Jonah: The Other Message

 Who's Side is God On, Anyway?

The Book of Jonah is one of the shorter books in the Old Testament and - I think - perhaps one  of the most misunderstood.  But it also contains an often-overlooked message:  one that is quite relevant for us, today, in America and in our world.   This is the message about God taking sides in human affairs - it asks the question "Who's Side is God On, Anyway?"  The book then offers an answer that surprised Jonah thousands of years ago, an answer that will continue to surprise many of us today.

The first and most widely-known message of Jonah is fairly clear - if God has a mission for you, running away from God won't do you much good.

However, there's another message in Jonah, one that doesn't come across much, but it is also one that has perhaps more relevance to our lives today than the first message.

In a nutshell, God directed His prophet Jonah to go to Israel's hated enemy, Nineveh (capital of Assyria) and preach a message of doom. Though not Jonah's intention, this was a message that invited - or at least allowed - the Ninevites to repent.

Right up front, Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh, and he rejects God's command for two very modern reasons.  First, he feared that he'd no sooner show his face in Nineveh than he'd be stoned to death (if he was lucky). These Assyrians were, after all, the sworn enemies of Israel.  The second reason, not quite so immediately obvious, was that because Assyria was Israel's sworn (and much larger) enemy, Jonah really, really didn't want to risk actually helping them. While he was God's servant, he was not a traitor to his native Israel.

So in disobedience, he ran from God, heading to the port city of Tarshish.  There he hopped on a boat, hoping to sail away from God's commands.  Didn't work.  Jonah apparently forgot that God is omnipresent, as well as all powerful.  So God sent a terrible storm, and it wasn't long before the other crew members figured out that somebody's God had been angered. Through a process of elimination, they determined that it was Jonah.  So, after trying in vain to sail back to shore, Jonah realized he wasn't going to have these men's souls on his conscience.

At his own prophetic recommendation, the crew made Jonah walk the plank, doing so to appease his wrathful God.

That worked for the sailors, and - oddly - it worked for Jonah, too.  He was swallowed by a "huge fish" (not a whale, which is one of the first common errors people have in understanding Jonah).  Remember, this isn't the fairytale story of Pinocchio, but a record of God's great works.

After three days in the belly of the beast, God made sure that Jonah was vomited up on the shore by this great fish. But only after Jonah had repented of his folly in trying to run away from God.

That's the beginning of Jonah's story, and that's the message most people take from the book.  "You can't run away from God - if He has a job for you, buckle down and do it, no matter how scary it might be, no matter how much it runs against the grain."

Others, looking more deeply, compare Jonah's three days in the belly of the beast with Christ's three days in the world of death before being restored to life.   In that they are right - the Old Testament is filled with prophecies about the coming Savior, and this is certainly one of those - but that's not the message for us today.

There's another message that is, I believe, far more relevant to us today than running from God and his commands (though that message also obviously has an eternal value and relevance).

As the story goes on, Jonah goes to Nineveh, preaches the Lord's wrath, including a prophecy of total destruction in just 40 days. Then - surprising Jonah and perhaps even themselves - the people of Nineveh hear the word of God from Jonah.  This included everyone, from the lowliest beggar to the King himself.  All begin fasting, wearing sack-cloth and anointing themselves with ashes, the contemporary Near Eastern symbols of repentance.  God, pleased with their response, decides to cancel His plans to smite Nineveh.

At first, Jonah doesn't know this.

Instead, having followed God's command to the letter, Jonah went out and found himself a ringside seat for the upcoming smiting, holing up in a patch of desert overlooking the city.  In modern terms, he had his bucket of wings, his cold six-pack, his remote - and he was ready to watch the Cosmic Super Bowl, God's wrathful smiting of the greatest city of the age.

But despite all of his expectations and hopes - that Israel's great enemy and nemesis, Nineveh, capital of Assyria, would be destroyed by God's wrath - that didn't happen.

And when it didn't happen, Jonah got mad.  Mad at God.

His thinking went something like this.

"Hey, God, we are Your Chosen People, the faithful sons of Abraham and Jacob, of Joseph and Moses, of Joshua and David.  You're on our side. You're our protector.  And Nineveh, capital of Assyria is our sworn enemy. It deserves smiting - you said so yourself.  And let's not forget that Assyria is a lot bigger and stronger than we are in Israel.  So why didn't You do Your warrior-God thing, just the way You promised, and destroy our enemies. 

"As You yourself had me preach, the Ninevites have certainly earned destruction."

Jonah was mad that His God hadn't stood by His Chosen People's country, ticked off that the God of Abraham hadn't defended His People.  Instead, God had shown mercy - he actually spared Jonah's hated enemy. In doing so, he left them intact and able to attack and destroy Israel, pretty much whenever they pleased.

