Why the story of Jonah is ridiculous (it’s not the fish)
When I read the book of Jonah, I think, whoa, that’s insane! What an absurd, laughable story!
How could that have really happened??
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Do you think I’m talking about Jonah being inside the fish?
No, that’s nothing for a God who calmed a storm, walked on water and rose from the dead.
The most stunning, miraculous thing that happens in the book is that the Ninevites repented!
And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. (3:4-5)
Wait, what?!?
That’s just silly. This guy walks into this huge, worldly pagan city. He’s from a foreign nation, representing a foreign God, and on the first day he’s there, his message is doom and destruction.
Imagine what the reaction should have been. Imagine what it would be today. I mean, the judging! So negative! He didn’t even try to build relationships first! Why on earth would anyone listen, much less believe him?
The only conceivable reaction would be mockery and derision. You’d think they would kill him.
But as He tends to do, God did the inconceivable.
The greatest miracle in Jonah is that the Ninevites not only listened, but heeded the word of the Lord. There’s no other explanation. It doesn’t make any sense if it’s not a sovereign act of God.
That’s the power of His word.
His word works in ways we never think it should. It works in ways that don’t make sense, that defy all our expectations.
When we reach out to the world, we often try to come up with any approach except the straight preaching of the word. We don’t think it will work, and we’re so afraid of looking like crazy, backward fundamentalists.
Well, no one in the Bible comes off as a crazy man more than Jonah.
And his way worked.
Because it was God’s way. Because it was God’s power.
God’s way is preaching the word. And God’s power is in preaching the word.
Jonah is far from the only time in the Bible that lesson is taught:
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17).
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek (Romans 1:16).
When we think preaching the Bible is an obsolete approach in this postmodern world, we should ask ourselves, do we really believe it? Are we ashamed of it? Do we think it’s ... foolishness?
If so, even reluctant Jonah’s faith puts us to shame, because the reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh is not that he didn’t think preaching the word of God would work, but because he knew it would.
Because it’s the only thing that does work.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21).
