Jonah: A 5-Day DevotionalEgzanp

The Bible tells of a God who delights to show grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness to sinful humanity. Rather than simply turn his back on our rebellion, the Lord continually comes toward us, calling us to turn from our harmful and evil ways and come back to him. And to those who heed his call, he gives a mission: help those around you also to experience his grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness. This is in fact the very mission he gave the Israelites when he called them to be a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6):

As a kingdom of priests, Israel is called to represent the nations before God, to mediate God’s redemptive purpose in the world. A priest stands between God and the people, representing each to the other. . . . Yahweh here summons Israel as an entire nation to act as a priest, a covenantal mediator between him and the rest of the world. In this priestly service, he expects Israel to pray for, love, minister to, and witness to the nations.*

But Jonah has forgotten Israel’s mission entirely. He has no compassion for the nations; he regards them not as potential recipients of God’s mercy but merely as objects of his judgment. He is not interested in their deliverance; he is interested only in their destruction. He cannot imagine a world in which others receive the same mercy and grace as Israel. In NT times, things were often the same. The separation between Jew and Gentile was so strong that at first even the disciples had a hard time understanding that they should go and share the good news of Jesus with the nations (cf. Acts 10:1–11:18). It is perhaps not a coincidence that when Peter first receives his call to share the good news of Jesus with the Gentiles, he is at Joppa (Acts 10:5). The place to which Jonah fled to escape preaching to the Gentiles (Jonah 1:3) is the very place where the Lord makes clear to Peter that he must do so. God cares for all the nations! Christians today may well ask themselves, Do we really believe this to be true? Do we really believe God loves those in Muslim nations? Hindu nations? Buddhist nations? Do we speak of people from these nations as though they really bear God’s image and are in need of his grace? Or do our thoughts and words and deeds betray a different attitude? 

It is natural to ask, Why was Jonah’s attitude so different from the Lord’s? A significant part of the answer is that he had forgotten the depth of his own need for God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness (cf. comment on 4:2–3). Those who forget their need of mercy are the quickest to withhold it from others. Those who forget their experience of God’s forgiveness are the quickest to refuse it to others. Jesus told a parable about a servant who was forgiven much by a king but then refused to extend that same forgiveness to a fellow servant (Matt. 18:23–35). The king was justly furious: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (vv. 32–33). Jesus’ point was clear: If you have received such mercy and forgiveness from the King of heaven, you cannot withhold it from anyone else. 

And this leads to a final point. It was noted above that the book of Jonah ends with a question, one that the reader is forced to answer. Many will want to shout, “Jonah, answer him! Say to him, ‘O Lord, of course you should have such mercy! You have been so merciful to me! How can I not want the same mercy for others? O Lord, of course you should forgive! You have so freely forgiven me! How can I not show the same forgiveness to others?’” 

This is, of course, the right answer. The question that remains is whether it is simply the answer of our lips or whether it is the answer of our lives. Do we really want these things for others? There is an easy way to tell. In Jesus, we have experienced God’s abundant grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness. If we show these same things to everyone we meet, no matter who they are—no  matter their morals, race, nationality, social class, gender, political beliefs, etc.—then we have understood well the lesson of this book and the heart of our Savior. But if we show these things to some people and not to others; if we show these things to those like us but not to those who are different; if we show these things to those we like but not to those we dislike; if we are in any way selective in terms of the people to whom we show God’s grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness, then we still do not get it. We remain disciples of Jonah, not disciples of Jesus.

Notes:

*Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse Is Found: The Covenant Story of Redemption (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2005, 138.