How great a salvation…

Recently I heard the T. Scott Daniels, pastor of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene, preach at the graduation exercises for Nazarene Theological Seminary. The sermon looked at the fourth chapter of Jonah. I'm borrowing some of my post today from him, but I want to go in a slightly different direction.

Let me give you a quick recap of the story to refresh your memory. Jonah has already fled, been swallowed (I've always hoped it was a shark rather than a whale!), and vomited back up onto the beach. He has gone to Nineveh and after an extremely seeker sensitive message of "Forty Days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3.4 NRSV) We then arrive at Chapter 4, which I don't remember them teaching me about in Sunday School.

Jonah becomes very angry and tells God how displeased he is that God has blessed Jonah's ministry and that Nineveh has repented. Jonah goes to the east of the city, sets up some shade and seems to be hoping for God to smite Nineveh even though it has repented. The story ends with an object lesson of the bush that grows over Jonah's head and Jonah's great disappointment when the bush dies. The story ends with God's statement in verses 10 and 11:

"Then the LORD said, 'You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?'" (Jonah 4.10-11 NRSV)

I'm not sure who the author of the book of Jonah is, but I'm guessing it wasn't Jonah. If it was, he didn't portray himself very well. I would have written the story so that I looked better. Now, we could begin an argument at this point. What is the most important point of the story? Is it what kind of fish swallowed Jonah? Is it related to the exact geography of that region? The obvious answer is, "No!" Though those questions may be important, the author of the book ends with an important theological point.

God's love reaches outside the people of Israel even to those who they see as their enemies. God's love shows no favoritism (Romans 2.11). When we say that the Bible teaches us, "inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation" (Article IV, The Manual) this is the kind of thing we have in mind.

The point of the Bible is theological. That isn't to say that we cannot learn about history by reading the Scriptures. We certainly do learn about that, but again, the purpose of the Scriptures isn't to teach us history, it isn't to teach us geography or anything other than the story of a God whose love for us knows no limits. Once we start arguing about the historical veracity of the stories we've already begun to miss the point. The point is God's love.

Our problem, at least as I see it in the Church of the Nazarene, is not that our view of Scripture is too low. It isn't that we haven't espoused a fundamentalist view of Scripture:

"Scripture, being found as eternally inerrent and inspired of God, is veracious and authoritative concerning every aspect of physical and spiritual existence. The Bible has been provided as our only completely truthful standard of theology, ethics, science, history, and every other realm into which its limitless grasp extends ."
http://nazarenepsalm113.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/the-authority-of-scripture-2/

The problem is that our Biblical illiteracy keeps us from seeing and understanding the love of God that unfolds through the Biblical narrative.

Prayer:
God of all truth, we fight so hard about your Scriptures. We argue about small points and miss the big picture. We end up being like Jonah who griped about the bush that died. If someone doesn't agree with us completely, we wish your mercy would leave them untouched. Forgive us. We admit that we can be as petty and stupid as Jonah. At the same time, you are the same God whose property it is to always have mercy. We praise you! Thank you for having mercy on all of us arguing, petty, and vindictive people. Teach us through the example of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to open our arms and through the power of your Holy Spirit embrace the hurting world. Amen