When we first meet Jonah, we are told that God calls him to deliver a message to Nineveh. He is commissioned to share God’s message with the enemies of God’s people. Jonah’s commission becomes an existential crisis. The implications of God’s love leads him to hop on the first ship he can find to Tarshish, the farthest place from Nineveh he ...
The belly of the great fish, where Jonah has been stripped of everything but hope in God, becomes the unexpected setting for Jonah’s renewal. Jonah finds a new platform to praise the living God in a place normally known only for death and despair....
Despite his best efforts, Jonah now stands on the shores of the one place he never wanted to go, Nineveh. Of course, he is not the same man he was when he first tried to run from God. Jonah has changed because God has continued to pursue him. Just as God continues to pursue each of us, he is the God of second chances....
The final chapter of Jonah begins after the surprising revival in the great city of Nineveh. Jonah is as angry with God as he has been at any point in the story. After all that Jonah has been through, seen, and done, he seems not to have learned much at all. It turns out that there were some pretty significant disconnects between what Jonah knew ab...