Jonah, Reluctant Missionary

Jonah, the Reluctant Missionary to the Gentiles

Some wish to dictate the work of the Holy Spirit, telling Him how much visible growth they expect from His efforts in the next five years. Others are inclined to think of God as having no arms but theirs, no hands but theirs, no legs but theirs. Both types should study the historical example of Jonah, the reluctant missionary to the Gentiles. The work of Jonah is dated during the reign of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:23-25), whose reign began around 793 BC. The Word of God commanded Jonah:

Jonah 1:2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

God said, “Go east to Ninevah,” and Jonah headed due west on a ship toward Joppa, at the edge of the world, as far away from his appointed mission as possible. Jonah had a different mission vision in mind. He may have been reluctant to see a notorious non-Jewish city enjoy the fruits of repentance and faith. We know from Jonah 4:1-2 that the prophet was angry over the conversion of Ninevah, that he had not expected the effectiveness of the Word.

No one is surprised that Jonah was afraid to teach the Word to an alien culture in a city known for its wickedness. Ninevah was not just one town, but a complex of four cities (Genesis 10:11-12). Arriving alone in a metropolitan complex 60 miles across (3 days journey, Jonah 3:3), armed only with the Word—most would prefer to pay double-fare for a ticket in the opposite direction, rather than undergo such a unique mission opportunity.

Here we see how God provides means to carry out His will, even when men have other plans. God sent such a powerful wind on the sea that the waves threatened to destroy the ship. The sailors threw all of the cargo, a fortune in goods, into the sea. Jonah slept in the lowest parts of the ship, exhausted perhaps from guilt and anxiety. The captain woke him and ordered him to pray for safety.

When sailors drew lots to discover the cause of the trouble, the lot fell on Jonah. Everything pointed to him. He had told them that he was running away from God. The supernatural power of the storm and the roll of the dice pointed toward the prophet. Doubtless his face was more proof of his guilt than the dice. The sailors resisted the solution of throwing Jonah into the sea, but their superhuman effort to row towards land was thwarted by an even greater storm. With the forces of Creation showing such rage, the superstitious sailors prayerfully threw Jonah into the boiling sea.

The sea becalmed at once, throwing the sailors into a paroxysm of fear. They offered a sacrifice and took vows.

God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah. He could not hide from the Lord God Almighty, Creator of the seas and the dry land, as Jonah himself had confessed to the sailors (Jonah 1:9). God sent the storm to stop Jonah’s westward progress, then appointed the whale to swallow Jonah and vomit the wayward prophet onto the shores of his mission station. Rationalists pretend to balk at the notion of a great fish, whether a whale or shark, swallowing a man, keeping him alive, and delivering him to the right place. Jonah was often the subject of debate in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in the 1970s, since many pastors and professors openly doubted the Biblical account.[23] Some conservatives think that a mounted and stuffed creature, festooned with a plaque, “Jonah slept here,” would satisfy all doubters. But the great fish is not really the focus of doubt and fear. The hidden fear, beneath the mockery of intellectual evasions, echoes Jonah’s discovery in the belly of the beast – we can run, but we cannot hide from God. He has appointed our mission. His power is so great that all of nature obeys His Word. One miracle after another can be unleashed to bring us back to the fold.[24]

God determined that Jonah would preach repentance to the Ninevites, who must have wondered at the sight of the humbled foreigner in their midst. Jonah was not powerful, but the Sword of the Lord was so effective that the entire city repented. The king joined in showing his contrition and declared fasting and sackcloth for man and animal alike (Jonah 3:6-9). Universal wickedness, which may have included bestiality, indicated universal contrition. God relented. The threatened disaster was canceled. God turned from His fierce anger.

Skeptics fail to see the Gospel in Jonah’s preaching, but those who strain out a whale can easily miss Jonah 4:2 as well:


Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish:

for I knew that thou art a gracious God,

and merciful,

slow to anger,

and of great kindness,

and repentest thee of the evil.

The attributes of God confessed by Jonah, and certainly preached by him to Ninevah, (Jonah 3:9) are exclusively from the Gospel. The Law always condemns and can never offer grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, or peace.

J-229
"All preaching of sin and God's wrath is a preaching of the Law, no matter how or when it may be done. On the other hand, the Gospel is such preaching as sets forth and bestows nothing but grace and forgiveness in Christ. And yet it is true that the Apostles and preachers of the Gospel sanctioned the preaching of the Law, as Christ Himself did, and began with this in the case of those who had not yet acknowledged their sins and had felt no fear of God's anger."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, IV, p. 158.

The Book of Jonah is clearly Law and Gospel, because Jonah is a figure of Christ, as Jesus taught in Matthew 12:40. The ending of the book also illustrates the Gospel with ironic humor. Jonah was so angry and displeased about God sparing the repentant city that he wanted to die. God allowed Jonah his bitter brooding in the hot sun, causing a fast-growing vine to grow up and shade him, then causing a worm to kill the plant, exposing the prophet to the sun and an appointed withering wind. (Jonah 4:8) The prophet wanted to die rather than endure the heat. He was morbidly angry over the loss of his plant.

God used the loss of the plant to teach Jonah the meaning of mercy. If Jonah could have pity on a plant he did not work to grow or create, something so short-lived, then why could he not understand the mercy of God shown to a city with 120,000 young children (babies too young to know their right hands from their left)? In this conclusion we see especially the loving-kindness of God, that He would appoint Jonah to Ninevah for the sake of these children, send a storm to cut off his escape from the mission, appoint a great fish to rescue Jonah from the sea, work upon the entire city through the Law and Gospel, then work upon the bitter prophet’s heart through a vine and a worm.[25]

[23] Similar doubts are expressed in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a novel dependent upon Jonah for its major themes, a foil for the author’s skepticism.

[24] Romans 1 warns us three times (1:24, 26, 28) that God will let us go if we continue to rebel against Him. It is no surprise that the anti-Jonah seminary, Seminex, became the designated school for the training of ministers for the exclusively homosexual denomination called Metropolitan Community Church.

[25] The reaction of the elder brother to the Prodigal Son’s return is similar. Luke 15:25.