“But Jonah”: Toward a Fuller Understanding of Jonah 1:5

וַיִּירְאוּ הַמַּלָּחִים וַיִּזְעְַקוּ אִישׁ אֶל־אְֶלֹהָיו וַיָּטִלוּ אֶת־הַכֵּלִיָם אְַשֶׁר בָּאְָנִיָּה אֶל־הַיָּם לְהָקֵל מֵעְַלֵיהֶם וְיוּנָה יָרַד אֶל־יַרכְּתֵי הַסְּפִינָה וַיִּשְׁכַּב וַיֵּרָדַם

Jonah 1:5, BHS [1]

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

Jonah 1:5, ESV

I’m a member of the Veggietales generation, meaning that very often, the mental image I get when reading the book of Jonah involves Archibald Artichoke (as Jonah) and his friend having a conversation with the traveling sales-worm Khalil while the Pirates who Don’t Do Anything prepare their ship for sailing to Tarshish.  The two “heroes” of the story would then fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of a violent storm in which their ship is caught, and the passengers on the ship would all play an epic game of Go Fish! to determine on whose account the storm came.

 

Jonah: The Cost of Mercy

And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2 ESV)

Jonah’s motivation for fleeing from the presence of the LORD seems rather lacking.  He merely states what seems to be a generic platitude about God’s mercy as an excuse for directly disobeying the command of his god and employer.  Indeed, what he says is a refrain that echoes throughout the Pentateuch and the poets, often used in reassurance or in worship as opposed to a reason to run away from God. Yet, in his blatant misuse of such a seemingly simplistic theological point, Jonah demonstrates that even though he knew in his head that God was gracious and merciful, the reality of what he knew–the heart- and hand-component of knowledge–was clearly lacking.  The entire story of Jonah seems to revolve around Jonah’s disconnect with the mercy of God.  In the great storm of chapter one, it is the sailors who have compassion on Jonah and refuse to throw him over until there is absolutely no choice but to do so.  Meanwhile, Jonah demonstrates his “mercy” by resigning himself (and the sailors as well) to death in taking a nap during the storm.  In chapter three, it is the wicked and evil city of Nineveh that covers itself in sackcloth in hopes that “God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger” (3:9).  Jonah, however, shows no mercy and spends his time waiting for God to punish Nineveh.  Indeed, chapter four ends with a literal parable of God’s mercy and his attempt to reason with Jonah about it.

 

Writing and Sanctification

Don’t tell your own story—most writers have boring lives. And even if you tell your own story once, whose story are you going to tell the next time? Tell someone else’s story.

–Joyce Carol Oates [1]

I don’t know why, but when I read these words about writing today, they did not only resonate with their seemingly self-evidential nature, but with the glorious shimmer of illumination.  For the first time in a long time, I entertained the thought that I had been a writer and then moved on to the inevitable speculation of whether or not I still was one.  Now this is not a corridor I haven’t wandered down before, and certainly not the first time that my passage down that path was accompanied with pious thoughts of bringing glory to God.

 

7- Contra Kuyper’s Monism

No single piece of our mental world is to be sealed off from the rest and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!

-Abraham Kuyper, speech at the Free University

Significant as Kuyper’s innovative push for the creation and cultivation for a Christian worldview may be in the particular historical moment of which he was a part, we who live in what is, in many ways, a vastly different world have many reasons reject the monist conception that a comprehensive worldview may be developed from a single principle.  The postmodern critique of objectivity (or should I say its appreciation of subjectivity?) and pessimism towards progress (at least in the non-scientific realm) makes it nearly impossible to merely affirm Kuyperian principles and foolishness to attempt to apply them in the forms that Kuyper developed [1]. But though the spirit of “systematization”that dominated modernity has lost much of its steam as it approached the present day, the mere fact that worldview-ism (in Kuyper’s conception) is culturally out-of-date does not invalidate all of its ideas.  Christ remains sovereign over all, and Christ does reign with all of creation as his footstool.  What is introduced, however, is a gap between the theological truth expressed by such a statement and our ability to act effectively according to its implications.

 

Day 2: Settling In

For those who don’t know, I’m spending 5 weeks in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem studying 2nd-year Biblical Hebrew.  We’ve had our second day of classes today, and I’ll have to admit that I’m still rather jet-lagged.  It doesn’t help that our classes are during what would be (back in the States) the hours from 1:30 – 7:00 am.

