FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024 - JONAH

 FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024 - JONAH

Jonah? Sure, Jonah!!  

We know the story - God asks (tells?) Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah flees from God and takes a ship away from going where God wants him to go. The ship runs into a storm - the crew throws Jonah overboard, and the storm ends abruptly.  

Jonah gets swallowed by a whale (or something) - and gets coughed up on shore. God says - “Hey, I still want you to go to Ninevah.”  

Jonah 1:2: “ The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: “Go immediately to the great city of Nineveh and denounce it, for their wickedness has revealed itself to me.”

Jonah 3:1-10 “Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Nineveh was a vast city; it took three days to go through. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed in God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring the destruction he had threatened on them

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This is the Old Testament. The Ninevehites were not Jews (Hebrews). They had their religions - and they were “evil.”  

Jonah preached, and they repented - and put on sackcloth (I always associate this with “gunny bags”), and put ashes on their heads - and prayed.

*****

So the evil people repented - but they weren’t Jews - they weren’t God’s chosen people. And yet God wanted them to be “saved”.  

“All men are created equal” (United States Declaration of Independence); God made man in His (that is, God’s) image.  

*****

Conclusion - God wants all people to be good and all people to be saved - even those of a different religion (and probably a different “race”).

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Red and Yellow, Black and White. They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

It doesn’t say, “Jesus loves the little Christian Children.”  It says “ALL.”  All means “all.”

WHOA - Time Out!! Jesus can’t love the Arabs. Jesus can’t love the Athestists. 

Jesus loves the weird, the poor, the disabled, the physically strong, the tall, the short, the fat, the skinny, the normal (whatever normal is).  

So why do we hate the immigrants at the Southern Border? Why do Republicans hate Democrats? Why do Democrats hate Republicans? 

*****

LOVE WINS

GOD LOVES ALL OF US

Karen Anne White, ©, January 26, 2024