Obedience, Grace, and Jonah

Jesus encourages obedience, which we’ve defined as doing things God’s way, which in turn leads to a more centered and focused life. It brings foundation to one’s existence and it also honors God. Even poorly done obedience can bring glory to God in the right setting.

Last week, we talked about grace, about not getting what we deserve or getting what we don’t deserve. We did so by looking at the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan, from bondage to the promised land—a journey replete with illustrations of grace and metaphors of grace. We asked: “What is my part concerning the administration of grace? Do I have a responsibility to do something with grace?” We talked about actively shunning grace, or deliberately avoiding grace, or running away from grace.

Jason introduced a compelling new idea: That grace is a foundational characteristic of God—it is his recreative power, and is equivalent in the creation story to the formation of light. According to this theory, God demonstrates his grace in his light. The characteristics of light and grace are similar: Light dispels darkness; light itself cannot be seen but reveals everything in its presence (put grace where light is and see how it fits); grace cannot be grasped or held; light fills all space available to it, but will not invade space close to it; it can be everywhere at once; it is never consumed or exhausted by anything in its presence; grace is illumination, enabling us to find our way; light is color revealing incredible beauty all around us; light is warmth-giving comfort; light or grace is energy producing power; light is speed—from here to there in an instant; light is essential for good health and growth; and light has a fundamental source, that is Infinite.

The light of Genesis 1:3:

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light

is a foundational element of creation. It is God’s creative power. Grace, then, can be seen as God’s recreative power. This idea is addressed in Isaiah 60:1.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3)

No longer will you have the sun for light by day, Nor will the moon give you light for brightness; But you will have the Lord as an everlasting light, And your God as your glory. (Isaiah 60:19)

Notice the connection between glory and God and his brightness, as we see here that there’s an equation of light with God’s glory, and his glory—as you will see—will be his grace. This light is not as already stated and clearly restated here in this passage—not the sun, the moon, and the stars. This is God’s essence, his glory, and his grace.

Just as evil is the opposite of good, independence is the opposite of grace. It is the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which I’m going to call the tree of independence, rather than from the tree of life—the tree of dependence and grace.

We are dependent upon light, upon God’s creative power. We’re also dependent upon God’s recreative power: In 2 Corinthians 4:6 we see the connection between grace and glory:

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Ephesians 1:6-7 ties God’s glory to his grace in an immutable way. We see the product of that grace is recreative power:

…to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace…

And Revelation 21:23-26 puts together God’s glory with his light, which links God’s glory with his grace:

 And the city [the new Jerusalem] has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;…

So if Grace is linked to God’s glory and is manifest as God’s brilliant light, what responsibility do we have for grace? I’ve been rereading a number of passages, looking at the contrast we’ve been speaking of: Light and darkness, good and evil. In many of them, you can substitute grace and independence for light and darkness and good and evil.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John *testified about Him and called out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who is coming after me has proved to be my superior, because He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (John 1:1, 14-18)

Another translation says: “Out of the fullness, we have already received grace in place of grace already given.” What is “grace in place of grace already given”? It is double grace, grace squared, like the manna given to the Israelites in the desert as a gracious gift in and of itself but also as a gracious gift of an extension of its healthiness. Why do we need grace upon grace? Why do we need this double grace or grace squared?

We’re all familiar with the book of Jonah. It is really a story about running away from grace. God sent Jonah to Nineveh on a mission of grace. However, Jonah sets out on its opposite—a mission of independence. Grace and independence are opposites. Jonah heads in the opposite direction to Nineveh—towards Tarshus. He heads away from God; he is running away from grace.

That Jonah had been called on a mission of grace is unmistakable because, as we see in chapter 4, he throws the grace of God in God’s face and tells him: “I knew that you would relent and show grace to the Ninevites.” A great storm comes up. It represents the storm of life, because we are all Jonah asleep at the wheel of life on an independent journey away from God’s grace.

When confronted with his error, Jonah confesses and accepts judgment, and overboard he goes. It’s all he can do. This is the way of independence: It is down, it is dark. It is where our sin goes. Micah 7:9 says the depth of the sea is where our sin is cast. Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 10 both talk about the sea as a place where sin is disposed of so that it will be remembered no more. It is the abyss, it is Sheol. Jonah’s judgment is come.

