevites were a very cruel race. They not only killed but they decimated people and spread their body parts in all sorts of places, flaying them and even making pillars of their heads. And I won't say what they did to the women.
So you see it's kind of like asking the Jewish people to go to Germany and preach forgiveness - no one is going to blame them for having some reservations.
In Jonah 4:1-3 he makes it real clear how he feels about it - I knew you would forgive them - and you wanted me to be the one to tell them, I'm disgusted, I saw families slaughtered - God what do you think You are doing?? And I have to go back and face my people as the bearer of the news of their salvation - I'm disgusted!! I would rather die!! ........ Like be honest who is with Jonah here?
Now I know we have to suck up and get over it - but all I am saying is, it is not that easy and when we read the bible we should not do it from a pious point of view casting judgement on them as if they were wooses. We need to place ourselves in their shoes and really get the gravity of what is being asked of us.
The World Needs our Footprints Lov Jen
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