Jonah's core issue?

(Dis)Obedience to God at the level of action. And taking on God’s heart. His core commitment. His attitudes. All of these together are covered by the Hebrew concept of “Shema” (https://youtu.be/6KQLOuIKaRA) - “Truly listening”, not just to the words, and externals, but to the heart and intent, and then responded to all the way through to action! i.e.  Full Obedience.

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For if we will not listen to one “new”,

that doesn't mean we don't have a default.

We simply keep on living by the few

ideas that got in just before the bolt:

Ethnocentrism 

So Jonah’s name means “dove”! 

Some “Hebrew thinking” shoves 

such questions to us in 

this story where we've been: 

Is he really “doven”, 

or more like “d’ oven”? 

That's “signalling God’s peace”, 

or “cooking folk”, for he’s  

still cooking plans to fail 

as “change agent avail- 

ing to help folk repent"  

and thus when he is sent 

to Eastward Nineveh 

he sails in quite other 

direction, to the West, 

since he must know what’s best, 

he’ll use his special gift  

from God, to help him shift 

events on planet earth 

in such a way that mirth

is more where he had birth!

To think that God might truly love each group
as much as we know that he loves us now,
is hard to well, get over and recoupe
from. Least of all, we want to take a bow!