Have you ever read the story of Jonah and asked yourself the question; why did he run? We expect this from some people, but a prophet of God? In order to help us to better understand this story, we are going to be spending a week in chapter one looking at how chapter sets up the rest of the story.
Read Jonah 1 especially verses 1-3 and journal some thoughts
As you read these 3 small verses, do you get the feeling that you’re missing something? The story begins with a prophet of God who hears from God, we get this. Then something happens, because in the very next verse he decides to run away. So, what’s that about? Why would a prophet of God run from God? What’s going on here?
The key to understanding this whole story comes from a single word in verse 2, “Nineveh”. Why is this such a big deal? Because many scholars believe this is the first time that God sends a prophet into a pagan nation to essentially preach for the salvation of that nation. Seriously think about it, how did God usually have His people deal with other nations? Yet here, God commands Jonah to go to this fish worshipping nation to preach about his God.
Could you imagine how much this call would have rocked Jonah’s world? This totally would have changed the way Jonah would have viewed how God worked in the world. So what does he do? This sort of thing isn’t in his job description, is it? These are the type of people who he wasn’t called to love. In fact it’s safe to assume based on what happens throughout this story that Jonah probably hated them. Yet God was calling him to go and preach their salvation.
What things is God calling us to do today that we never would have imagined. Who is God calling us to love today who we never would have thought of?
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