I've been listening to a series of sermons on Jonah recently, (by Mars Hill Bible Church) and while a lot of things stood out to me that haven't before, these two subjects above almost kicked me in the face as it were!!
If we have a VERY serious view of the Bible, we can read it without thinking or noticing the humanity of the authors of specific books at times. yes, I believe the Bible is the Inspired Word of God and all that that means, but I also believe that the writers of each book left their mark of humanity on it also. God used hundreds of different people to write the Bible, and their personalities and idiosyncrasies at times come through the texts. Inspired doesn't mean 'Dictated' and if you think it does, you need to look up the definition of the word...
Anyway, I'm digressing...
So, I'm going to go through the particular verses that stood out to me during my listening. All quotes are from the NIV Bible (My apologies if you don't like that one, but it's the one I use and this is my blog so hard luck!)
Jonah 1
Jonah Flees From the LORD
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
Jonah is asked by God to PREACH against the city of Nineveh but doesn't want to. (make a note of what exactly he was commanded to do, because it becomes very important later)
We're not told why Jonah does this, just that he does. (again that becomes important later too)
Jonah wants to run away to Tarshish. Here's where it gets interesting...
Tarshish - most Scholars think that it was a place in Southern Spain, very far away in ancient terms, and with a very moderate climate, palm trees, etc. So Jonah figures he'll go to paradise to escape God??! :-) (Joke No.1 of the author) Can you imagine if the story had been different, and Jonah got there, lazing on the beach looking round saying "ah, look at the sand, the sea, the warm breeze, my suntan, God isn't here...!" Not likely!
Apparently, the Hebrew construction of the sentence 'After paying the fare...' indicates a lot more than that, it also conveys the suggestion of paying a lot more that a normal fare and in actual fact the suggestion that Jonah chartered the boat for himself... Wow, that's a man of means hey?! He uses his resources to flee from God. (or so he thinks!) It's not just a case that Jonah is fleeing God, it's that he's using his OWN resources to do so. He thinks he can use his own wealth to escape God's call on his life, but this is not the case as we soon learn...
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
The crew of the ship are very cosmopolitan, representing many cultures and nations and religions, they would be classed as 'heathens' or 'gentiles' in Jonah's mind. They all do what they know they're supposed to do in a crisis: they cry out to their gods. Nothing happens, so they start to panic and rely on their own common sense to lighten the ship and make it more buoyant. The author hear is trying to make a point, as we'll see from the second half of the verse:
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
It's interesting. The man of God, Jonah, is asleep below deck, and is woken by the heathens and is asked to pray to God! In their desperation, they recognize that they need to seek Jonah's God, as there's a possibility they could be wrong in their assumption of which deity (as they saw it) is in charge! They show humility, the exact same character that God wanted from Jonah, that he didn't show!!
Here's where some more subversion comes in: the ones that are classed as heathens even in their ignorance of Jonah's God, display a confidence that his God will be compassionate towards them. The man of God who's supposed to know God, shows no such willingness!
