Jonah's Dis-ordered Heart

An Ugly Ending

The final chapter of Jonah is not a pretty one. First Jonah is upset about God’s graciousness toward the Ninevites (a people who had done him wrong, but now repented of their sin), and then he is “angry enough to die” when God destroys a bush that had shaded Jonah from discomfort. Jonah would have preferred the exact opposite of what God was doing – that is, he would have preferred that the bush be spared and the Ninevites destroyed.

The Lord’s response to Jonah pinpoints the prophet’s error: “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:10-11)

Jonah’s Sin

Jonah’s sin was to love things more than he loved people. Things are temporary and relatively unimportant; people are eternal and thus have eternal significance. Nevertheless, Jonah’s heart was set on the temporary things that brought him comfort, rather than the eternal people that brought him discomfort.

This dis-ordering of values is common to man and makes him a hard-hearted creature. More than that, it is contrary to God’s original order. To love things (no matter how lovely they may be) more than one loves people (no matter how unlovely they may be) is to flip the order that God has ordained from the beginning. God created man to love people and use things; a dis-ordered heart will do the opposite, loving things and using people.

Imitating God

God himself loves people above all else. Man was created to reflect God, which is to say that man was created to love people above all else. Thus, the love that one has for temporary things must be subordinate and subservient to his love for people.

This is the order God has ordained, and it is also the order the Spirit of Christ restores when he gives new birth to those who believe. That new birth in the Spirit is the beginning of a transformation, one that needs constant exhortation. And so, this post will conclude with just that:

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God…Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Ephesians 5:1-2, Romans 13:14)