Tonight, I'll be teaching a women's Bible study at our little church on the border. We're studying the book of Jonah. It's a familiar Sunday School Bible story, many of us have heard over the years. It's easy to focus on the "great fish" and there have been innumerable debates over the actual "great fish" that swallowed Jonah. However, the fish is a minor player in this book. The real focus of the four short chapters is the dialogue between God and Jonah. God begins the conversation with Jonah, who's a well known prophet in Israel. He tells him to go to Nineveh, a great city in Assyria and tell them that God's judgment is coming. Now the Assyrians were Israel's archenemies, despised and hated by any self-respecting Israelite. There was a reason for this. The Assyrians were unspeakably cruel and wicked. Israel had been captured, plundered, and massacred by these people. Judgment for the Assyrians was probably music to the prophet...
Positively encouraging