You know what it is like to travel in a circle. It is never a good sign when you begin seeing landmarks for a second time on the same trip. After a bunch of lost time and effort you have to start off again from the same spot.
Jonah had a similar experience, but he had gotten lost on purpose. Jonah tried to say no to God. He tried to take a shortcut to a peaceful conscience. His intended journey away from God’s presence had brought him right back to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. But Jonah was no longer the same man he had been. He was beginning to learn that the best place to be is the intersection of God’s revealed will and a ready and willing disposition.
Near the end of his prayer from the fish Jonah made a bold commitment: “I will pay what I have vowed” (2:9, New King James Version). As he rubbed sand and salt water from his stunned eyes, and stared at the Phoenician coast from which he had previously fled, this prayer became tangible. Two things happen at this point in the story to reveal God’s relentless commitment to use his redeemed people for the redemption of the world.
A Second Call (3:1–2)
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time” (3:1). God hadn’t given up on his plan to save Nineveh, and he hadn’t given up on his plan to use Jonah. Jonah had committed treason against the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. In military terms, he was a deserter. But instead of court martialing him, God recommissioned him! God disciplined his prophet to equip him for future success. Because God is gracious he is a God of second chances.
But God isn’t simply allowing Jonah to try again, which would be a decent thing to do. In fact, he has entirely forgiven him; he has given him a clean slate. God doesn’t hold grudges against the children he has forgiven in Christ. We shouldn’t see God here as a stubborn master who insists that his servant finally do what he had earlier refused; we should see a forgiving lover opening his arms again after he has been betrayed.
Because of God’s grace, Jonah isn’t disqualified from service because of his failure. He is more qualified! His failure proved that God’s mission doesn’t depend on human zeal or skill; God could have found a better prophet. He could have worked alone. But the all-powerful God is pleased to use flawed people to fulfill his plans.
The very feelings of disqualification can be the beginnings of greater faithfulness. In what ways do you feel unequal to your callings? How do you want to glorify God better but feel that you always come short? Because of God’s grace believers can say with Paul, “I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9). Our incompetency isn’t a problem for God. He uses our ineptitude to help us rest in his all-sufficient grace. When we walk with a limp, like Jacob did after wrestling with God, it is hard for us to pretend greatness. That’s good because God wants to use weak people in parenting, friendship, evangelism; in all our callings. Because of who God is we can say, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). God allows us to fail so that we can try again less dependent on ourselves, more reliant on him.
Jonah’s second call is similar to the first with just a few important differences. First, this time Jonah is expressly told: preach to Nineveh “the message that I tell you” (v. 2). This was implied in the first call, but now God clearly spells it out. The message is the Lord’s. Jonah was just the messenger. So are we. One of the strongest threats to personal witnessing is fear over what we should say. Here’s Jesus’ message to his disciples: “Do not worry about how or what you should speak” (Matt. 10:19). Simply be willing to speak. Engage opportunities. Trust in the Lord. And he will give you the words to say. “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (v. 20).
And as we’ll see, it is okay if your message isn’t eloquent. Jonah’s wasn’t. Jonah’s message was blunt and awkward. In witnessing we don’t have to be polished speakers. Any Christian can say something like what Jonah said. A good modern equivalent might go like this: “God doesn’t delight in punishing sinners. He does delight in saving them. Turn from sin, trust in Jesus and experience God’s delight.” What you end up saying will be better than that when God gives you a message to speak. Anyway, the power of conversion belongs to God’s grace not our eloquence.
Second, God doesn’t repeat his earlier rationale for the mission. God doesn’t mention the people’s wickedness. He isn’t implying that the people were no longer wicked. God is teaching Jonah. If he will not preach against the people because of their wickedness, perhaps he will for other reasons, such as the value of their souls and the honor of God’s name.
Of course, God does not need to give any reasons for his commands. One call is enough; two is gracious. It is as if God is saying here, “Don’t tempt me, just go!” When God gives us second chances to obey we should thank him for his mercy and submit to his will without delay.
A Submissive Messenger, Sort of (3:3)
Without any pomp or fanfare we are told that Jonah “arose and went to Nineveh.” With all his faults, in going to Nineveh Jonah sets a clear example for us.
Believers must go to where the people are who need to hear the gospel. Of course the church must be a place to which unbelievers can come. We must invite the world to “come and see the works of God” (Ps. 66:5). Yes, we should be praying for the lost to come to the church. Yes, we should expect God to answer these prayers. Yes, we must be welcoming and hospitable when they do come. But why should we expect the lost to always come to us? Shouldn’t we also go to them? Should Israel expect the entire city of Nineveh to travel to Jerusalem to learn about God? How unreasonable! God does mercifully draw unbelievers into the church. But Jonah is our pattern for going out.1
Jesus later elaborated Jonah’s call. He told the church, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:19). The Great Commission isn’t simply a spur to foreign missions. It expresses God’s expectation that his people imitate Christ in seeking the lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). He sent his disciples into the world even as the Father sent him into the world (John 17:18). There was no other way. Zacchaeus is a parable of the universal human condition. Zacchaeus couldn’t get to Jesus; Jesus had to come to him. Jesus comes to people through the witness of believers. God’s people are his missionaries. This means Christians and the churches they form must focus on moving outward and engaging the world with the message with which God has entrusted us. Jonathan Leeman gets to the point: “Now that Christendom has come to an end, the church must recognize that it’s no longer chaplain to the culture.”2 The culture no longer takes its cues from the ambiguous morality of American Christianity. The church no longer has a captive audience. Christians need to go out and win an audience for Christ through genuine participation in the lives of their neighbors.
