Rediscovering Jonah (Timothy Keller)

 

In Rediscovering Jonah, pastor Tim Keller looks at the famous Biblical account of Jonah, the prophet who ran from God's command to preach to Nineveh (the capital city of Israel's archenemy), only to be swallowed by a fish and coughed up on land. Jonah then preaches to the city under fierce protest, and is angry when they are remorseful for their sin. He's not your typical prophet . . . or is he?

Keller's point is that the Jonah account is ultimately "to get us to understand grace." "God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he ran in the very opposite direction. Why did he do it? . . . [T]he root of Jonah's disobedience was his mistrust in the goodness of God. He did not believe God has his best interests at heart." Jonah was angry because he feared that God's mercy would come to his enemies. He put nationalistic pride above God. But he failed to realize that God's own people were in fact once God's enemies, reconciled only by grace [unmerited favor] that would be shown in the acts of God through Christ. And "a God who substitutes himself for us and suffers so that we may go free is a God you can trust." To wish condemnation on others is to not grasp that you, too, are under condemnation, and can only be saved from that by God. When, however, we understand this, we see the reason behind Jesus' teaching to 'love thy neighbor,' where neighbor = everyone. 

I enjoyed and was convicted by this work. We are no different than Jonah. I need to remember that God has my interests at heart whenever I'm tempted to disobey His commands, which are for my good and not (as I tend to think at times) to make me miserable. His love is ample evidence of His goodness and trustworthiness. There are other good concepts explored here, too- the reason for 'storms' in our lives, loving people different from us, striving for the common good, and God's sovereignty (one of the more amusing parts: even in running from God, Jonah ended up pointing foreigners to Him, the very thing he was trying to avoid). Another winner from Keller.

Rating: A