The prayer of Jonah in chapter 2 is a real piece of work. Jonah uses 24 personal pronouns: “I did this, I did that. This is my issue. This is what happened to me.” In essence, Jonah says: “I remembered God. I cried out. I agreed that my condition was extreme.” Me, my, I,… 24 personal pronouns. Was this Jonah taking responsibility for grace? This is a key question.

There is no confession in this prayer. There is no repentance. There is only a description of Jonah’s effort to reach out to God. Along comes grace in the form of a big fish. Never forget, grace always lurks in the depths of our despair. In the darkness, in the depths, grace is just at hand. In Acts 17:27, Paul talks about seeking God if perhaps they might feel and find him, though he is not far from every one of us. Here Jonah meets grace: Unexpected, unanticipated, unusual, unmerited, and miraculous.

In our darkness and in our depths of despair, grace comes swimming by, and we are then swallowed up, gobbled up as it were, by it. Jonah is vomited up onto dry land. (I’m tempted to suggest that it was Jonah’s prayer that made the fish sick, and again the question arises of what was John’s responsibility?) He gets a new start for himself and for his mission.

There is grace everywhere in this story. Again, the question is: What responsibility does Jonah have for that grace? And has he given enough consideration to the personal-pronoun-laden prayer that suggests that he is taking some responsibility? At last, he’s going in the right direction. He sets off for Nineveh. On the face of it, it might seem he is taking responsibility for his salvation, for doing things God’s way and for his obedience. Except, it turns out, he’s not. That much is obvious in his second prayer. We often talk about Jonah’s first prayer Jonah, but we don’t talk much about the second:

But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. Then he prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore in anticipation of this I fled to Tarshish, since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster. So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” But the Lord said, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?” Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade, until he could see what would happen in the city. So the Lord God designated a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head, to relieve him of his discomfort. And Jonah was overjoyed about the plant. But God designated a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. And when the sun came up God designated a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint, and he begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life!” But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to the point of death!” Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people, who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?” (Jonah 4)

Jonah has been the recipient of the most lavish grace, in the darkness of the sea, in the blackness of a fish’s belly, seaweed wrapped around his head, at the bottom of the mountains, the bars of Earth closed around him. These are statements from his prayer. The metaphor could hardly be more clear or more strong. He has reached his judgment.

But where sin abounded grace abounded all the more. Jonah is recipient of that very generous and prodigal grace. But it has no effect on his thinking, or on his beliefs, or on his actions. It starts him back off on the right foot and in the right direction. He’s on his way back to Nineveh, which is the way of grace, but his graciousness is short-lived.

What we learn about grace from this story is rich indeed, God gives his grace to everyone. It is generous, it is universal, it is unrelenting, and it is free. And it’s very hard to see where responsibility lies, whether Jonah himself or the other people in the story—the ship’s captain, the sailors who worshiped other gods, the king of Nineveh, the nobles of the land, the common folks, and even—very interestingly—the animals, all of whom receive God’s grace. That the animals should be mentioned twice specifically as recipients of God’s grace raises even more questions about responsibility. To what extent can a donkey or a sheep or an ox take responsibility for its grace?

Jonah is angry with God and accuses god of terrible misdeeds. “I knew it!” he said. “You are a generous God. Merciful, slow to anger.” What a terrible thing to accuse God of—abundant and loving kindness, and repenting of evil! This is all so offensive to Jonah that he’d rather be dead than live in a world with such a gracious God, a world where cause and effect are not in play. Only by reading and rereading the story can one fully appreciate how messed up this prophet really is, and what God would have to do to have the prophet understand something about his grace.

Note the final scene: Jonah goes outside the city to watch for fire. That a fire would consume his fellow beings seems not to have any effect whatsoever on Jonah. This we see as a metaphor for judgment. Fire and brimstone awaits the Ninevites and Jonah wants a front-row seat to the spectacle. But it turns out that Jonah’s accusations against God are correct: God is a God of grace, mercy and loving kindness, and Jonah himself is the greatest recipient of this grace.

