Jonah's Mission - The View from ABOVE

Most of the attention given to the book of Jonah is about him surviving in the belly of the fish. The event is quite important and unusual, but there are other lessons we can learn from him and his story.

One of the lessons is to look at what Jonah needed to fulfill his mission. To succeed as a man of God, Jonah needed several things to be in place. That is what this paper explores.

The Passages

The book of Jonah is rather short, and there are just a few verses that speak directly about his mission. Most of the book deals with the circumstances around Jonah running from God, and then him actually going on his mission and Nineveh’s response.

Below, I have given the two passages from the book of Jonah concerning the mission.

Jonah 1:1-2

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.””

Jonah 3:1-4

“Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.””

Historically, we also know that Jonah had already been serving God as a prophet to Israel. (See 2 Kings 14:25.)¹

The List

Based on what we know about Jonah, and what we know about what is necessary to follow God, I came up with the following list. The list contains some of the items that I think need to be in place in order to deliver God’s message. The list is not exhaustive. After contemplating the list, I saw that we could put the items into two broad categories: Inward preparation; and, Outward delivery:

Inward preparation

Humble himself.

Be willing to be uncomfortable.

Obey God.

Represent God to others.

Set aside his opinion of the people.

Go to a potentially hostile group of strangers.

Know something about the nature and character of God.

Know something about the condition of man.

Boldness.

Outward delivery

Proclaim the message God gives him.

Warn people of impending calamity (in 40 days).

The preparation items might continue the whole time, but at least needed to be in place before going or speaking to the people. The delivery components were just in play while presenting the message.

Conclusion

Most everything that Jonah needed for his mission applies to us today. Only two items from my list are different:

We go to a people we know -as well as strangers. Jonah went to strangers in a strange city, while we might start with friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers.
We warn of a future judgment that could occur at any time -not just 40 days ahead as Jonah did. It could occur at any time, because death could come when least expected.

In spite of Jonah’s bad attitude and disobedience, he preached and the Ninevites did receive God’s mercy. This shows us that God can still use imperfect people to accomplish His purposes.

Appendix

For more about Jonah’s attitude, see my paper, Jonah Obeys? I write several articles about what I think is the one of the main conclusions of the book of Jonah, and summarize with the post, Nineveh Victory.

Jonah’s Mission