(Cue all the pitchforks and torches, I suppose, since it's apparently a horrible thought to wonder about these things. Sorry, folks. I can't say I'm strongly convicted that something is true if I'm not, not if I'm being honest with you and myself.)
One of the reasons I've been thinking about it is the choice of Jonah in the first place.
I've been studying Jonah in preparation for the men's core training, and it's been ... interesting, and something that really concerns me (and concerns me about a lot in Christian life.)
Jonah's been addressed by some of the greatest minds in Jewish culture - one being the Vilna Gaon, the "Genius of Vilna." He sees Jonah through the mists not only of history, but allegory:
Quick context: a men's class is studying the book of Jonah.
Our teacher has a really good way of throwing out questions that make us think, in combination with what he teaches.
On the second night, we covered the first three verses of Jonah, where it seems like relatively little happens, but those verses...
Here's what they contain: God speaks to Jonah, saying to go to Nineveh. Jonah says no, and heads off to Tarshish.
One of the followup questions was "What would you be willing to do to duck His plan for your life?"
On Monday nights, my church has a men's core training class, where a set of men get together to study books of the Bible together. Last semester, we went through the book of James (which ended up with me starting this blog in an attempt to do more as part of a Christian life); this semester, we have the books of Jonah and Nahum as material.
I've been thinking about the book of Jonah, since it's what we're covering first. One thing jumps out at me: what did Jonah say to Nineveh?
