Grace for Today

Jonah’s Great Commission (Part 2)

Last week we left Jonah right after he received his “missionary marching orders” from God.  The Lord commanded this Israelite prophet to go and prophecy to a gentile nation.

***Please turn to Jonah and read verses 1:1-6.

It was as if the Lord said to Jonah, Pack your bags Jonah, I’m sending you on your first mission trip. I want you to go straight to where the king of Assyria lives and tell his people, the Ninevites, that I’m about to poor out My wrath on their city. I can almost hear Jonah, Wait a minute God; I’m a hometown boy from Galilee. That doesn’t compute. You must be mistaken, You want me to go to the heathen Ninevites and preach to them because of their sin?

Centuries later the Apostle Paul would call this type of activity on God’s part a mystery because in a sense it didn’t compute with him either.

***Please read Colossians 1:26-27 Continue Reading

Grace for Today

Jonah’s Great Commission (Part 1)

Thank you for joining us for the new weekly article called Grace for Today. Each week, we’ll choose a book from the Bible and move through it verse by verse. The goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the truths found in each text of Scripture selected and then look together at how these truths may be applied and lived out. So, if you’re interested in a closer walk with Christ please join each week and together we’ll draw closer to the Lord. I pray the Lord is glorified through our study and our lives.

The first book we’ll focus on is the Book of Jonah.  Jonah is found in the Old Testament in the section where the Minor Prophets are collected. As we study, we come to see through the book that God is sovereign over the created universe and that He often uses less than the most desirable folks to accomplish His will, that’s good news for us.

***Please open your Bibles to the Book of Jonah and read (Jonah 1:1-6). Our study for today is entitled, Jonah’s Great Commission.

Many years ago in Chicago a murder trial was underway.  The trial had gone on a long time and the defense lawyer found himself up against a wall.  The defense attorney Clarence Barrow, who was an open agnostic made this comment as a last ditch effort to try and turn the jurors. He said, Why a person could as easily believe this man’s testimony as he could believe that the whale swallowed Jonah.

To begin with, if the Word of God is going to affect us, we must submit to its authority and believe that it’s true and accurate. Jonah is a true account. Jonah is documented in Scripture. Jesus believed Jonah was a real person (Luke 11:29). Many scholars today would like us to believe the book of Jonah is simply a parable or allegory. They are wrong. It’s more than a children’s tale.

There was an Old Testament prophet who thought he could escape the Long arm of the Lord. Jonah was his name.  The book of Jonah is situated among the Prophets in our Bibles.  However, it doesn’t contain much prophecy, only one verse to be exact.  It is a narrative, except for the poetic nature of Jonah’s prayer in verse two, which very much resembles a psalm.

Usually, when a book is written, it is written about the prophecy, not the prophet.  This book is different; it focuses mainly on the prophet.

To introduce Jonah we should first go to the Book of 2 Kings which we only find one verse that really tells us anything about this prophet.  From this passage we do get an idea of Jonah’s frame of mind. Continue Reading