Everyone knows the world if full of bad theology. Most people believe some horribly incorrect things about God.

Sadly, much of this is the fault of Christians. We often teach heresy to our neighbors by how we live.

We are sometimes like Jonah. When God tries to get Jonah to obey Him, Jonah tells the sailors to pick him up and throw him into the sea. In other words, Jonah tells the sailors this:

My God is vengeful and angry. I disobeyed Him, so He is out to destroy all of us, and you just happen to have the bad luck of being nearby when He kills me. But my God, who lives in the sea, can be appeased. How? He loves human sacrifice. Throw me into the sea so He can take my life and judge me as He sees fit. If you do this, He will leave you alone.

Jonah is a prophet of God, and he knows better.

Jonah’s Horrible Theology Lesson

He knows that everything he is telling the sailors is wrong, but in this situation, he doesn’t care.He has his own agenda, and no matter what, he does not want to do what God asked.

So he teaches some horrible theology and drags the sailors into committing a horrible sin.

Thankfully, God is gracious to them and spares their lives, no thanks to Jonah.

Do we Christians sometimes do the same thing today? What are we teaching those around us about God through our actions and our behavior?
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The issue of the sovereignty of God in relation to natural catastrophes is a difficult subject with few answers.

But what is ironic about the sovereignty of God is that while God’s people often pay lip service to His sovereignty, we just as often live as if God was not sovereign.

Take Jonah and the sailors as an example.

Jonah vs. the Sailors

In Jonah 1:9, Jonah claims to fear God, but he does nothing in Jonah 1 to show it. In fact, in every circumstance, he does exactly the opposite.

God tells him to go to Nineveh, but Jonah goes to Tarshish. God sends a storm to get Jonah to admit his guilt, but Jonah falls asleep in the belly of the boat. Through the casting of the lots, God singles out Jonah as the one responsible for the storm, and rather than tell the sailors to turn the ship around, Jonah tells them to sacrifice him to the waves. The sailors ask him questions about Yahweh, and Jonah gives them bad theology and bad ideas about God. At every step along the way, Jonah shows contempt for the will and ways of the God he claims to serve.

The sailors, who know nothing about God, end up fearing Yahweh and worshiping Him in truth in ways that Jonah never does. They pray to Him when Jonah is silent. They ask confession for sin they haven’t even committed while Jonah refuses to repent for a grievous sin he did commit. They make sacrifices to God and take vows, when Jonah refuses to even acknowledge God’s sovereignty over his life. The sailors show respect and honor for Yahweh while Jonah only dishonors God. Clearly, the author of the book of Jonah wants to show a clear contrast between the actions and attitude of Jonah with those of the pagan sailors.

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