00:00:00:19 – 00:00:24:28
Clint Loveall
Friends, welcome back. Thanks for joining us. As we continue to think about the book of Jonah as we start the week. kind of ending the book wrapped up the text last week. If you’ve missed any of those sessions that are available, you can certainly circle back and find them. some reflection as we finish the book. You know, this isn’t it’s an interesting book, Michael.

00:00:24:28 – 00:00:55:23
Clint Loveall
We’ve said that and I think for a number of reasons, but one of the things that makes it interesting is that Jonah doesn’t feel compelled to summarize itself in any way. This is the most, kind of arbitrary ending, you know, that God asked Jonah, should I not care about the great city in which 120,000 persons live who do not know their right from their left and many animals and and that’s there’s not even the end.

00:00:55:28 – 00:01:21:25
Clint Loveall
Right. We don’t get any sense for a narrative book. There’s really no wrap up. There’s just this question that hangs over and I think that makes it a little hard to know what to do with Jonah. There’s not a an obvious lesson, at least in the words of the text. And so we’re left to dig under the surface a little bit to see what we think it means.

00:01:21:30 – 00:01:50:28
Clint Loveall
The other takeaway I think that is maybe difficult the first time you really walk through Jonah seriously, is what do you make of this character, Jonah? I think most of us think of him in as pretty benign. I mean, he’s, you know, he’s this guy. He ran away from God and he went and did the thing. But I think when you read this book, seriously, it raises real questions about Jonah as a person.

00:01:50:51 – 00:02:14:44
Clint Loveall
Jonah’s commitment. to a very narrow, avenue of what we might call faithfulness at. And this in some ways, this book raises lots of questions and doesn’t give a lot of answers, which I think is intentional, but it it makes it a difficult book to to really think of devotionals.

00:02:14:49 – 00:02:36:54
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. No, absolutely. I think if you come to the book of Jonah, not having studied it before, it would be easy for you to come to it with this thought that it is going to be, at its core, a pretty light story about someone struggling with God’s call in their life. But probably in the end that all gets resolved and they see that God’s plan is the best.

00:02:36:54 – 00:03:00:43
Michael Gewecke
But I just think, Clint, when you come to the end here of the story, the fact that Jonah ends with a question at the very last punctuation we have that it’s not in the Hebrew, but the punctuation that you have in your English Bible is a question mark that’s meaningful, that that has something to say about the tone of this book, that it leaves the reader with a question.

00:03:00:43 – 00:03:26:29
Michael Gewecke
And I, I agree with you completely that we should not rush past settle ING Jonah’s character too quickly. I just think that’s a mistake. We want to give Jonah pass, I think, and we want to be generous with Jonah, just like we want others to be generous with ourselves. Like that’s natural. But friends, Jonah in this story is given opportunities over and over and over again.

00:03:26:29 – 00:03:53:51
Michael Gewecke
And Jonah consistently chooses the opposite of God’s will. But do you know who consistently and the first time chooses what is God’s will, the pagans or the people that Jonah wants to see judgment come upon? Clint I think that that’s what makes this story so dark. It has this dark underbelly, is because the character of the story who calls God his own God.

00:03:53:56 – 00:04:15:48
Michael Gewecke
That’s the character in this story who resists God and everyone else who should be in other status. They’re the ones who respond to God. That’s a very, very hard reading of a book in which you would hope this simple reading is. Guy pushes back. God shows him a better way. He agrees with God and he goes on and he grows in his faith.

00:04:15:48 – 00:04:21:45
Michael Gewecke
But that’s not the simple story that Jonah tells, and we should be attuned to that, even if it is uncomfortable.

00:04:21:57 – 00:04:48:20
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And as you begin to, to, you know, pull it that thread, you you get very interesting questions of how Jonah even understands himself in, in the first chapter, he tells the sailors, I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land. Well, what does Jonah mean by worship? He he says this in the context of running.