A vine grows up to give him shade in the hot desert outside the city. It’s an inhospitable place. Jonah has no responsibility for the vine. It is spontaneous and given without any of Jonah’s effort. But hoarded grace (and Jonah here is hoarding grace to be sure) is wormy grace. The same worms that poisoned manna hoarded during the Exodus now attacks Jonah’s vine, the symbol of his hoarded grace. God is making a point to the prophet about grace: “It is my prerogative to give it to whomever I wish, and I give it widely. It is free, and it is without your effort. My grace is everlasting. It is ubiquitous, and it is unrelenting. Moreover, my grace is not what I do: It is what I am.”

The story ends with God questioning Jonah, just as he questions all of us. (Many times, the Bible is a book of questions.) “Should I not have compassion on the city of Nineveh?” he asks Jonah. What responsibility can the Ninevites have? And what can they take from their sackcloth and ashes? Is God impressed with that? Does it explain why he gives them grace? God says they don’t even know their right hand from their left. How then can they be held responsible? They’re just like the innocent cattle, mentioned here for the second time.

Not knowing your right hand from your left implies inconsistency, confusion, and contradiction—certainly not attributes which would make you think you’d be deserving of grace. To understand the story of Jonah, we must put ourselves into its characters. We are, of course, Jonah, but we are also the sailors and the Ninevites. Are we even the cattle as well? We must constantly ask the question: What does the story say about God?

We’re talking about grace and obedience, and their roles in our salvation. What does the story of Jonah teach us about grace? Do the individuals in the story bear different responsibilities? Does Jonah have a different responsibility than the king of Nineveh, or the sailors on the ship who worship by the gods, or even than the cattle? Are these all equal before God—the sailors, the Ninevites, the cattle, and Jonah?

Jay: I see grace as a fundamental characteristic of God and therefore essential to life, to creation, to existence. On the very first day of creation, God’s presence comes upon the earth. You may define that presence as love, grace, forgiveness, and so on, but this essence, this grace of God, is the fundamental component of creation. It has to occur on the first day. Other things can’t happen until God’s being, his essence—his grace—comes into the picture.

We often tie obedience to grace. We say that being obedient gets you grace. But I don’t believe that’s the flow of grace. The flow of grace, as Don has said before, is like light. It is where it is. You can’t turn it off. It is like air, it’s there. This then lends itself to the example of the animals, which also get grace, because it is essential to the existence of all life.

Obedience or disobedience doesn’t turn off grace. It doesn’t remove you from grace, it doesn’t disconnect you from grace. If you exist, you are in grace, as I see it. So the real question is: If not for grace, what is obedience for? If it’s not to be the recipient of God’s grace, then why be obedient?

Donald: Then does being disobedient separate me from grace?

Jay: I think it’s impossible to be separated from grace. If you exist (notice I’m not even saying “If you’re alive”) then you’re in God’s grace. It’s like air, you can’t get away from it. You can’t get away from light. You can’t remove yourself from it. But we commonly think that if we’re naughty, disobedient, if we do evil things, then we’re out of God’s grace. I just don’t see it like that. But the question has to be answered: Then why obedience? What is obedience? If it isn’t so that the spigot of grace can be turned on and I can be washed in grace, then what is the point of being obedient?

C-J: I think obedience has to do with the guardrails. We cohabit this environment. Yes, grace is always available, but I see injustice on the innocent all the time. Innocent people are murdered, people are born with horrible disabilities. It’s easy for people to look at that and say, “Where’s God in this?” It takes an incredible amount of grace for somebody to grow into maturity and realize that they are an instrument in God’s hand as he or she appears to be.

But yes, grace is always there, like light. It is, whether I’m in it or out of it. That whole thing of being dependent can be just changed to surrender. There’s wisdom in surrendering to the guardrails. It keeps me in the light, it helps me to cohabit with not just humanity but inanimate objects. It’s the difference between walking with your eyes closed and walking with your eyes open in the middle of the night. It’s a safety net, but more than that, it gives us balance, it gives us wisdom, it teaches us as we walk in the darkness. I have no clue where I am or what’s happening right now, and what does God say? “Stop. And let me go before you. Stop, and learn of me. Stop, and trust that there’s wisdom in the silence.”

It takes some maturity. Some people are just gifted with it naturally. I often marvel at children who are wise beyond their years while other people get the same lesson over and over and never learn. But I agree, grace is not earned, grace is always present, we don’t always perceive the light available to us. But I believe that God walks before and next to me all the time.