When Jonah arose and went to Nineveh he did the right thing. Let’s follow him! In fact, let’s do better. Jonah obeyed out of duty, not out of shared motives with God. We learn from the closing chapter that he was on mission only in the most threadbare sense of the term. He participated in God’s mission grudgingly, out of a sense of compulsion. Duty is important; duty got Jonah to Nineveh. He was compelled to obey out of a healthy fear of God’s power. He was motivated by dread of ill consequence.
But Jonah did not share God’s pity for lost souls; he wasn’t interested in seeing God’s kingdom come to the world. We might ask, “What does it matter? After all, he did go.” Yes, he went. But he didn’t share in the joy of being used by God. He went, by all appearance, as a slave not as a son. When the Son of God came to earth he did so with sober enthusiasm (Heb. 10:7). Jesus was powerfully aware of the challenges of his mission. But do you know that he came willingly? Do you know that he didn’t die for sinners grudgingly? Christ eagerly assumed human nature. He deliberately bore the penalty our sins had earned (Phil. 2:5–8) so that he could do the holy will of the triune God (Ps. 40:6–8; cf. Heb. 10:5–10) and lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Each of the three persons of the Trinity wanted me to be saved. For some mysterious reason I am precious to God. Isn’t God’s heart for the mission essential to the beauty of the mission? Jonah missed this. The tragedy of obeying God’s will only out of a sense of duty—the duty of evangelism or anything else—is that you miss out on the joy of participating with God. Duty is important because it can sometimes override our feelings, but duty usually fails to reorient our feelings. Only the good news can do that. “True education”—true recovery of God-like knowledge—“is learning to love the right things.”3
How can we cultivate joy in the fulfillment of our duty? First, we can admit our lack of joy when we should be joyful. Jonah might have noted that participating in God’s mission ought to have brought joy but instead evoked resentment. We might note similar emotional discrepancies over good thinks like going to church, singing in worship, participating in church fellowship opportunities, evangelizing our neighbors, loving our family members, going to work. We should find joy in these things. Do we? Something powerful happens when we admit that our hearts are out of tune with God’s. We put our hearts on notice. We stop making excuses and we begin looking to God to retune us.
Second, we can ask God for help. Lord, I don’t want to simply go through the motions. I don’t want to always clench my teeth as I submit to your will. I want to enjoy following you! In the context of evangelism David prayed to God, “restore to me the joy of your salvation . . . and sinners shall be converted to you” (Ps. 51:12–13). In asking for God to establish the work of his hands Moses pleaded with God: “Satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us” (Ps. 90:14–17). As we look to Jesus we will endure our cross, despise the shame, and finish our work profoundly moved by joy (Heb. 12:2).
Still, for our sake I’m glad Jonah found it hard to go. Even after his hard lesson at sea he retained ample arguments for why someone else should go, or why the Ninevites weren’t worthy recipients of God’s kindness. When he arrived in Nineveh his suspicions were confirmed. He saw people who looked different from him. He heard a strange language. He was out of place in a foreign culture. But more than that, the overt sin he witnessed as he walked through Nineveh probably reinforced all his reasons why God was wasting his time with these people. Obedience is hard even when you are committed. Evangelism, in particular, requires painful incarnation. Confronting unbelief isn’t comfortable for any Christian. “There are no easy places today to which God sends His servants to preach.”4
But Christians aren’t beholden to the offer of temporary ease. We trust in a God who promises eternal comfort after a brief time of hard, painful, but rewarding work. We follow a Savior who has blazed the path for us and now prays for our success in his mission.
Questions
1. Recount some of the times when God gave you second chances.
2. How can feelings of disqualification be the beginning of greater faithfulness?
3. How does Matthew 10:19–20 comfort you?
4. Make a case for Christians going into the world with the gospel rather than merely waiting for the world to come to us.
5. Compare and contrast dutiful obedience and gospel-motivated obedience.
6. Why is it important to be honest with God about our reluctance to obey his will?
7. Reconcile the fact that Scripture both commands joy (Phil. 3:1) and teaches us to request joy (Ps. 51:12).
1 “In light of the imminent dispersion of Israel by Assyria and the worsening disobedience of Israel that rendered her testimony to the Gentiles increasingly ineffective . . . Jonah is presenting an early argument for a shift in Israel’s involvement with the nations around her.” While the full transition from a centripetal to a centrifugal approach to missions would be realized only in the New Testament, Jonah prepares a soon-to-be exiled people to go into the world preaching a gospel to people for whom there was no longer a centralized place of worship to which they might be attracted. Daniel Timmer, “Jonah and Mission: Missiological Dichotomy, Biblical Theology, and the Via Tertia,” Westminster Theological Journal 70 (2008): 172.
2 Jonathan Leeman, “What in the World Is the Missional Church?,” 9Marks, March 1, 2010, https://www.9marks.org/article/what-world-missional-church.
3 Hannah Anderson, Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 97.
4 Steve Lawson, “The Power of Biblical Preaching: An Expository Study of Jonah 3:1–10,” Bibliotheca Sacra 158 (July–September 2001): 334.
Rev. William Boekestein is the pastor of Immanuel Fellowship Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, MI.