The Message and the Messenger: In Sync with the Heartbeat of God

[The following is an excerpt from A Walk Thru the Book of Jonah: Experiencing God's Relentless Grace a small group study guide from Walk Thru the Bible and Baker Books. © 2009 by Walk Thru the Bible]

Long ago, one king wrote a message to send to the ruler of an offensive enemy kingdom. He sealed the message and gave it to one of his trusted couriers, who immediately began the dangerous ten-day journey to deliver it. Along the way, however, the messenger, who had long hoped his king would finally have the nerve to declare war on the enemy, became overwhelmed with curiosity and decided to unseal the letter. When he read it, he was stunned. Instead of the declaration of war he expected, it was a proposal for peace. He felt betrayed and even ashamed to deliver such an embarrassing token of weakness. He and his people would become a laughing stock, simply because an old king didn't have a backbone. After much thought, he decided to act in the best interests of the kingdom. He would bury the letter and return home with a well-crafted lie.

His plan was interrupted, however, when a group of scouts from the enemy kingdom discovered him burying the missive. They seized him—and the letter—and carried both back to their ruler's palace. Surprisingly the message delighted the rival king, and a peace treaty was soon forged. And with the kingdoms now being on friendly terms, the messenger was released unharmed. But he remained bitterly disappointed, disillusioned, and reluctant to call anyplace his home.

This is the basic story of Jonah, the prophet who fled God's call to preach repentance to an enemy city. It's recast in a different setting without the assumptions we normally read into Jonah's story in order to focus on an important question: Who owns the message—the messenger or the author? Jonah obviously felt a certain right to refuse to deliver the message he was called to preach, even though it was never his message to begin with. He didn't approve of it and wanted no part in it. His own King was essentially issuing an invitation to make peace with Israel's dreaded enemy—the same enemy that had periodically wreaked havoc on Israel's borders and committed crimes against its people. This didn't seem at all like the God he thought he knew.

Most preachers are elated when people respond to their message. But Jonah wasn't like most preachers, and the people he addressed were not like any he had ever preached to. Assyrians were not, and would never be, friends of Israel. He had lived his entire life in a culture that bred animosity against its hostile enemies—and not without reason. Israel had experienced Assyria's raids in the past. The prophet's righteous indignation was hard to reconcile with the mercy of God.