Don: Where does Jonah end up? This is the puzzling thing about his story. Here’s a man to whom is extended grace upon grace—the double grace mentioned earlier—yet the story ends up without a conclusion as to what becomes of him after Nineveh. Is he saved or is he lost? Does his behavior change? Is he now a good prophet instead of a bad prophet? I don’t think the absence of an ending is a coincidence or an oversight. That in itself may tell us something about grace.

C-J: A person asked me a couple of days ago: “Are you saved?” And I’m like, “I have no idea. That’s really God’s decision, not mine.” My answer kind of surprised me as it popped out of my mouth, because there was a time when I would say, “Yes, I believe in Jesus.” But as I’ve matured, it’s always grace. I’m never going to get it right all the time, even if I do the right things and my heart is in the right place. I just do it because I should. It’s not a full package of me, I do it unwillingly. At different places in our life, we are Jonah, we resist, we don’t deserve it.

Jay: Obedience has a quid pro quo essence to it. We’ve given it a give-and-take essence and when we tie that to grace it becomes more complicated than it needs to be. When we think about obedience, we naturally think about being obedient to God—we make it about how we treat God and how God treats us. But obedience is really about how we treat other people. It really isn’t as much about our relationship with God as it is about our relationship with our fellow wo/man.

People who are saved for being obedient are the people who treat the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, and those in prison. That’s what obedience is. It’s critical to note that they’re surprised. It is not as though they were checking things off a list—”1. Feed the hungry, 2. clothe the naked, 3. give water to the thirsty, 4. ….”. How they support their fellow wo/man is what obedience is. Grace, in my opinion, gives them the power, the motivation, the essence of love that is foundational to creation, to do it. It’s not about checking things off a list or about “God said, so I do…”, but that is what we make obedience about—about our relationship with God.

We think of it like parents. I want my son to be obedient to me, which means when I tell him to do something, I expect him to do that exact thing. That’s a “him and me” relationship, but I think the obedience we’re talking about with God is not looking for a quid pro quo between God and the individual. He’s looking at the obedience displayed through your actions with your fellow man.

If so, obedience is the conduit through which we can harness the power of God’s grace and give it to other people. That’s what obedience becomes. But I think it’s important to note that it doesn’t stop the conduit from flowing into you. Even though you gather twice as much manna as you need and you hoard it, you still get to go out the very next day and fresh manna is still there for you, even though you’re extraordinarily disobedient and not following through on what you’re supposed to do with it.

C-J: Grace and obedience are in two different dimensions. Grace is spiritual, obedience brings order. So even if it’s an oppressive obedience, like in a dictatorship, they have two different purposes and tensions in terms of changing behavior. When I surrender to God’s grace in my life I am also given love. So where there was anger, grace gives love. I see what the other is lacking and that I too am lacking, without grace.

It allows me to love with a better understanding of how grace operates. Where does obedience work in this dimension? It doesn’t. It’s not the same kind of currency. Obedience works here because we need order. We need to have predictability, we need to plan ahead, because we’re trapped in time. There are expectations so that everything flows, Grace isn’t like that—it’s always there, whether we recognize it or not.

Jay: In that perfect place called heaven, is there such thing as obedience?

Kiran: I define obedience and disobedience in terms of our relationship with God. Adam and Eve cut their relationship with God by disobeying him. Obedience, to me, means restoring the relationship with God, through Christ. Once we are with Christ then—like Jonah—we don’t know right from left, but it is his job to teach us all those things, and it takes time. Paul says that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, so he’ll take care of it. So that part is done.

Mark talks about two diametrically opposed views. Number one: Once you accept grace, you’re free. You have nobody above you. Even death is not your master. Number two: We willingly become the servant of all. So you are free, yet you choose to be the servant of all. You become the representative of Christ to your neighbor. I think the problem with Jonah is that God forced him to do it. Even if I refuse to extend the grace, God can twist my arm and make me do it. And that’s the point of Jonah.

