What Does The Book of Jonah Say About God's Mercy and Righteousness?
Posted: Sunday, May 17, 2009
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
We often think that missions started with the Great Commission that Jesus gave the disciples after His resurrection. However, centuries before the first Christian missionaries were sent, God already commissioned messengers who were to proclaim His Word to the world.
The Book of Jonah relates the unique experiences of an extremely reluctant missionary. Before we excoriate the messenger, we would probably do well to take a look at the situation that prompted him to flee from his task.
As Old Testament scholar Samuel J. Schultz writes, "From the human standpoint Assyria was the last place any Israeli would choose for a missionary venture" (The Old Testament Speaks, 5 th edition. San francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, p. 380).
Yet God called Jonah to proclaim His message to Assyria. Unlike the other prophets in the Old Testament, Jonah refused to comply with the commission and fled into the opposite direction. Instead of going east, Jonah found a ship going west towards Tarshish. After a remarkable voyage, Jonah finally found himself obeying God, albeit reluctantly.
Jonah preached and the Assyrians repented of their bad deeds. When the reluctant prophet realised that God was not going to punish the heathen for their sins, he prayed,
Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live! (Jonah 4:2-3, New King James Version.)
Jonah knew what God was like. While the Lord is righteous and punishes sin, He is also graceful and merciful and wants to save all people all those who are willing to swallow their pride and turn to Him in true repentance, like the Assyrians did.
God had to give Jonah a lesson on His true nature. After Jonah lamented the destruction of a plant that had given him shade, the Lord said,
You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left-and much livestock? (Jonah 4:10-11, NKJV.)
It is interesting that right in the middle of the Islamic world, there still exists a considerable Christian enclave the Assyrian Church in modern Iraq. It is possible that seven or eight centuries later, i.e. during the early Christian era, the Assyrians still remembered that God had sent a messenger to their country to proclaim His word to them, and this made it easier for them to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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