Bad Theology
Text for today: Jonah 1 xi-xvi, 4 x-xi
Seeking to escape his unwanted appointment as a prophet and his unwelcome assignment to warn the city of Nineveh that God is about to obliterate it for unspecified sins, Jonah boards a ship to Tarshish, which is outside the Almighty's presence. Before the ship can escape His jurisdiction, God sends a great storm and those aboard cast lots to find out who is to blame. The lot falls on Jonah, who confesses that he is fleeing the presence of God, and he tells the crew to pick him up and throw him overboard.
Never one to keep things simple when complications can be introduced, God goes about threatening Nineveh by very indirect means. Rather than sending His warning through a resident of the city, let alone by a sign to all concerned, He orders Jonah to travel there; rather than simply spiriting the wayward prophet off the ship or causing him to fall overboard, He punishes the entire ship's crew until they do His dirty work. Reluctant to throw Jonah overboard, the men attempt to row back to land; but this is insufficient to propitiate God, who refuses to let the storm abate until they throw Jonah into the sea. It is not enough for Jonah to repent his disobedience: the sailors, who are not Hebrews and have no covenant with Him, must acknowledge His power and make themselves complicit in His sadistic games, although they still have the wit to throw a paraphrase of "not my will, but Thine" back in the tyrant's face.
In the end God spares Nineveh once all its inhabitants have abased themselves and starved their animals; He justifies Himself to the disgusted Jonah by arguing that the city's hundred and twenty thousand people and their cattle cost Him a certain amount of trouble to create. In this we see one possible explanation for a later and indeed still continuing embarrassment: the unfortunate delay in fulfilling the Saviour's boast about the coming of His kingdom within the lifetime of certain first-century Palestinians (Matthew 24 xxxiv; Mark 13 xxx). Though nobody loves a holocaust more than the Father does, making new toys can sometimes be just a bit too much bother.
Seeking to escape his unwanted appointment as a prophet and his unwelcome assignment to warn the city of Nineveh that God is about to obliterate it for unspecified sins, Jonah boards a ship to Tarshish, which is outside the Almighty's presence. Before the ship can escape His jurisdiction, God sends a great storm and those aboard cast lots to find out who is to blame. The lot falls on Jonah, who confesses that he is fleeing the presence of God, and he tells the crew to pick him up and throw him overboard.
Never one to keep things simple when complications can be introduced, God goes about threatening Nineveh by very indirect means. Rather than sending His warning through a resident of the city, let alone by a sign to all concerned, He orders Jonah to travel there; rather than simply spiriting the wayward prophet off the ship or causing him to fall overboard, He punishes the entire ship's crew until they do His dirty work. Reluctant to throw Jonah overboard, the men attempt to row back to land; but this is insufficient to propitiate God, who refuses to let the storm abate until they throw Jonah into the sea. It is not enough for Jonah to repent his disobedience: the sailors, who are not Hebrews and have no covenant with Him, must acknowledge His power and make themselves complicit in His sadistic games, although they still have the wit to throw a paraphrase of "not my will, but Thine" back in the tyrant's face.
In the end God spares Nineveh once all its inhabitants have abased themselves and starved their animals; He justifies Himself to the disgusted Jonah by arguing that the city's hundred and twenty thousand people and their cattle cost Him a certain amount of trouble to create. In this we see one possible explanation for a later and indeed still continuing embarrassment: the unfortunate delay in fulfilling the Saviour's boast about the coming of His kingdom within the lifetime of certain first-century Palestinians (Matthew 24 xxxiv; Mark 13 xxx). Though nobody loves a holocaust more than the Father does, making new toys can sometimes be just a bit too much bother.
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