00:04:48:25 – 00:05:18:05
Clint Loveall
Can you worship and not obey? Can you praise but not follow? And then Jonah, praise to God, thankful for deliverance, and then complains about that deliverance when it’s pointed at someone else? And you know, from the fish, Jonah says, I, you know, I remembered the Lord. My prayer. Those who worship vain idols, their true loyalty, they forsake.

00:05:18:05 – 00:05:46:40
Clint Loveall
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, sacrifice. And yet he won’t give himself until I think. At one level, Jonah is an indictment on receiving grace, but refusing to offer it. I think probably that’s a clear takeaway. but what what else do we see in this book? You know, what are the other things that we might learn from this book?

00:05:46:40 – 00:06:28:41
Clint Loveall
And maybe one is that we learned that even the hard hearted can’t ultimately thwart God from doing what God wants to do. God in in this book, literally moves heaven and earth to make Jonah obey or and let’s not say make that compel. certainly. Yeah. compel at least. And and Jonah, who has every opportunity to rejoice in what God is doing instead takes, it sits in self-pity, angry and selfish.

00:06:28:46 – 00:06:52:13
Clint Loveall
And, you know, I think therein must be a good takeaway lesson for those of us who have probably had those moments where we couldn’t lift our eyes off of ourself, and therefore, there was reason to be glad, to be grateful, to give praise. But we missed it. and, you know, that’s certainly, I think, a compelling theme that runs through this book as well.

00:06:52:26 – 00:07:22:39
Michael Gewecke
Clint, we said at the very beginning of this study that there is actually quite a bit of conversation among scholars about what how should we categorize this as a genre? What what type of writing is this? And now that you’ve been through the study with us, I just want to bring that point back up here, because you’ve now seen how this book can shift from a Psalm and then it can shift into storytelling, but then it can shift from storytelling into this engaging narrative between Jonah and God.

00:07:22:39 – 00:07:50:13
Michael Gewecke
This kind of dialog in which we then, even at the end, at the reader, are invited into that dialog with a question that’s left hanging out there, a question that’s created specific for us to also ask with the author, as as God gives that at the end of the book. And I think that some of the question of what narrative this actually is, or what genre this best fits into, is actually a good tension to hold.

00:07:50:13 – 00:08:10:03
Michael Gewecke
I think it’s good to hold that out and recognize that it’s not simple, because and this is the point I want to make at this point, the study, I think if you look back, what you are going to discover is that in some level, this book demands our attention, that it has a lesson deeper than just the story itself.

00:08:10:03 – 00:08:31:46
Michael Gewecke
And you could call that lots of things, Clint. You could call that, parabolic. You could say that this is allegorical. You could say it has deeper spiritual meaning, whatever language is important for you. But I think at this point we can easily make the case. The story of Jonah has more than what meets the eye. It’s not just of a story rebelling against God and some of the crazy, outlandish things that happen along the way.

00:08:31:46 – 00:09:04:40
Michael Gewecke
Now, this is a story about a person whose spiritual orientation towards others reflects their understanding of God’s orientation to the world, and what God is willing to do for the sake of the world. It has deep implications, not just for what we think about Jonah, but deep implications for what we believe is true about God. That God is the kind of God who cares for the lost and the least, and those who we might even consider beyond the pale of salvation.

00:09:04:50 – 00:09:16:30
Michael Gewecke
That is the kind of thing at stake in a story like this, and the fact that it troubles even our earthly categorization. I think that actually speaks to its credit and not its discredit.

00:09:16:35 – 00:09:40:58
Clint Loveall
Yeah, that I think clearly that’s intentional. From the author of from the Transmission of this. I think this is I think this is intended to be a kind of upsetting story. And by that I don’t mean troubling. I mean literally to upset our norms and to lead us to the question, like, who is it that I’m unwilling to love?

00:09:40:58 – 00:10:11:17
Clint Loveall
And why is it that God always seems to want to ask the thing you least want to give? Because that’s what it means to worship. That’s what it means to follow God, to be obedient. And when one sits with the idea that I am privileged and I am somehow above others because I’m in relationship with God while simultaneously being unwilling to do the things God wants of them were asks of them.