Besides, Jonah had 50-yard-line seats for the smiting.

 He even told God of his feelings:

"Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?  That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.  I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity."

God tried to teach Jonah an object lesson about compassion and forgiveness, but finally, in the face of this hard-hearted Hebrew, God realized that He was just going to have to lay down the law.

"Should not I have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons ...?"

That's where the Book of Jonah ends, with God scolding and admonishing Jonah. However, Jonah was showing no sign of understanding God's lesson.  True, God gets the last word, and while that last word is in the form of a question, it's a rhetorical question.

In that question comes perhaps the most important message for us - Americans and Christians - living in our world today.

Jonah expected God - his God, Israel's God, the God who'd made the Israelites His Chosen People - to fight on His People's behalf.  Jonah expected his God to make Israel's enemies His own enemies.

That was Jonah's expectation.  And in many ways, that remains our expectation today.

Consider this.

In World War II, President Roosevelt ended his speech to Congress asking that they declare war on our enemy with the words, "So Help Us God!"  And if you listen to a recording, you'll hear that this is not a throw-away platitude (like one of our more secular Presidents ending each speech with "and God Bless America"). Instead, Roosevelt delivered the thundering proclamation of an Old Testament Prophet or Patriarch, invoking God's Own Help, doing so with every expectation that God would get on board, making our enemies His enemies.

Yet also during World War II, emblazoned on the belt-buckle of each soldier serving Hitler and Nazi Germany, was the phrase, "Gott Mit Uns" (God With Us).

That's right.  Hitler's Nazis, as a matter of State policy, publicly professed a belief that God was on their side.  Which meant He couldn't be on our side.

In World War II, on whose side was God, anyway?

More recently, the radical Islamic al Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah and ISIS terrorists have all professed to doing the Holy Work of Allah.  Their God, Allah, presented to the world by his final prophet, Mohammad, is thought by some to be the same monotheistic God who'd first raised up Abraham, the father of Ishmael - founder of the Arab nation which became the first Muslims.  Their Allah is supposed to be the same God as the Israelites' Yahweh, the One True God who sent his Holy Prophets to the Israelites, including Jesus.

I don't believe that Allah is God, if only because of John 14:

 I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me

But the followers of Mohammad believe that their Allah is the final revelation of the Jewish and Christian God.  So, when these radical Muslims suicide-bomb an Israeli pizza parlor or crash hijacked airliners into the Twin Trade Towers and the Pentagon, are they doing God's Will?

Is He really on their side?

No, God is on no man's side - not even (if our God was also Allah) his prophet's side. Instead, this is the lesson from Jonah:

God expects each of us to be on His side.

This is the lesson of Jonah that applies today.  God made it clear to His own prophet, Jonah, that He (God) was not on Jonah's side - nor was he on his own Chosen People's side.

Instead, He expected His Chosen People - from the run-away prophet to the lowliest shepherd boy with a slingshot - to be on His side. On God's side.

God is infinite and eternal - he doesn't take sides in human endeavors unless doing so suits His purposes. He'll do it for his own reasons, but never for "our" purposes.  He has a single, unchanging side. He demands that we repent of our sins, even if we are among his Chosen People or among those Saved by Christ's blood.  But then He is gracious to offer His forgiveness to all who sincerely repent and call on God for His forgiveness.

Just as the Ninevites did, to Jonah's apparently eternal frustration.

God was not on Jonah's side, or His Chosen People's side, or a Christian's side, or a Muslim's side. God isn't even on America's side.  Instead, He expects us to be on His side.


And that is the real lesson of Jonah.

My Statement of Personal Faith in God, Jesus and the Spirit

This is my statement of faith.

I believe that faith is a journey, not a destination.  I believe we were put here by God to experience His love, and to grow in faith.  I believe that suffering is an important tool in that faith journey, as it calls us back to God when nothing else will.  I believe that God is there to help us, but he expects us to help ourselves.  He expects us to act on our faith, even as salvation is not based on works or deeds, but on faith alone.  But I believe that inner faith without external manifestations of that faith is a slender reed, and a hollow one.

I believe in God and He shapes my life, provides me guidance (when I listen) and sees me through troubled times.  I believe in Jesus as the one true son of God, the author of my salvation.  I believe in the Holy Spirit of God, and have (at critical points in my life) felt touched by the Spirit of God.  The Trinity remains a mystery to me (as, I suppose, it was meant to), but I believe in God the Father, I believe in Jesus the Son and pathway to salvation, and I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the Bible as the primary source of God's message to humanity (and to me).  I reject those who claim that the Bible was solely the work of man, as that denies the reality of divine intervention.  The experiences in my life have proved to me the divine nature of the Bible.  I find spiritual value in both the Old and New Testaments, but in cases of a conflict, I believe that the New Testament (and Jesus) were created to refine and replace the Old Testament.

