Monthly Archives: July 2010

The whale.  Or was it a big fish.  This is what people think of from the book of Jonah.  (The ESV translates it as a great fish by the way.) But let me assure you the book of Jonah is about more than an underwater sea creature.

This last year I took one of the hardest classes I have ever taken in education: Hebrew.  It is the language the Old Testament was originally written in.  And even though it was difficult to learn, at the end of the year I was able to do something very exciting.  I translated the book of Jonah from Hebrew to English.   And I learned that there was a bigger character in the book than the whale.  Or fish.

The book of Jonah is about God.  It is about his compassion, wanting to save a people that everyone considers evil.  It is about people seeing him for who he is, and repenting before it is too late.  It is about a God who saves.

Translating line by line, I learned to look at the book more closely than I had in the past.  And I noticed a new group of characters I had read right past before.  It was the sailors on the boat.  (Or the mariners as the ESV translates it).

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he gets on a boat going the other way.  And the sailors are afraid in chapter 1 verse 6 when the storm comes up.  They are exceedingly afraid when they find out the storm is a judgment from God on Jonah’s disobedience in verse 10.  But by verse 16 they have learned a different kind of fear.  After these sailors throw Jonah into the water, the storm calms down and they get the point of the book: Fear God.

While I was translating, I began to wonder: Did God have Jonah go the wrong way just so these sailors would come to know him?  This is the kind of God we have.  He is looking for the people far off, people his own prophet doesn’t want to go to.  But God wants them to know him for who he is.

In this book God saves a large, evil city and a small ship of sailors.  It is a great story to learn about his compassion, how he would even save a group of people much further away: you and me.

I’m excited to read Jonah together over the next four days.  May we all come to see God for how big he is and for how much he cares for small people like us!

Do you ever fight with your siblings?

If you ever have, then you can understand the background of the book of Obadiah.

Jacob and Esau were brothers, and they did not get along very well.  Not only that, their descendents did not get along either.  Jacob’s descendents were known as the Israelites.  Esau’s descendents were the Edomites, and they lived right next door to Israel.

When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and took the people into captivity, the Edomites were cheering from the sidelines.  According to Obadiah, they were “gloating” and “rejoicing” in the destruction of the Israelites.  More than that, they were stealing things the Israelites left behind and even capturing those who were trying to escape.

Obadiah comes along to say that God is not happy about this.  God is going to repay the Edomites for the trouble they caused Israel.

Do you ever worry when other people mistreat you?  Let Obadiah be a comfort to you.  God sees everything and will judge those who mistreat others.

Do you ever mistreat other people?  Let Obadiah be a warning to you.  You will not get away with it.

Obadiah may be the shortest book in the Old Testament, but it is still packed with valuable truth about God.  So let’s jump in and see what God has to say!

Judgment is coming.

The Israelites might have been happy to hear this when God pronounces judgment on their enemies in chapter 1.  But not so much when he tells them of their pending doom in chapter 2.  This is something we all need to learn about the judgment: It’s going to happen to us.

God is a judge and for every evil thing that is done there will be justice.  This is an attribute that we will not be able to miss in the book of Amos.

Amos prophesied to the northern tribe of Israel in a time of prosperity.  It was sometime between 790-740 BC.  Financially they were doing well and it seemed like a time of peace.  Little did they know they Assyrians were going to destroy them in 722 BC.

Chapters 3 through 6 describe the sins that the people of Israel have been in and chapters 7 to 9 are visions of the destruction that awaits them in the near future and really reference God’s judgment as a whole.  At the end of the book there is a prophesy of future hope for Israel that is quoted in the New Testament.

Today it is common for people to underestimate God’s judgment and overestimate how his love is going to let things go.  Many people just naively believe God will forgive them or don’t want to think of a God who is so “mean” to judge them.  Reading the book of Amos will show us who God is as a judge.  And may we look to ourselves to make sure we have repented of our sin and put our faith in Jesus Christ.  May it be true of us that we are no longer walking in sinful ways that bring on the judgment of God.

- Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.  Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Looking forward to reading it with you!

The Day of the Lord.

We know it is coming like a thief in the night and the book of Joel tells us a little bit about what it is going to be like.

– Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!

It is a time of coming judgment where the power and holiness of God are going to be revealed in a profound way.  As Joel gives us his prophecy it can be referring to both an imminent judgment coming on God’s people in the southern kingdom of Judah and the ultimate judgment that will come upon the world.

In chapter 1 there is a description of a locust plague that had ravaged the land.  Chapter 2 refers to an even greater devastation, perhaps an army invasion, that is yet to come.

Yet amidst the pronouncement of God’s judgment there is still a chance for people to repent:

- Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

The message of coming judgment and our need to repent now, before it is too late, is one of the most common themes in the Bible.  Unfortunately though, it is not often talked about in the church today.

May the understanding of God’s coming judgment help us understand his disposition towards sin and bring urgency to our lives!