Jonah 1: A Reluctant Prophet and a God Full of Grace

Introduction

“A reluctant prophet and a God full of grace.” These are the words the preacher of the Evangelical Free Church of Heidenoldendorf (Freikirche HD) uses to sum up the book of Jonah. Having finished the epistle of Jude in the church's ongoing Bible study, he opens a new book, that of the prophet Jonah.

He begins with a question to the congregation: what comes to mind when you think of Jonah? Answers come quickly: the belly of the fish, Nineveh repenting. He adds the prophet's flight, the second chance God gives him, and the plant that gave him shade before withering.

That evening, he does not yet comment verse by verse. He reads the whole book in one sitting, shows that God holds the threads of the entire story, places Jonah within the great story of the Bible and within his own time, then pauses on the first three verses.

Message Outline

1. Reading the Whole Book in One Sitting

The book of Jonah has four chapters. Read in one go, it takes “eight to ten minutes.” So the preacher reads it in full with the congregation before going into detail: it is a simple way to have the whole story before our eyes.
When you have read a book “very many times,” you sometimes need fresh eyes for what you already know. He hopes this shared reading helps with that.
He shows an engraving from the 15^th or 16^th century in which an artist imagined Jonah coming out of the fish's mouth. On one side, a reluctant prophet; on the other, a God who has pity on the great city of Nineveh.
Each chapter brings a turn: the call and the flight (chapter 1), Jonah's prayer and repentance in the belly of the fish (chapter 2), Nineveh's repentance and God's grace (chapter 3), then Jonah's anger and the lesson God teaches him (chapter 4).
“The book could have ended there,” he says after chapter 3. But chapter 4 still shows Jonah's heart, angry because God shows grace to the Ninevites.

2. An Open Ending and a Second Chance

The book ends with a question from God, without saying how Jonah answered. For the preacher, this is deliberate: the question stays open for the reader. “How do we react when we see a God who is just and so full of grace?”
Jonah 1:1 and Jonah 3:1 give almost word for word the same command. Jonah receives a second chance: after his flight, God takes hold of him again, sends him once more, and this time he obeys.
The book teaches us that God gives a second chance to his prophets, to his servants, and to us as well in our own lives.

3. Jonah and the Two Lost Sons

Jonah's story has a lot in common with the parable in Luke 15. The preacher deliberately speaks of the “two lost sons.”
The younger son asks for his share of the inheritance, leaves, squanders everything and ends up with the pigs. There he comes to his senses, returns to his father and finds a father full of grace. This is the first half of the book of Jonah: he runs away, and God lifts him up at the lowest point of his life, at the bottom of the sea, where the seaweed is wrapped around his head.
The older son, for his part, is angry at the welcome given to his brother: “All these years I have stayed at home and you never killed a calf for me.” This is the second half of the book: Jonah becomes angry because God shows grace to the Ninevites.

4. God Holds the Threads of the Story

The book says a great deal about the prophet and what goes on inside him. But this is not only Jonah's story: “the threads that are pulled in this book, it is God himself who pulls them.”
The preacher goes through the verses: the Lord hurls a great wind on the sea (1:4), the lot falls on Jonah (1:7), the sea grows calm as soon as he is thrown in (1:15), the Lord appoints a great fish (2:1) and then commands it to spit Jonah out onto dry land (2:11).
He continues: God sees that Nineveh turns from its evil way and relents from the disaster he announced (3:10), he makes a plant grow (4:6), sends a worm (4:7), then a scorching east wind (4:8), and he speaks to Jonah (4:9).
“God acts, God speaks, God intervenes in history.” Jonah is therefore not necessarily the main character: he is an instrument through whom God's goodness and grace are meant to be reflected.
Jonah's story casts its shadow all the way to Jesus Christ. In Matthew 12:40, Jesus applies the sign of Jonah to his own death, burial and resurrection: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.

5. “And”: Jonah in the Great Story of the Bible

The preacher pauses on the first word of the text he reads (the German Schlachter translation): “And the word of the Lord came to Jonah.” How many books begin with “and”? It is rather unusual.
This little connecting word ties Jonah to the whole of Scripture. Other books begin this way in this text: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Ezekiel and Jonah.
The Bible is a coherent work, inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by more than forty authors. It tells a single story: that of God's reign, from creation to the fall, then redemption culminating in Jesus Christ, continuing through the age of the church and ending with his return, the thousand-year reign and eternity in the new Jerusalem.
This plan of salvation goes back to the covenant with Abram, in Genesis 12:2-3: “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” The preacher sees three blessings here: for Abraham, for Israel and for the nations.
Jonah, sent to Nineveh, already shows in the Old Testament that the blessing promised to Abraham also concerns the nations. He also recalls the verse the church reads every week on the wall, Isaiah 45:22: “Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth!” “That was God's intention from the beginning.”

