Have you ever been angry at how God runs the world?
I was listening to a podcast recently which had an atheist on the show, and he said this to the Christian who was interviewing him, “If your God exists, then your God sucks. I could do a better job running the world than He is. Why doesn’t He stop the wars, and the violence, and the rapes, and the murders?”
Have you ever felt like that? I’ll be honest, I have.
And Jonah did too.
This is one reason the book of Jonah was written. It shows a prophet who is angry at God for how God runs the world. And we see in the book what God says to Jonah about it.
This is what we learn in this study of Jonah 4:4.
The Text of Jonah 4:4
Then Yahweh said, “Is doing good infuriating to you?”
In this discussion of Jonah 4:4 we look at:
- A story about “John” that helps us understand Jonah
- God’s question to Jonah about why Jonah was angry
- God’s invitation to question how He runs the world
Resources:
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Gonna listen in a few min.
I don’t believe that YHWH “runs the world.” Have you noticed that most of the people who have lost their faith in a supreme being have done so because they’ve realized that The Lord doesn’t give them everything they want when they ask for it and doesn’t prevent undesirable things from happening to them? People prefer gods who give them everything that they want and protect them from everything that they want to avoid. That’s not how The Lord works. Let’s face it: Everyone eventually dies, so even people who seem to live “charmed lives” eventually succumb to the ultimate unwanted event.
Why do you call him YHWH?
Yes. You are right. I have encountered many people who have rejected God and Christianity because they thought (or were taught) that God runs the world, and they thought He was doing a bad job of it.
too bad they didn’t reject him for being omaginary. That reason actually makes sense
I agree to that. People in my previous church said God is in control of everything. So if He is in
control of everything like they say, He must in control of car accidents, murders, drought. How can that even be biblical?
Sam Cain, I call The Lord “YHWH” because that is the name that was revealed to Moses. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh
I have read the book of Jonah to my kids the other day and their first 2 questions were …why was Jonah disobeying God and why was he angry at God?
if you were an honest parent, you would have taught them the first question should be “why isn’t their any evidence of a god?”
Huh?
My wife keeps telling me I need to do a kids version of Jonah… maybe one day.
My daughter would be interested.