Jonah: God Loves Who You Hate - Pastor Bronson Duke - a podcast by NLC Downtown Little Rock

Jonah isn’t a story about the big fish, this is the story about a gracious God. God is using two of the most extreme examples in human history of depravity and religiosity to teach us something about his own heart and our very nature. So here is the question the book of Jonah causes us to wrestle with: Do we love God’s mercy? Do we really?

“‘Throw me into the sea,’ Jonah said, ‘and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.’ Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. ‘O Lord,’ they pleaded, ‘don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.’ Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.”

Jonah 1:12-16 (NLT)

“The significance of the big fish is that the reader is asked to believe the “unbelievable.” The fish’s swallowing Jonah is a sign that Yahweh will not be dissuaded from his intention to present the possibility of repentance and forgiveness to Israel’s enemy. It demonstrates the astounding lengths to which God will go to reconcile Jonah and the violent Ninevites to himself through Jonah. The fish represents an “unbelievable” theology: Yahweh wants to save the rebellious and the violent. Through the agency of the big fish, Jonah is forgiven and saved. Also unbelievable, the storm is stilled and the sailors worship the true God, and the Ninevites receive the message from Jonah, repent, and are saved. In this way the bigness of the unbelievable fish is finally about God’s saving way in the world. The big fish makes a specific point of God’s extravagant, unrelenting, pursuing, and saving love.”

James Bruckner - NIV Commentary

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