Short-Post-Friday - Jonah

 Here's something I've been thinking about this week.

The average Christian thinker views the story of Jonah as being a story about God working with a reluctant man and the man's consequential change. There's nothing wrong per-se, with that view but one must consider that at the end of the story Jonah is still whiney and has more compassion for trees than he does people.

There's another way to look at the story though. 

The most interesting character, by far, in my book is the city of Nineveh. The city was at a constant war with Israel, Nineveh had their own culture, They weren't poor of without means, They had their own Religion, and as evidenced by the conflicts, they did not much care for the Israelites. Yet, despite that they had the intelligence and the humility to consider the words of a foreign prophet.

Has Israel, or a COG for that matter EVER had the intelligence or the humility to consider the words of warning that come from people outside? 

Can you imagine if God decided to speak to the christian churches through a Muslim prophet?  

The story of Jonah is a contrast, between Jonah on one hand as a 'special' person with a pedigree and no compassion for the outside world, versus Nineveh that had the humility to listen and consider the words they heard.

It brings to mind God sending Peter the 'take and eat' dream... God was showing Jonah the exact same thing 1500 years earlier. Don't discount the rest of the world because they're not 'Israel' or 'in "the" church', or in your specific group.  God doesn't hate the people of 'the world', he hates sin because missing the mark is destructive.  

The story of Jonah also shows that 'the world' as we COG types constantly label anyone outside of our groups, are actually more teachable than we are. If you have a healthy amount of relationships outside of the church you know that is still true today. The COGs have long ignored any concept of being 'the weak of the world'. 

So knock it off already, be thinking people. Consider warnings from wherever they come, and drop the dangerous concept that nothing good comes from outside.

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