It turns out that 2 of my 4 roommates are in the same class as I am, and so we end up doing a lot of stuff together.  Earlier tonight (we are 7 hours ahead of Eastern Time), we made spaghetti and meat sauce and sat around and talked about languages and Tim Keller.  It’s been an exciting experience here already, even though this is technically only my third day (2nd full day) here.  The Rothberg International School (where I’m studying) is really rather international–I have roommates from Denmark, from Poland, and from Brazil (as well as one native Israeli–who is actually an Arab, not Jewish, as one would think.  Apparently, a sizable portion of Israelis are actually Arab–and they don’t have anything against Israel as news reports may make you think.  He’s actually served his mandatory time in the Defense Forces–although I actually think he went with the police duty option).

 

6- The Allure of Finititude

It’s all over and all you have left is a block of stone with scratches on it provided there was someone to remember to have the marble scratched and set up or had time to, and it rains on it and the sun shines on it and after a while they dont even remember the name and what the scratches were trying to tell, and it doesn’t matter.  And so maybe if you could go to someone, the stranger the better, and give them something–a scrap of paper–something, anything, it not to mean anything in itself and them not even to read it or keep it, not even bother to throw it away or destroy it, at least it would be something just because it would have happened, be remembered even if only passing from one hand to another, one mind to another, and it would be at least a scratch, something, something that might make a mark on something that was once for the reason that it can die someday, while the block of stone cant be is because it never can become was  because it cant ever die or perish.

Judith to Quentin Compson’s grandmother, in William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom, pp. 127-128.

Now this is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.

John 17:3

The knowledge of our sinful nature manifests itself in our desacralization of our actions, our attempts to divorce eternity from the evanescent aspirations of our meaning-making lives–it doesn’t matter, why so serious, just have fun.  It seems that it is in these moments of absolute banality–severed from the anchoring line of endless time and eternal judgment–that human desperation and human glory flourishes; a (perhaps illusory) existential release from the dread of the judgment throne or the ecstatic release into the infinitesimally finite reality of the now-without-the-then-or-will-be.  The knowledge of God–it is too wonderful for us, too grave and unbearable with its burden of righteousness (and not only so, but holiness)–grates upon us.  We laugh.  We make light.  We mentally cordon the event (consciously or unconsciously?) into that category of things that happen in and of themselves, which signify and serve as portent of nothing, past or future, self-sufficient in and of itself without need of causality nor aftereffect.  It is more than just an expression of human limitation, but a spasm of existential independence.  I.  I.  I have said it, and it has come to pass.  No matter how insignificant in the scheme of things, how meaningless in reference to anyone but ourselves.  To me be the glory, great things I have done–for no greater proof of our omnipotence is required.

 

Crimes of the Heart

Went and saw Beth Henley’s play Crimes of the Heart today.  It was… a really good play, and though I didn’t really have time to reflect on it immediately afterwards, as the day (or night, rather) went on, I think one of its main themes really resonated with me, especially in light of tonight’s Large Group message on Genesis 32.

Is Christianity a crutch for the weak? the speaker asked.  The truth is, we are weaker than we can possibly imagine, and to deny our weakness is in effect, a crutch.  We who pretend to be strong are afraid of our own weaknesses.  We who are weak are not surprised by our weaknesses, but are empowered by hope.

I am weak.  There’s no denying that.

Heh, short post.  I sort of wish I could elaborate more, but I don’t think I’m in a very good position to do so quite yet.

 

My life is hid with Christ on high

Was just listening to this as I studied, and it suddenly struck me how important hymns were (and still are) to my life as a Christian.

 

Reflections on Rest (Hebrews 4)

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.  … Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before,

“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”

For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.  So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.  Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. Hebrews 4:1, 7-11 (NASB)

I’m a sinful person.  And a lot of the time, the reflection on my own sinfulness stops there.  I’m convicted for a sin, I confess.  I ask for forgiveness.  I hope it doesn’t happen again, and I try to be more conscious of it.  Or maybe I reach a time in a more structured prayer for confession.  I search my head for things to confess.  I find some.  But the assumption there is always… I’m a sinful person.

But what do I do about it?

 

Semester 4

Heh, again I’ve been away from posting for… a long time.  And once again, the mandatory renewal of commitment to post again–ah, who am I kidding?

But there are a lot of thoughts running through my head right now, though my head also sort of feels dull because I’m tired.  I actually think that this has been my first day to actually eat breakfast for like… a month now.  I’ve been so used to sleeping late and waking up around 11 o’clock or noon or so and I’m totally not accustomed to waking up for 9 am classes.