Category: Jonah

he strenuous warfare in Jonah’s call that is so compelling. I view it as a metaphysical struggle between accepting what you are called to do and the pain invested in that calling (Rom. 7:21-25), the pain of renouncing so much for the good of others. Sometimes that renouncing involves a good thing, like Jonah’s own flock, and at times it is more conspicuously wrong.

Still, the call (Jonah 1:1) is daunting. It is a call to forsake all things near and familiar and go into a far country in a reversed prodigalness bringing some out of their filth into loveliness.

But Jonah’s call is also of political discomfort–to leave the politics of ease into the complexity of a politics of chaos– to delve deeply into strange waters and share in death itself. No one willingly delves into chaos; no one wants to take scattered puzzle pieces called people and put them back together. No one, naturally, wishes to give pieces of their lives to put other human pieces together.

Jonah wars with himself to assume a place of honor among martyrs. Martyrdom is eschatological. Her rewards are in the age to come. Perhaps Jonah’s war with his call was based on the eschatological uncertainties of this life and the certainties of the one to come–to see that blessing come to those who wait to taste and see that the Lord is good. The call is good but costly.

Well, the cat’s out of the commentary bag: Rich Lusk and I are working on another commentary. Observers may have noticed my tweets or random notes on Jonah. I have been preaching through it and also writing and editing some of our joint efforts. As always, I like to say Rich Lusk is the exegetical genius and I am the fortunate guy who has the joy of working with him in these endeavors. The added benefit is that he and I share a lot of presuppositions about hermeneutics and general biblical exegesis which afford us an awful lot of common ground when we do these projects. In fact, if this is published it will be the third work I’ve done with Rich.

I will be posting occasional quotes from our future commentary. Here is a fairly descriptive summary of the Assyrians to whom Jonah was called to minister:

The ancient Assyrian emperor–just to give you one example of the wickedness that characterized the empire and the city — after a military victory would put giant fishhooks in the mouths of the vanquished and march them down Main Street in a kind of victory parade. And then he would impale them, he’d lift their skin off, and after skinning them alive, he’d cut off their limbs and throw them to the wild animals to be devoured. Now that’s wickedness. That’s what paganism looks like in the raw; paganism when it hasn’t been tamed in any way by the subduing grace of God. Nations that have been influenced by the gospel, even if they aren’t any longer officially Christian, even if they aren’t all that faithful, usually know better than to fight their ways in that way.

If we are to understand the Book of Jonah rightly, we need to see Jonah as a theologian in Israel, a faithful pastor, and one deeply committed to God’s people. We often view this prophet as an ignorant prophet; an ancient Pharisee. But God is doing something spectacular in the Jonah Journey. He consistently asks Jonah, “Jonah, do you love me?”

This question is answered throughout these four chapters in various ways. In the end, Jonah becomes a scholar of paradox whose silence is itself the answer to Yahweh’s question.