It would be better if I would appreciate the grace of God and be happy when he extends it to somebody else. That’s the point. Had Jonah enjoyed this whole journey (“Oh, really, you want me to go give this to other people, and then be happy about it?” it would have been amazing. What happens to me most often is, I’m offended when the grace that came to me goes to somebody else, or when God forces me to extend the grace to somebody else. That’s really offensive because I don’t realize or appreciate the enormity of grace in my own life.

If I really appreciated the work of Christ in my life, there is no doubt that I would be happy to share it with others. Whether I like it or not, he can force me to do it. If I refuse, I’m still not lost. It’s but a momentary setback. Eventually, maybe in the next trip, Jonah would have learned it and then would have been happy about it. I think that’s the story ending.

Reinhard: As a believer, I believe in grace and obedience, They are like a container, with grace as input and obedience as output. In between, there’s a process in that container, catalyzed by faith. If grace comes with the utmost potential and is accepted by us through faith, the output—obedience—will show the character of God through us to others.

Grace came both to Jonah and to the Ninevites. We can see the output, the results. Jonah’s egotism wanted to see the Ninevites destroyed, but the Ninevites responded well and grace came to them. In the process, they confessed, they repented, so that’s why God didn’t destroy them.

It’s the same in our lives. Grace is given fully to everybody, but in the process we either accept, or not, in our hearts the flow of grace and manifest it in our daily life as obedience. Faith is the decisive factor. As Christians, when we accept God and repent, faith comes alive and strong, enabling us to see clearly the grace that comes from God. With faith, we accept grace. We can see, we can understand, the full potential of grace, and obedience automatically ensues.

Donald: Would we all receive the gift of salvation if grace was offered without judgment?

C-J: I think it’s humans who judge, It goes back to the grace that’s always there. I can’t speak for God, but a parent can be disappointed with their child. Ideally, the parent recognizes that the child is an independent individual who can choose to leave at any time. You have to accept that. You have to trust that the child knows you love them, whether they’re obedient or not.

Donald: But at the end of time, the end of our lives, is grace then pulled back and judgment prevails? I choose to be a servant of God. And when you choose to be a servant of God, then that relationship is built upon grace and love. Obedience doesn’t really fit into that. I’ve got to two things going there. I’m kind of back and forth on this.

Don: So we see in Jonah that he’s a servant of God.

Donald: What point in Jonah’s life are you referring to when you say that?

Don: The Scripture says he’s a prophet appointed by God to be his messenger. He is a servant of God. Is he obedient?

C-J: An instrument in the hand of the Lord, and having the gift, are two different things. Jonah still possessed the calling, but he also was independent.

Don: It might be easy to convey the story by saying that the prophet and servant of God, who was on a mission for God, ends up being lost; while the heathen Ninevites end up being saved. I’m not saying that’s what happens, because we don’t know what happens to Jonah later, except Jesus refers to the sign of Jonah, which suggests that Jonah ended up okay. What does this teach us about grace?

Kiran: I think that’s where double grace comes in. You accept grace, then you’re disobedient, and then double grace comes in. I think it never leaves us. I think the biggest article of faith that we have to have is that God will fix us. Oftentimes I used to look at faith as a weapon through which I can show who God is, or I can be a great servant of God by doing things for others. But actually, the faith that I need mostly is that he’s going to fix me, because I know truly how bad I am, and I’m scared of myself, afraid that I might go back to my old ways.

But I have faith that God is patient, kind, and gracious; that I can fall a billion times but he will still pick me up and fix me. Faith takes away my fear and leaves me free to do so many other things. When you truly understand the pain of disobedience in your life, and truly appreciate the relief that is provided to you through grace, you become so sympathetic towards other people, you’re never mean to them. You sympathize with them, you cry with them, and you tell them: “It’s okay. I know, because I found grace, and I’ll help you in your journey.” I think that’s what happens when we accept grace.

Are armies compassionate? If a soldier makes a mistake in a parade, everybody gets mad at him because he ruined the whole parade. That is not the kind of result that God expects from us. When you are truly in him, you become an extension of his arm, extending his compassion and grace to other people. But a truly obedient person doesn’t think s/he is perfect. A truly obedient person thinks: “It’s okay because someone has got my back. But in the feebleness of my own self, let me help somebody else, because he’s crying just like me and I want to wipe his tears.” I think that’s the attitude of an obedient person.