00:10:11:40 – 00:10:37:49
Clint Loveall
then we find ourselves a hypocrite. And if it seems to me I think hypocrite is a, well, maybe hypocrite is not a fair label for Jonah, as he never seems to act like more than whatever he is. But, I, I is Jonah faithful again. These are the questions that I think linger after you finish the last line of the text.

00:10:37:49 – 00:10:59:15
Clint Loveall
What what do we make of this guy? And we’ve said this before, Michael, I don’t I don’t want to overdo it, but if you get stuck in chapter two with the idea of the great fish in the whale, I think you missed this book. If you think this is a story about a man who got swallowed by a whale and then, yeah, yes, it is that.

00:10:59:20 – 00:11:32:38
Clint Loveall
But if you don’t, if you don’t engage the theme of running, of stubbornness, of anger, of knowing God’s will but being unhappy with God’s will, I think those deeper themes are easy to miss if you get distracted by the, you know, the major, fantastical detail of the story that that’s that’s only intended it much. I don’t again, I get a little crazy creative here.

00:11:32:38 – 00:11:53:57
Clint Loveall
I don’t mean to, but in the fish has the same purpose for us as for Jonah to transition us from one part of the story to the next. And if we let it be more than that, I think we run the risk of missing the deeper ideas and the deeper challenges of the book.

00:11:54:01 – 00:12:23:27
Michael Gewecke
So a biblical example that comes to mind at the end of Jonah. This is going to be a little strange. So bear with me. But the book that comes to mind, Clint, is job it in the sense that it’s the story of a person with an extended engagement with God that defies some of our basic expectations. The things that that happen in this book are constructed in such a way that we are surprised by them.

00:12:23:27 – 00:12:46:39
Michael Gewecke
In fact, if we hear them rightly, we’re offended by them. And I think that that is the kind of movement within this story that’s really powerful, because here just look at chapter two, the idea that even in Sheol, even the place of the dead, the bottom of the bottom, God is faithful to Jonah. That is a beautiful Old Testament.

00:12:46:39 – 00:13:13:30
Michael Gewecke
You could pause there and reflect upon how good of news that is for anyone experiencing the worst of the worst experiences in life. There’s there’s almost gospel in that. And yet, as the story progresses, we are offended to see that Jonah doesn’t seem to want to extend that to others. But it’s also offensive that God would do that for nations.

00:13:13:34 – 00:13:38:22
Michael Gewecke
The people of Israel’s greatest enemy. So I think it’s those tensions of faith that are essential, and us learning the rhythm of faith. It’s to say that it’s not one of two things. It’s not binary, it’s a little bit of a lot of things. And it’s all held in tension. Both Jonah’s disobedience creates an opportunity for God to show God’s providence.

00:13:38:31 – 00:14:09:40
Michael Gewecke
God’s grace for the Ninevites provides for us an opportunity to see Jonah’s great, lack of grace and lack of compassion for the Ninevites, that each one of these processes that Jonah’s running from God and therefore his complete denial of God’s sovereignty, we see the opposite when the sailors worship God in God’s name, these pagan sailors who just moments before were essentially trying to throw noodles against the wall and see what stuck it.

00:14:09:45 – 00:14:33:19
Michael Gewecke
It’s incredible how God comes out at every point of this story to be the one in control, the one whose grace and love and compassion wins out, and how Jonah becomes a kind of teacher to us, even though throughout the whole time all he’s trying to do is to avoid the things he’s been asked to do, is the most reluctant prophet.

00:14:33:19 – 00:14:49:33
Michael Gewecke
If he’s rightly called a prophet. And yet he’s effectively teaching these sailors, helping convert this entire nation, and helping us see within our own lives the temptations that we have to reserve the grace that’s been given to us and keep it from.

