At a conference I attended a while back, I mentioned in passing to someone that I do not believe that God punished people for their sin. The person I was talking to looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“If God doesn’t punish people for their sin,” he said, “then God is just an enabler, letting people get away with their sin.” The man thought I was going to back peddle from my position, but I didn’t. The truth is that I do believe God is a divine enabler. He is the biggest enabler the universe has ever seen.
It’s a challenging idea, I know, but it is what we are seeing here in Jonah, which somewhat explains Jonah’s frustration with God. Stick around and we’ll see more as we study Jonah 4:8 today.
The Text of Jonah 4:8
When the sun rose, God prepared a harsh, east wind and the sun attacked Jonah’s head and he became faint and begged with all his life to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
In this discussion of Jonah 4:8 we look at:
- Why that harsh east wind was probably strong rather than hot
- What it means for the sun to beat down on Jonah’s head
- Why Jonah wanted justice
- Why God did not want justice
- How this reveals that God is a divine enabler
Resources:
- Redeeming God Discipleship Area
- The Re-Justification of God Paperback book
- The Mystery of Christ, & Why We Don’t Get It – Capon
- Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes
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After Nineveh experiences a city-wide revival in response to his preaching, Jonah becomes angry at God in Jonah 4:1.
I don’t know what your political views are, and frankly, I don’t care too much. But however you categorize yourself, I imagine that you have strong opinions about the violent actions of the people on the other side of the political aisle. Their violence is unjustified, right? It is wrong and should be condemned in the strongest possible ways, right? It needs to stop, because it’s evil, right?
Even among the Twelve Apostles, Jesus brought together Zealots and tax collectors who would have hated each other in any other context. Near the end of His ministry, Jesus proclaimed to His apostles that He had come to bring peace, was leaving them with His peace (John 14:27), and that just as God had sent Jesus to proclaim peace, so also, His followers must do the same (John 20:21).