All the disciples admitted to sin. They put themselves at the top of the list of sinful people but, they said, God’s grace is sufficient. They didn’t think about themselves, they always thought of other people, because they were securing their relationship with God. They could not care less about themselves.

Donald: I think we’ve all witnessed a five or six or seven year old child who cries real tears when they know they’ve been disobedient because in doing so they’ve separated themselves from their parent. They’ve done something that they know they shouldn’t have done, and they feel bad about it. They know they’ve been disobedient but they don’t cry because they are going to be punished—they cry because they’ve hurt someone they love.

Don: But in the story of Jonah, the Ninevites cry because they’re going to be punished. Their repentance is not deep-seated. They’re responding to Jonah’s words, which are that in 40 days the city is going to be destroyed. So the king calls for sackcloth and ashes and so forth, for both man and beast, and they call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked ways, from the violence which is in his hands, in hopes that God might turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger, so they shall not perish.

It seems to me that a strong motivating factor is that they don’t want the fire and brimstone. And yet, even in their sackcloth and ashes and their sacrificing and whatever else they’re doing, God’s judgment is they don’t even know what the left hand and the right hand are doing. It’s clearly an indictment of what they’re actually trying to accomplish with their worship.

David: Fire and brimstone don’t go very well with grace, do they? What if Jonah had not gone to the Ninevites after all? What would have happened to them if they did not change their ways? Would they really have been destroyed? To me there is just one simple message in Jonah, namely: You cannot escape grace, even if you want to—and Jonah wanted to!

It’s very similar to the message of Daoism: You are on the Way, and that’s all there is to it. You can’t get off it—the only thing you can do is accept it or reject it, go with the flow or go against it. If you accept it, then it brings inner peace, and you’re more likely to express inner peace outwardly. In other words, with inner peace, you’re not going to go to war with people. But if you don’t accept it, then you have inner turmoil, which you’re more likely to express, in bad ways, externally.

That’s what God’s grace does to you. If you accept it, it brings inner peace and you become more godlike by virtue of it.

Reinhard: The goodness and the grace of God came to the Ninevites. In the bigger picture, grace is for the life hereafter—eternal life. But we can experience grace during life on earth. Jonah was thrown into the ocean and a big fish swallowed him. He survived three days. I don’t know how much time elapsed between that and Jonah’s coming to warn the Ninevites about God’s impending judgment of them. The story of Jonah’s miraculous salvation had probably already spread throughout the city by word of mouth. Maybe people from the ship preceded him to Nineveh.

For sure, he became a powerful messenger. This is all God’s prerogative to do to all of us. Sometimes we don’t understand, like Jonah. Maybe Jonah represents us. Sometimes, we don’t agree with God’s actions. But God knows what is best for his people and his love is immeasurable and impossible to understand by human rationale. Grace can be given to people we don’t expect to receive it. But God works in his own way. God is God.

Jay: I like the idea that if you accept the Way, if you accept grace, you become more godlike; and if you don’t accept grace or the Way, you become less godlike. And that affects how you treat your fellow wo/man in life. But it begs the question: What about the end? What about when this temporal life that we have is over? If there is a life, an existence, after that, does the acceptance or rejection of the Way, of grace, have any bearing on it?

Don: Next week we’ll talk about grace and judgment and how can you be lost from grace? If grace is everywhere and hounds you like the Hound of Heaven, somehow you can get away from it, but I don’t think it’s that easy.

Pastor Giddi: Grace is a sufficient gift. We cannot do anything to earn it. God has given it, but with a moral responsibility to do something—to be obedient to him. Therefore grace and obedience are inseparable. One follows the other. If you’re in grace, you have a responsibility. Obedience always follows grace. If not, God is not going to punish us and is not going to take back what he has given, but we will reap the consequences. However, grace always comes with a responsibility to do something. It is not legalism, but it is obedience.

Don: Jonah was a recipient of grace and he didn’t learn a thing. His thinking, his behavior, and his beliefs changed not one iota, yet he ended up receiving grace upon grace. And still, we’re not sure exactly what happened. We leave him out on the outskirts of town, waiting for the place to burn down and so enjoy the fruits of his labor.

So although obedience should be the outcome of grace, I’m not sure it always is, and I’m not sure that it affects grace. We’ll talk we’ll talk more about this next week.

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