00:14:49:33 – 00:15:16:26
Clint Loveall
Others, yet very much a human temptation to think, well, you know, it. It’s good when God delivers me because I’m a Christian, I’m a Presbyterian, I’m a whatever. But it’s not fair when God delivers those people because they are eager. Fill in the blank. However you’d go negative. And who is that? In each of our life? And as we’ve gone through this story, we have tried the best.

00:15:16:26 – 00:15:40:28
Clint Loveall
We’re able to dig into some of it and try and unlock some of it for you. The history, the language, and we hope there’s been something helpful. But as we kind of move toward a closing this book, so to speak, one thing I would suggest is now armed with some of whatever you might have gained from this study, go back and just reread it, start to finish.

00:15:40:28 – 00:16:06:42
Clint Loveall
Just don’t dig in. Don’t look for all that. Just read it as a story. It’s very short. It would take you 10 to 20 minutes. maybe not even that for some of you, but but just read it through and follow this character, Jonah. Follow this character, the Lord as they interact and see what happens in this kind of cat and mouse between them.

00:16:06:46 – 00:16:37:39
Clint Loveall
As Jonah doesn’t want to be faithful, but for very personal and very selfish reasons, because he suspects God will find a way to love people or to be gracious with people that he doesn’t love and doesn’t want grace extended to. It is a fascinating book. I it stands out. There’s just not much like it in the scriptures. it’s a very honest look at the human heart.

00:16:37:48 – 00:16:38:30
Michael Gewecke
You know.

00:16:38:34 – 00:17:12:15
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, again, we’ve tried to make the case that it is exceptionally well-written to put those those themes and that depth into such a short work, I think is really masterful. And, there are some questions that linger asked. how and why Jonah made the cut and got in the Scripture. I think the quality of the the story is probably part of that, but I’m sure glad it did, because there’s so much here for us to gain.

00:17:12:19 – 00:17:50:50
Michael Gewecke
I suppose there’s many words you could use to summarize this book. If I had to pick one, I think I would pick the word honest. I think it’s an honest telling and portrayal of the human experience, both with our experience of a God who calls us to something as well as our hearts bent to run from that call, and then to discover along the way that God has both been faithful to us, but also, and even more so, we are shocked to find out that God’s been faithful to them, whoever them is, whoever’s on the other side of that wall that we believe God shouldn’t or couldn’t possibly go over.

00:17:51:03 – 00:18:30:18
Michael Gewecke
And yet God is already there waiting. And I think there’s an honesty to the storytelling here, Clint, that when we evaluate our hearts so often our motivations are impure. That’s an honest take. If we’re willing to go there in our own hearts. I think most of us could concur that often we find our motivations wanting. And yet the good news is both for the people of Nineveh and the sailors on that boat who were saved, but also, and maybe more importantly for Jonah, that God is able to be faithful even to the one who resist what God wants done in the world, that there’s hope in this story for Jonah, even as there’s hope for

00:18:30:18 – 00:18:45:03
Michael Gewecke
those others. And I, I like to believe at least, that the one of the purposes that this serves in the scriptures is to give us an honest account of what’s wrong, but also an honest appraisal of how a loving, gracious God can make that wrong. Right?

00:18:45:14 – 00:19:10:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah. God does not leave us in the depths of our own struggles, in our own hard heartedness, but always invites us further on, always invites us to take that next step. So God is always more interested in helping us grow than leaving us where we are. And, certainly that is a major theme of Jonah, and I would argue, we see it in lots of other places as well.

00:19:10:53 – 00:19:27:31
Michael Gewecke
friends, we’re grateful that you joined us here today. If you have questions at the end of our study, you are free to leave those in the comments of this video like it helps others find it in their own future studies. Subscribe for studies like this. Will be announcing a new study here in very short order, and hope you might join us for that.

00:19:27:36 – 00:19:33:48
Michael Gewecke
Friends, it’s been a joy to be with you today. Hope you have a great night and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

00:19:33:50 – 00:19:34:33
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody.