The Story of Jonah (part 1)

Many believe the story of Jonah is a tale of fiction designed to reveal God’s position on obedience. Yet they do not believe the story is historically accurate as no man could fit inside a whale because the throat is too small. The simple fact is at no time was the sea creature described as a whale. The Hebrew word merely means sea monster describing a very large creature. Because the story is miraculous in its content one can only see it the same way we see all the other stories in the bible. That is, from God’s perspective we have to see it as real even if difficult to imagine.

Lets face it when we look at the New Testament we see a redeemer born from a virgin teen who is then raised in poverty and eventually suffers a hideous punishment He neither deserved, nor desired. Who can reason with God when it comes to man? Still in all, I want to examine the story of Jonah in several parts. The story is real because Jesus made several references about himself to it in Matthew 12:39-41; 16; 4, and Luke 11:29,30,32. It would be incomprehensible that Jesus would compare himself to a fictitious person especially since He refers to the story of Jonah when He is comparing it to His resurrection. I will tell the story of Jonah in my own words.

Once upon a time there was this dude named Jonah who was a well-respected prophet and everybody thought he was cool and everything. His wife was a favorite at the local chamber of commerce meetings and PTA and so forth and was a pretty good Bridge player. Jonah had a couple of kids and one, the youngest, was very good at playing pin the tail on the donkey. Back then they used real donkeys so you had to know what you were doin.

Well anyway as the story goes Jonah gets a phone call from God which usually happens when you are a prophet and God tells him to go over the Nineveh and tell everybody there that they are ‘toast’ because God is really steamed and He ain’t gonna take it anymore. Now for those of you who don’t know the history of the region very well I will tell you the people of Nineveh and the people of Israel do not get along. Back then, Nineveh was a bed of wickedness and had a very powerful army and they would war against Israel and they used to take some Jews and make them slaves and such so there was no love loss between the two peoples.

Jonah is a genuine prophet and he knows that God is a compassionate God and if the Ninevites repent God will forgive them. If that happens then Jonah will have to explain to all his Jewish friends why he would tell Nineveh about their Hebrew God. Nineveh was headed for hell and every Jew wanted them to get there ASAP. The only way that was not gonna happen is if some yahoo begins telling them about God’s mercy and they repent. Obviously, no sane Jew was gonna do that so all the people of Nineveh were as good as gone. When you see things from that perspective you can see why Jonah had a real problem because he does not want to go over to Nineveh and cause them to repent and then have to go back to Hebrew land and tell all of his soon to be former friends what happened.

So what does Jonah do? Simple, first he decided to call on the local prophet and get some good council. Only problem is he happens to be that prophet and he doesn’t have the foggiest idea what to do. So he contemplates all his options and they don’t look good. No matter what Jonah does he is gonna get into trouble. There is no way he will ever get his passport stamped to go to Nineveh without everybody finding out what he is planning on doing and if he does go to Nineveh then he has to come back and that won’t be easy as everybody will hate him for what he just did. You see bein a prophet ain’t such an easy job after all.

So Jonah decides to bon voyage to a place called Tarshish, which happens to be in the opposite direction of Nineveh. In other words he was running away. Maybe not the most mature thing to do but desperate men make desperate decisions and he was desperate. He boards a ship and goes down into the hold of the ship because he knows God is gonna be steamed about what he is doin and Jonah doesn’t want to talk to anybody anyway. He figures he could hang out here until he reached Tarshish and then find some bed and breakfast place to get a little break until the Lord changes him mind or better yet appoints someone else to accomplish this task. Better them then Jonah he figures.

Jonah goes to the hold of the ship and falls asleep. But the Lord, who has contacts everywhere, finds out what Jonah is up to and hits the roof. He hurls a great storm with really powerful winds that were so strong the ship was even starting to break up. The captain of the ship orders everyone to pray to their god so that they don’t die. Funny how ‘religious’ people can get when they think they are gonna die. Anyway the captain goes below and sees Jonah sawin logs. The captain says, “Are you outta your tree? “How can you sleep at a time like this? “Get up and call on your god. “Who knows maybe your god will feel some pity on us since we all may be seein him real soon.” The other sailors want to know why this storm has occurred so fast and they figure someone on board knows something so they cast lots to see who it is. The lots fall on Jonah. Then one of the sailors, a pirate, looks at Jonah and says, “Busted.”

Then the others gather around and give Jonah the once over look. They ask him what is going on because this is the worst storm they have ever seen and Jonah comes clean about what the Lord told him and then they become even more afraid. So they say to Jonah, “What should we do to you that the sea will settle down because we are all gonna die and soon if this doesn’t stop. Then Jonah tells them to toss his keester overboard and the sea will get calm. But the sailors said, “No way dude you are not gonna have your blood on our hands after all we didn’t do anything to deserve this.” Then they all looked at the pirate and said, “Well maybe not all of us but most of us did not do anything to deserve this.


To be continued.