Learning Through the Book of Jonah

Learning Through the Book of Jonah

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Learning through the Book of Jonah, we see a person who called himself a prophet of God, and yet, he is selfish and have no compassion at all. He is selfish in so many ways because: (1) When the ship enrouted to Tarshish is about to sink due to the wrath of God (for Jonah disobey God), instead of admitting that he is the cause of the problem, he rather sleep comfortably without even sparing a care to the sailors with him; and (2) When God forgive Nineveh, instead of being happy that souls were saved, Jonah became angry to God.

                Also, Jonah is one example of a Christian who came to know God, received salvation and forgiveness from God, and yet, he don’t want others to be saved just like himself. He is an idealistic and religious Christian because he believes that Nineveth people are hopeless people because of their sins and deserves to be punish.

                Meanwhile, after staying three days and two nights in the stomach of the whale, he prayed and repented to God. Thus so, in typology of what happened, that moment, he died to old self, and after he was released by the whale, he resurrected to new life – born again (See 2 Corinthians 5:15, Galatians 2:20). Even so, he is that type who, after being borne again, return to old self again. This is a typical Christian who claim to know God but didn’t really fully surrendered to the Lord. The life of Jonah is also you and me.

                Jonah’s mission is to warn the remnants of Israel in Nineveh. Meaning, they are his Israeli brothers, probably his relatives or immediate family, but in spite of that relation, Jonah loathed them, because in his judgment, they are a hopeless case. In our life, there is no one in this world whom we know fully, except for our family – father, mother, brothers and sisters. And because we know them, sometimes, we think that we cannot change them, and they can never know God because for us, maybe they are the most irresponsible, illogical, selfish and troublesome people. Thinking so, instead of sharing the Gospel to them, we easily give up, lose compassion, and render judgment to them instead. However, we must not forget that it is God who change people – not us. Also, they do not believe us because they cannot see God working in us – meaning, we may never notice it, but our Christian life is also problematic. Why? Because we still operate in flesh and old life, every time we loses self control and throw a fight to them, every time we make them feel that we are more holy and wiser because of our self-proclaimed righteousness. Also, we make them doubt our faith every time that instead of trusting God, when it comes to money matters, we still trust our company, other people and our own skills and abilities. Every time we worry for tomorrow, we shamed the name of the Lord, and that makes them doubt the God we served and turn them even more to idols – that is money.

                The life of Jonah is a self-awakening warning to us that every time we hate people instead of loving them, we forget that we are called to become salt and light and our main goal is to be like Christ. Being Christ-like, we are expected to developed the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

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