FirstBlog

  Jonah Chapter 3 & 4 3:1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”   3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.   6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:   “By the decree of the king and his nobles:   Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them

              Chapter two and we find our "hero" trapped in the belly of a fish. Think about how that must have smelled, and felt. Imagine the fe4ar Jonah felt-- surely death was next on his agenda! Jonah is fearful for his life and pens his fear a poem:  “In my distress I called to the  Lord ,      and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,      and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths,      into the very heart of the seas,      and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers      swept over me.   I said, ‘I have been banished      from your sight; yet I will look again      toward your holy temple.’   The engulfing waters threatened me,      the deep surrounded me;      seaweed was wrapped around my head.   To the roots of the mountains I sank down;      the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you,  Lord  my God,      brought my life up from the pit.   “When my life was ebbing away,

  Because there is so much to unpack with Jonah, I'm going to do this in three parts.  Nearly everyone has heard the story of Jonah and the whale. In fact, I would argue that it's one of the most popular stories in the biblical canon, both in and out of the church. The story of Jonah is one of those that many scholars wonder reflects a literal account or a piece used to teach a lesson. Understanding Hebrew and Torah culture, many stories were revered for the veracity of the lesson taught, over the veracity of what actually happened. In the case of Jonah, whether it's a literal story or an allegory, the lessons in it are profound, convicting and even disturbing.  In many ways, I feel like Jonah-- maybe you do too. As we dive into the text, maybe ask yourself how much like Jonah you are and what you can do to work on yourself. The fact that the story ends with God chastising Jonah is unsettling, but, in many ways, stories like this prove the veracity of the Bible. By painting