6. The Context: A Northern Kingdom Far from God

Jonah appears again in 2 Kings 14:23-27. There he is called “his servant Jonah, the prophet, son of Amittai, of Gath Hepher.” He prophesies under Jeroboam II, son of Joash, king of Israel in Samaria for forty-one years, from about 782 to 753 BC.
Jeroboam II does what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, like Jeroboam son of Nebat, the first king of the north after the kingdom was divided. The preacher recalls that no king of the north was faithful to God.
Yet, according to Jonah's word, God restores Israel's territory. This is not because of the king's devotion, but because the Lord sees Israel's affliction, and there is “neither bond nor free” to help them (the translation the preacher reads speaks of “adults and minors”). The preacher notes a parallel between these minors and the 120,000 inhabitants of Nineveh “who cannot tell their right hand from their left”: several commentators see in them small, defenseless children.
Amos, a contemporary of Jonah, and Hosea, a little later, describe the state of the people. In Amos 2:6-8, Israel sells the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. See also Amos 5:4 and following and Hosea 4:1-3.
The preacher describes a people full of their own righteousness, divided in many ways, with a distorted religion: two idolatrous places of worship had been set up in the north so that no one would go up to worship in Jerusalem.
About fifty years later, around 722 BC, God uses Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, to judge the northern kingdom under King Hoshea. The preacher thinks the book was first addressed to this people, to shake them: God shows grace to sinners who repent, even to this cruel enemy.

7. The Flight to Tarshish: Open Doors Far from God

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). It is a message of judgment. In chapter 3, Jonah will say only five words in Hebrew: “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown!”
Israel had received many more messages through its prophets. The Ninevites received only one, and it led them to repentance.
Jonah gets up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He goes down to Joppa, finds a ship, pays the fare and boards. Tarshish was probably in the south of Spain: the opposite direction.
Everything seems to go his way. “He has so many open doors. Nobody stops him.” He can even sleep in the hold of the ship during the storm. But so many open doors did not mean he was in God's will. God steps in and sends the storm to bring him back.
The text stresses the descent: Jonah goes down to Joppa, goes down into the ship, and so on. It is only at the lowest point, once God has lifted him up, that he obeys God's word.

Key Takeaways

The book of Jonah can be summed up like this: a reluctant prophet and a God full of grace, who readily forgives and welcomes a repentant heart.
God is the main actor in the story. Jonah is an instrument through whom his goodness is meant to be reflected.
God gives a second chance: the same command returns in Jonah 1:1 and Jonah 3:1, and the second time Jonah obeys.
Open doors do not prove that you are walking in God's will.
The blessing promised to Abraham for all the families of the earth already reaches Nineveh, and it points to Jesus, the sign of Jonah.

Personal Application

Do you know clearly what God is asking of you right now, and, like Jonah, do you need a second push to obey?
Are you relying on “open doors” to justify a path that takes you away from God's presence?
Do you see yourself more in the son who leaves or in the older son who is angry at the grace shown to others?
How do you react when God shows grace to someone you judged unworthy of his goodness?
When God convicts you of a sin, do you take the time to humble yourself before him and ask his forgiveness, instead of staying rebellious?

Passages Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the book of Jonah end with a question?

The book stops on God's question to Jonah about the plant and Nineveh, without saying how the prophet responded. For the preacher, this open ending is deliberate: it puts the question to the reader. How do you react when you face a God who is both just and so full of grace?

Who is the main character of the book of Jonah?

The preacher points out that it is God who acts from beginning to end: he sends the wind on the sea, appoints the fish, commands it to spit Jonah out, relents from the disaster announced against Nineveh, then sends the plant, the worm and the east wind. Jonah is an instrument through whom God shows his goodness and grace.

When did Jonah carry out his ministry?

According to 2 Kings 14:23-25, Jonah, son of Amittai, from Gath Hepher, prophesied under Jeroboam II, king of Israel, from about 782 to 753 BC. About fifty years later, around 722, Assyria, whose great city was Nineveh, carried the northern kingdom into captivity.