I believe in baptism as a vital step in a person's faith journey.  However, I believe that infant baptism is symbolic of the intent of the infant's parents, family and godparents to raise the child in faith, but it doesn't "confirm" adult salvation.  That adult salvation requires informed and committed faith, demonstrated by baptism, to "count" as baptism.

I believe Jesus meant what he said about the Eucharist, and those faiths that don't include communion with every church service are (at best) misinformed.  I believe that Satan exists and is active in this world, and that he is a major part of every person's faith journey.  As I believe that Satan exists to tempt Man, I believe that Hell is the destination of those who hear the Gospel and refuse to accept it. 

I believe in the life everlasting for those who believe in God and in the saving power of Jesus.

However, I have no real idea of what Heaven is like, or how Hell works.  Those answers have not been shown to me. 

I do not know how infant baptism works, but I believe that God accepts into his loving arms all infants and children who die while still too young to profess faith.  I also do not profess to know what happens to those who die having never been introduced to God and Jesus - as they saying goes, "that's way above my pay grade."

I believe that God created the universe, and that He created mankind, but I do not rule out the possibility that he used Evolution as a tool for doing so - God is infinite, and those who try to constrain him set themselves up to judge God - always a bad idea. I am not saying that God used evolution - I am saying that in His infinite wisdom, he used whatever tools he chose (and that evolution might - or might not - have been one of them).

I believe that, just as Jesus used parables, God might have been using parables in His teachings about Adam and Eve in the Garden, or about Noah and the Flood, or about Jonah and Leviathan.  The literal truth vs. the parabolic truth of these is not important to my faith.  What they tell me about what God wants of me is vitally important, just as the lessons of Jesus' parables are far more important than the name and zip code of the Prodigal Son.

This is not all of my faith, but it reflects a significant part of my faith as God has shown my faith to me at this point in my life.

Noah Was The First Environmentalist? Does that Make God the FIrst Eco-Terrorist?

Paramount Is Positioning Noah As A Biopic About The First Environmentalist and the Great Flood As God's Revenge On Those Who Don't Respect the Environment ...  I can see the Marquee Now:

Noah: Environmentalist Wacko

You've Got To Be Kidding Me ...

Foolishly, I'd had high hopes for the upcoming movie, Noah, the first in a long line-up of in-production Hollywood films based on the Bible.  Just imagine - great special effects PLUS what had been billed as a biblically-sound project. 

Now, not so much ...

Forget about the made-up war that ravaged the earth (?) - forget the monstrous creatures that never existed (?) - forget the Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic landscape that God is intent on destroying ...

Noah?  Environmental Wacko?

You've got to be kidding me ... 

Here's what the UK Telegraph has to say ...

"... this audience (i.e., Bible-believing Christians and Jews) is knowledgeable about the subject matter and Hollywood is wrestling with questions of dramatic license. One of next year’s epics has already run into controversy. Test screenings for Noah with a Christian audience in Arizona, and a Jewish audience in New York, reportedly produced troubling results. 

"It has been suggested that the film shows Noah as an early opponent of climate change. Its director, Darren Aronofsky, has called him the “first environmentalist”. 

"Brian Godawa, a screenwriter, claimed to have read an early version of the script and said it portrayed a scenario in which the Great Flood was caused by man’s “disrespect” for the environment."

No wonder this film, when played to Jews in New York and Christians in Arizona, produced "troubling results."  This is not only NOT what the Bible says, but this bizarre (but politically-correct) motivation for God's actions are entirely contrary to what God said when he created the earth, and what he later re-affirmed to Noah after the flood.

Hollywood thinks that it can rewrite the Bible and still attract the faithful.  They don't seem to understand that this is not a just new "take" on the origins of Superman or Batman, or the third re-casting and re-booting of the Incredible Hulk. 

This is taking the God-inspired and very clear words of Genesis 1 and Genesis 6  through 9 - along with the very clear intent of God Himself, as laid out in His own words - and completely throwing them out. 

In this movie, God's  actions and motivations are replaced with a totally extra-Biblical and even counter-Biblical story, based on God's anger at mankind for spoiling the environment that He'd given them dominion over.  This movie, using only those few parts of Genesis's brief story of Noah that are politically correct, replaced anything that might seem politically-incorrect or judgmental.  They especially removed the clear motivation of God - who destroyed the world as His way of punishing the wicked for sins of violence and corruption and total evil.

