4. School for Pastors
We pray that you may grant, in accor-
dance with the riches of your glory, that
we may be strengthened in our inner
being with power through your Spirit.
5. School for Pastors
We pray that you will dwell in our
hearts by faith, as we are established
and grounded in your love.
6. School for Pastors
We pray that we may have the power to
comprehend, with all the saints, the
breadth and length and height and
depth of your love: to know this love
that surpasses knowledge.
29. Saving Jonah
“They Call the Wind Mariah”
Now I’m so lost and so alone not even
God can find me.
– Lerner & Lowe, “Paint Your Wagon” 1951, 1969
30. Saving Jonah
Can I get so lost and so alone that not
even God can find me?
31. Saving Jonah
Can I get so lost and so alone that not
even God can find me?
What if I die in the depths of the sea?
32. Saving Jonah
Can I get so lost and so alone that not
even God can find me?
What if I die and go to hell?
33. Saving Jonah
Can I get so lost and so alone that not
even God can find me?
What if I’m in the deepest darkness?
34. Saving Jonah
Can I get so lost and so alone that not
even God can find me?
Even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
46. Saving Jonah
Jonah 1:2
“Go at once to Nineveh, that great city,
and cry against it; for their wickedness
has come up before me.”
47. Saving Jonah
Jonah 1:3
But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish
from the presence of the Lord. He went
down to Joppa and found a ship going
to Tarshish;
48. Saving Jonah
Jonah 1:3
so he paid his fare and went on board,
to go with them to Tarshish, away from
the presence of the Lord.
49. Saving Jonah
Jonah believed there was somewhere
he could go where he could get beyond
the presence of the Lord.
50. Saving Jonah
Jonah believed there was somewhere
he could go where he could get beyond
the presence of the Lord.
Isn’t it an astonishing thing, that he
would want to do that?
51. Saving Jonah
Suppose you knew that the Lord is
merciful and gracious, slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love.
52. Saving Jonah
And suppose you didn’t want the Lord
to be merciful and gracious, slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love
toward certain people.
53. Saving Jonah
Suppose what you wanted for those
certain people was for them to be cut
off from the presence of the Lord
forever: to hell with them!
54. Saving Jonah
And suppose your sovereign Lord
commanded you to go and proclaim to
them that God’s judgment was about to
fall on them, so they had better repent.
55. Saving Jonah
And what if what you wanted was for
God’s judgment to fall on them, and for
them to have no chance to repent.
56. Saving Jonah
And what if that’s what you wanted,
even more than you wanted to live in
the glory of the presence of God.
71. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:2
I called to you, O Lord, in my distress,
and you answered me; out of the belly
of hell I cried, and you heard my voice.
72. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:3
You cast me into the deep, into the
heart of the seas, and the flood
surrounded me; all your waves and
your billows passed over me.
73. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:4
Then I said, “I am driven away from
your sight; shall I indeed look again
upon your holy temple?”
74. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:5-6
The waters closed in over me, the deep
surrounded me, weeds were wrapped
around my head at the roots of the
mountains.
75. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:6
I went down to the land whose bars
closed upon me forever; yet you
brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord
my God.
76. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:7
As my life was ebbing away, I
remembered the Lord; and my prayer
came to you, into your holy temple.
77. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:7
As my life was ebbing away, I
remembered the Lord; and my prayer
came to you, into your holy temple.
85. Saving Jonah
When the Athenian army saw the
Spartan army lining up to fight against
them, they knew that the fear of the
Spartans would overwhelm them.
95. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:8
They lose out on the steadfast love with
which God loves them: it is their love
because God gives them this love, by
loving them, and the direction of the
loving is specifically from God to them.
96. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:8
They fail to show the steadfast love
they owe to God: it is their love
because it is their responsibility to love
God this way, and the direction of the
loving is specifically from them to God.
103. Saving Jonah
The general class of sinners: all of us
We’re all guilty of idolatry:
putting our trust in gold, in health, in a
political system, in war, in nature
104. Saving Jonah
This could include Jonah himself, if he
had come to recognize that his hatred
for the Ninevites counted as idolatry
106. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:8 (NRSV)
Those who worship vain idols forsake
their true loyalty
As long as we allow ourselves to get
caught in our idolatries, we fail to love
God as we ought.
107. Saving Jonah
OR: The specific class of idol-makers
the heathen of various times and
places who fashion wood or clay or
metal into a statue before which they
then bow in worship
108. Saving Jonah
This would not include Jonah himself;
instead, he would specifically have the
pagan Ninevites in mind
109. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:8 (NIV)
Those who worship worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs
110. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:8 (NIV)
Those who worship worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs
As long as the heathen remain heathen,
they are unable to receive the mercy of
God.
111. Saving Jonah
NB the ambiguity of this verse, at this
point in the narrative
112. Saving Jonah
Jonah 2:9
But I with the voice of thanksgiving will
sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!
115. Saving Jonah
Jonah 3:4
“Forty days more, and Nineveh will be
overthrown!”
Where is
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!
116. Saving Jonah
Jonah 3:6
When the news reached the king of
Nineveh, he rose from his throne,
removed his robe, covered himself with
sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
118. Saving Jonah
Jonah 3:10
When God saw what they did, how they
turned from their evil ways, God
changed his mind about the calamity
that he had said he would bring upon
them; and he did not do it.
120. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:2
He prayed to the Lord and said, “O
Lord! Is not this what I said while I was
still in my own country?
121. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:2
“That is why I fled to Tarshish at the
beginning; for I knew that you are a
gracious God and merciful, slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love,
and ready to relent from punishing.
122. Saving Jonah
gracious and merciful, slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love
Exodus 34
Psalm 86
Psalm 103
Psalm 145
Nehemiah 9
Numbers 14
123. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:3
“And now, O Lord, please take my life
from me, for it is better for me to die
than to live.”
125. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:5
Then Jonah went out of the city and sat
down east of the city, and made a
booth for himself there. He sat under it
in the shade waiting to see what would
become of the city.
126. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:6
The Lord God appointed a bush, and
made it come up over Jonah, to give
shade over his head, to save him from
his discomfort; so Jonah was very
happy about the bush.
127. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:7
But when dawn came up the next day,
God appointed a worm that attacked
the bush, so that it withered.
128. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:8
When the sun rose, God appointed a
sultry east wind, and the sun beat down
on the head of Jonah so that he was
faint and asked that he might die. He
said, “It is better for me to die than to
live.”
129. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:9
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for
you to be angry about the bush?” And
he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.”
130. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:10
Then the Lord said, “You are
concerned about the bush, for which
you did not labor and which you did not
grow; it came into being in a night and
perished in a night.
131. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:11
And should I not be concerned about
Nineveh, that great city, in which there
are more than a hundred and twenty
thousand persons who do not know
their right hand from their left, and also
many animals?”
138. Saving Jonah
Deuteronomy 23:3
No Ammonite or Moabite shall be
admitted to the assembly of the Lord.
Even to the tenth generation, none of
their descendants shall be admitted to
the assembly of the Lord.
140. Saving Jonah
Jonah 4:9, 4:2-3
Jonah mourns for the dead bush while
resenting God’s redeeming love for the
lost souls of Nineveh
141. Saving Jonah
What do we learn, about God and about
ourselves, from the story of God’s
desire for the redemption of Nineveh,
and Jonah’s resentment of this?