preached there, the entire city believed his message and repented. Though cruel and hardened, Nineveh was ready to believe God. Israel had never responded to a prophet like these Assyrians did.
An Attitude Like God's
Since God repeatedly warned the Jews not to intermarry with people of other religions, and even ordered them to drive other nations out of the promised land, some readers conclude that the Old Testament is racially narrowminded. The say the New Testament gives the first indication that God cares for non-Jewish people.
The book of Jonah contradicts that view. It shows, instead, that God wanted to use Jews like Jonah as agents of his concern. They would preach doom but always with the hope that the warning would lead to repentance.
Jonah needed to develop an attitude like God's toward his enemies. Insistently, God led Jonah to this understanding of his own mind and heart. The book of Jonah is a story of a miraculous change in Nineveh, but even more a story of miraculous change in Jonah. |
