Jonah, the Church, and the Belly of the Fish

The Bible is full of stories. Furthermore, those stories have main characters (as all good stories do). One of the wonderful things about stories and characters therein is that the characters become our way into the story. That is, we are able to identify with the story’s characters, their dilemmas, conflicts, joys, sorrows, victories, resolves, and even disappointments. Stories are only interesting because we project ourselves into the roles of the characters themselves.

Additionally, many times in Bible stories the main characters represent or symbolize larger people groups. The best example of this is Jesus himself. In Jesus’ suffering and death he represents all of humanity. The death of Jesus symbolizes the death of all humanity and the judgment that humanity deserves for its collective rebellion against God. Not only this, Jesus also represents the corporate people of Israel. He represents Israel by fulfilling God’s mission to the world by providing a means for those outside of Israel to be grafted into the covenant people of God. This was (and is) Israel’s calling.

The bottom-line is that we find our own stories wrapped up in the stories of others.

Another great example of this is the story of Jonah. In Jonah’s story, he represents the people of Israel; the chosen race. Simultaneously, the people of Nineveh (another major character in the story) represents those outside of Israel; Nineveh represents non-Jews (“gentiles”). God sending Jonah to Nineveh for their salvation represents the fact that Israel is a nation of prophets (Jonah) with a mission to the world (Nineveh).

Furthermore, in the story of Jonah God calls Jonah to go and prophecy God’s imminent judgment on the Ninevites for the vile behavior and lifestyle. Jonah refuses out of his arrogance and disgust towards the Ninevites. Do you know what’s ironic about this? Jonah thinks that his special status as a “person of God” is the result of something he himself has done, when in fact, it’s only because of God’s grace that Jonah is a member of God’s covenant people. At the same time, it is this very grace that Jonah benefits from that he refuses to give to others. In other words, Jonah is self-righteous. The irony is that his self-righteousness is a greater transgression than anything the Ninevites are doing!

Did you know that there are times when the self-righteousness of the church is more detestable than the ways the broken world? At least those in the world often know of their need for God.

One of the results of self-righteousness is losing sight of the reason for our salvation.

The Bible teaches that we are saved not for our own sake, but so that God can put us to use in his world redeeming plan (see Isaiah 6). God didn’t make Jonah a prophet for Jonah’s sake. God made Jonah a prophet so that he could use him in his mission to the world. Jonah losing sight of this caused him to end up in the belly of a fish and it is the belly of the fish that brings Jonah perspective.

Often times I think the church needs some time in the belly of a fish to gain some perspective. Too often in contemporary Christianity we get thinking that Jesus died so that we can be happy in heaven one day. This isn’t what it’s about. This has never been what Christianity is about. Jesus died so that he could make missionaries out of us. He died so that he could save us to then turn and commission us to share his light and love with the world. The moment that the church loses sight of the priority of mission is the moment that it ends up in the belly of the fish, just like Jonah.