Last page of the OT... and a Guy and a Fish

Thus ends the journey through the Old Testament! It's been quite an amazing trip, and now it's time to fast-forward almost half a millennium to the birth of Christ.

I thank God for his grace, and his wisdom in helping me understand bits of his Word, leaving the rest as mysterious spaces I hope to return to sometime later. Indeed God is keeping us on a good course to finish the Bible by DNA, and I believe we indeed can.

There's just one little thought before I turn over the last page of the Old Testament: I did not write on Jonah. So here's my reflection:

Jonah: The Anti-Prophet

I had deliberately left Jonah out earlier, as I'd wanted to write about him separately. Of all the prophets, he is my favourite, the one with whom I most identify. (NOT because of the fish!)

Jonah is indeed, as Peterson wrote, a companion and friend who walks with us even through our stumbles. He is an 'anti-Prophet' if you may. Not that he hates prophets, but he acts in many ways contrary to the other prophets. Something like The Punisher, who is considered an 'anti-hero' because he does his crime-fighting like a mafiosi.

First of all, he ditches God's plans. Then, he gets swallowed up by a fish. In it, he calls for help, God saves him and he carries out God's command. The Ninevites repent, and he gets mad. So God gives him shade, but tears it down, and he end up bickering with God.

There are four lessons I draw from Jonah:

God can use any circumstance

In his effort to escape God, Jonah inadvertently opened the eyes of the sailors to God, and they turned to him in repentance. God can use even disobedience to the benefit of his plans, not that we are to be deliberately disobedient, of course!

We must repent humbly

This is the area I find hardest to deal with. In the depths of death, Jonah knew who he truly was, and who God truly is. Sometimes I feel my repentance lacks the honesty and nakedness of Jonah's. He was strong in rebellion, but also profound in repentance.

Don't underestimate God

It is said that the Ninevites repented because of Jonah's episode with the fish. According to their legend, there was this prophecy of a man with a fish-head coming to tell them something great. True enough, when Jonah showed up on their doorstep and told them of his experience with the fish, they must've immediately paid him attention!

Possibly, this was what Jonah found hardest to swallow: that God would have mercy on the despised Assyrians, whom Nahum had earlier dissed. Indeed, Nahum spoke of the point of no return; through Jonah, God seems to be drawing out the path back to him, from (i)beyond the point of no return!

God is merciful

These three words are indeed short, but meaningful, for they reflect the truth about God that Jonah, it would seem, finally learned.

4:2 records Jonah's apprehension and knowledge of God's truth; he knows God to be a forgiving God, slow to anger and abounding in love. His knowledge was enough for him to pass seminary with a first-class degree, to use an analogy. Yet he harboured a certain hatred for this people; he did not want God to forgive them, and so he got mad.

And God sprung into action. He gave Jonah what he did not deserve nor in any way earn, and he took it away from him. That little token was taken so seriously by this impatient prophet (who, one would recall, recently cried out to God in a prayer of repentance).

God drew the simple lesson: if you can get so worked up over something of such temporal value, am I not, therefore, infinitely more concerned about the condition of this nation I have created, whose people I have designed?

He leaves it at that. It is the only prophetic book that ends without any sort of resolution. Jonah demands that we answer that question, for God still asks it of us, time after time. We are no less prone to disobedience and bitterness than Jonah. And God is no less merciful.

Very Last Thoughts on the Prophets (for now)

This is a late addition; today I recalled something I'd asked Soo Tian a few days ago.

I asked him, what do you think we'd do if we were alive during the time of the prophets?

He answered, maybe we would have stoned them as well.

I think about it, and realize that the prophets have become plush toys in our version of Christianity. And how different they were to the people then!