Jonah

Our group presentation is today so I figured I'd jot down some of my thoughts on Jonah since I've spent so much time with him.

While it makes little sense as far as where Jonah was to begin with that he needed to go to Nineveh, or why God was upset with Nineveh in the first place and setting issues like that, it acts as an effective Sunday school lesson.

Jonah is asked to go to Nineveh to proclaim the word of God but he just doesn't feel like it so he gets on a boat to flee from God, resulting in being thrown overboard to stop a storm and then being swallowed by a great fish. God lets Jonah sit in there for three days before he gets the fish to throw him up but Jonah still hasn't learned. God decides to spare Nineveh, so Jonah throws a fit about being a false prophet and wanders around the desert. God gives him a shrub to give him shade but it dies and Jonah whines some more about wishing he was dead.

You'd think that this would be when God gives Jonah the moral of the story as we hear it in Sunday school, with a lesson on obedience and doing what you're told but it just isn't there. God talks about how the shrub was like the city of Nineveh, created ad cared for by God, not Jonah, so he should quit whining. And that's the end of the story. It's really rather abrupt. But like many bible "Stories" the misconception is a better story than what is actually in the bible.