Rev. Jean's Bible Study

 Jonah 4   Get over it!! What is with Jonah?   Michael E. Williams (The Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible Vol. 7) asks: Is he angry, or disappointed?   Does he feel cheated, disheartened, or revengeful…is he worrying about himself and his reputation as a prophet…does this nonfulfillment of his prediction depress him?   Is he worrying about a world where crime and sin go unpunished?   Is he jealous of the easy life and reward the Ninevites received and the difficulty he has experienced?   Is he angry over the loss of his one alleviation, the plant?   Perhaps Jonah just has trouble accepting a God that is bigger, kinder, more gracious and more loving than anything he or we can imagine.  

Jonah 3   Change Happens! Nineveh was an exceedingly large city.   Jonah was just one person walking through town and calling out the impending destruction.   Yet the people heard and believed and changed their evil ways.   I wonder how long it took for the king to hear the news.   It seems that everyone great and small had already put on their sackcloth before the king got around to making his proclamation.   It makes me think about our politicians finally setting targets for electric vehicles when most of us have already decided that our next car will be electric.   Can we use our imaginations and stretch this story to reinforce the idea that what we do also affects the animals in our midst?   They too suffer, fasting and putting on sackcloth, in order for us to be brought to the point of repentance, of change, of turning from evil and violence with the hope that we will not perish. photo by Jean in Yellowstone Park  

Jonah 2:1-3:3   How Bad Can it Get? Photo by Chris Gallagher on Unsplash From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to God.   How bad does it have to get before we give up and get on with God’s plan?   We have seen towns, “cast into the deep, surrounded by flood”.   Do we need to wait until “life is ebbing away” before we remember God?   God answers Jonah’s prayer and he is spewed out onto the shore. Before he can catch his breath, God sends him on his way to Nineveh.   God doesn’t rescue us from our troubles; God sends us into those troubling situations that we have the power to change.   Thankfully we don’t go alone.  

 Sacrifice   Jonah 1:11-16   The theology of sacrificial atonement is repugnant to me.   The idea that God demanded or planned that Jesus should be tortured and die “in my place” or “for my sin” is ridiculous.   How could Jesus “pay the price” in order to redeem my sin?   Are my sins, or yours, so great that they demand torture?   Who is Jesus paying?   Is God so vindictive that the only way to satisfy God’s anger is with murder?   I have no desire to be washed in the blood of Jesus. It just doesn’t make sense to me.   (Excuse the rant.) However, I have experienced the sacrifice of one for the salvation of many.   Sometimes a dangerous situation requires someone to put themselves at risk so that others can be saved.   In that sense, Jesus died for the sins of the world and Jonah was sacrificed for the sake of the other sailors.   Sometimes evil or nature, is going to take its toll. Jesus stood firm in his resoluti...

Jonah 1:4-6    If God is active in the world, why is it such a mess?  One can only conclude that God is not active or that God is a mess.  Or one could accept that unfathomable mystery that God expects and requires human activity to complement and accomplish God’s work.  The struggling sailors prayed to every god they knew but they also lightened the load.  Jonah, running from God, slept in the hold.  He had already decided that he didn’t want any part of God’s plan, was only interested in his own safety, hoped that if he kept his head down he would be ignored and survive.  If everyone chooses to run and hide, we all go down with the ship.  Karl Barth, a German theologian writing between the wars, said that he did his theology with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Our prayer is only sincere if it is accompanied by our actions.   Our actions will fizzle and fail if not sustained by prayer.  ...