Minor Prophets Midterm

Randall Q. Lawrence
Minor Prophets
Dr. Q
10/25/2011

Midterm: Jonah the Unintentional, Angry Revivalist

I decided to do my Midterm assignment on Jonah. I read something about him being one of the most successful revivalists ever in getting the whole city of Ninevah (120,000) persons—from lowest to highest with even the king (3:6-9)--to repent in sackcloth and ashes and turn away a Judgment of Destruction on the city.

Often, it is hard to be like Jesus or relate to powerfully anointed figures like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, or Daniel. I can more easily relate to a figure like Peter pre-Pentecost or a prophet like Jonah who runs the other way from the work of God and then gets angry over the righteous response of his country’s enemies—the Assyrians and gets angry with God over a shade plant. (4:5-10) I can very much relate to the rather bumbling prophetic walk of Jonah in sleeping through a storm, going the wrong way, and being stubborn and angry with God.

I relate to Jonah in 3 main ways: (1) his avoiding the calling/commission of God—most of my life, I have stubbornly not obeyed and discerned the calling of God in my life. (2) getting angry over major(Ninevah repenting)/minor (shade plant dying) disappointments—this has been a problem in my life that I am working on dealing with with God’s help. (3) stumbling/bumbling in revival (3:10) & endowment of the Spirit (Luke 24:49, Acts 2, Joel 2) with the keys of repentance, turning to God, and prayer/fasting. Revival & endowment are great interests of mine.