I guess Hollywood's far-left power-brokers decided that it was better to give God an entirely new motivation, rather than risk suggesting that God might actually judge the wicked, the sinners, the violent, the corrupt and the totally evil.  Why?  That description of the world of Noah - corrupt, wicked and evil - if you think about it, sounds like a pretty good description of Hollywood.  A story that told the truth about what Genesis says might cut too close to home.

No surprise there.  Hollywood is a hotbed of liberalism and political correctness, along with a total lack of personal responsibility for even the darkest sides of personal behavior.  So I guess I shouldn't really be surprised that they think they can get away with rewriting the Bible, just like their fellow liberals in Washington rewrite the constitution.

For anyone who's ever read Genesis 1 (the creation) and Genesis 6-9 (Noah's brief story), it becomes clear that the Bible has a somewhat different "take" on why God decided to destroy all life on earth. God's decision had nothing to do with the environment - in fact, God had so little concern for the environment that, in his effort to destroy mankind, He inundated the entire planet and destroyed all living things on earth - except, of course, for Noah and his family and the animals Noah took with him on the ark.  The cause of God's wrath is spelled out quite clearly in Genesis 6:5-7 (New Living Translation): 

⁵ The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. ⁶ So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. ⁷ And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”

 The Lord told Noah of his plans, and the reasons for those plans, in Genesis 6:11-13 - and once again, environmentalism had nothing at all to do with God's wrath:


¹¹ Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. ¹² God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. ¹³ So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!"

 This was no simple matter, wiping out every human - except for Noah's family - along with all the animals he'd created, except for the ones Noah would carry on the ark.  Rather than being concerned with the environment, the Lord intended to scour it clean, then start over.   Clearly, this is not the act of  a Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe who was particularly concerned about "disrespect for the environment," let alone about punishing those who'd shown "disrespect for the environment."  

God seemed more concerned with wickedness, consistent and total evil, and universal corruption and violence.

Rather than worry about the environment, God told Noah in Genesis 6:17:
 
¹⁷ “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die."

That's not exactly the actions of a Supreme Being who was worried about the environment, is it?  He is about to destroy all land-based life on earth, and to ravage the environment with a Great Flood that would devastate the entire world's environment.  

In Genesis 7, God lives up to His promise to Noah to push the reset button for the earth and start all over:

²¹ All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. ²² Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. ²³ God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.

Again, does that sound like a God who was overly troubled by a lack of respect for the environment He'd created?  Not so much, does it?

In fact, the only mention about mankind's use of the environment that the Lord God made came in Genesis 1:26-28 - when He said, during his creation of all things, that he wanted his new creation, mankind, to exploit the world for all that it was worth:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

²⁸ Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

Once again - not trying to beat a dead horse, which might be environmentally unfriendly - does that sound like a Supreme Being and Creator God who was worried about the environment?  He was telling mankind to fill the world and make use of all that He had created for their use.  Nothing there suggesting God was concerned with how man would use what He'd created. 

And lest there be any question, after God had destroyed everything, then set up Noah to start all over as the new Adam, the Lord gave Noah that same dominion over the world and all that is in it, as recorded in Genesis 9:1-3:

1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. ² All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea will look on you with fear and terror. I have placed them in your power. ³ I have given them to you for food, just as I have given you grain and vegetables.

Giving man power over all living things - and promising that those living things will look on mankind with fear and terror, because they have been placed under mankind's power - does that sound a lot about an environmentally-sensitive God?

Sadly (or alarmingly), Noah isn't the only faith-based story to be given the full-frontal Hollywood treatment.  There's also a movie in the works re-telling the story of Moses.  As you read the quote from the Telegraph article below, please remember that in the bible, Moses wields a staff, and nothing else. Yet in this excerpt from the  Telegraph's article about the surge in films based on the bible (if only loosely), they have Batman star Christian Bales playing Moses as an action-hero wielding a bow and arrow.  

Also, please carefully note what the director of this "take" on Moses has to say about his film.

Noah will be followed by Sir Ridley Scott’s Exodus, in which Christian Bale, as Moses, will part the Red Sea. Scenes from ancient Egypt have been reconstructed in southern Spain, with Bale wielding a bow and arrow and Sigourney Weaver playing the Pharaoh’s wife. Scott has described the film, in a less than godly phrase, as “F------ huge”.

Perhaps most terrifying of all, Hollywood is creating a movie about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  I shudder to think of what they'll come up with as they retell this story about a pregnant, unmarried teen-aged girl.

It looks like those of us who believe in the Bible - Jews as well as Christians, for Hollywood is playing with the Old Testament -  are in for a rough ride as Hollywood plays fast and loose with our holy scripture, the source of our belief.

Thank God that Spider-Man II is coming out in May - at least we can be sure they won't put him in a tutu and have him march in Gay Pride parade. At least I hope we can ...