Good Word Lessons

Background Considerations: Ways of accessing God’s portrait in the story of Jonah. A straight-forward hearing or reading of Jonah conveys a picture of God as repentant and forgiving, as characterized by the vocabulary of grace...

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Background Considerations: Jonah outside the book of Jonah. The contribution of the story of Jonah to Old Testament thought and practice must have been a real surprise, given its attention to the wider world of...

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Background Considerations: Sense of an ending. Does the story of Jonah end? Is there what some literary analysts call “a sense of an ending” to this biblical book? Do we have closure on the plot?...

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Background Considerations: Literary considerations. Again, we reflect on the literary features which not only give the story of Jonah richness and character, but teach us theologically as well. What about irony? Any of that in...

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Background Considerations: The section of Jonah that we consider here is perhaps the most important to the point of the story. It speaks of a prophet whose success angered him precisely because of divine grace...

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Background Considerations: The nature of prophecy. The popular definition of prophecy is almost always tied to predictions of the future. But the future is only part, in fact a small part, of the prophets’ arena...

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Background Considerations: Structure of the book of Jonah. As we enter chapter 3, something becomes apparent upon a close reading of the story: chapters 1 and 3 begin the same way (the command to Jonah...

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Background Considerations: Poetry in the Old Testament. A high percentage of the Hebrew Bible comes to us in the form of poetry. The most important feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, which defines the way...

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Background Considerations: Notion of the Ocean. The ancient world did not have positive feelings toward the ocean, and with good reason. Water out of control was a serious threat, not only due to floods, but...

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Background Considerations: Jonah’s name means “dove.” Check this out in a good Bible dictionary to see how the prophet’s name functions in the story. His father’s name, Amittai, is tied in some way to “truthfulness”...

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Background Considerations: The role of biblical prophets appears primarily to have focused on judgment, on calling people to accountability, to responsible living. How one relates to God (avoid idolatry) and how one relates to fellow...

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