If ever there was an earthen vessel--brittle, crushable, and full of character flaws--it was Jonah. And yet, through this earthen vessel of a man, God chose to display one of the most complete and sweeping pictures of Jesus Christ within the Bible's prophetic literature.
In this two-part study, we look first at the life of the Jonah and find our own humanity in him. Working through the text, we will examine his actions from his own perspective, but also the perspective of the sailors and Ninevites he encounters. Questions at the end of each chapter prompt us to consider our own actions and how people view those actions. Included in this part of the study is a brief examination of who the sailors of Tarshish were, and the historical record of events in Nineveh around the time of Jonah's appearance there.
In part two, we will make second pass through the book and look at how God writes His own glorious story through Jonah. We will deconstruct the narrative into its elemental parts, discuss the typology, and find the grand picture of Christ's ministry in His first coming as portrayed in the Gospels, including the picture of His baptism, His death (the sign of Jonah), His confrontation with the religious leaders of His day, and a parable of the kingdom.
Jonah's narrative presents us with the extreme comparison of the earthen vessel in its most base, human condition, and God in the greatness of His glory as He orchestrates this episode in Jonah's life to impact the lives of the people around Jonah, but also bring out this picture of a coming Messiah. It is an extreme illustration of Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10: that we, as believers, are earthen vessels in which God chooses to manifest His glory, so that the world will look at us and understand that the power in us is of God and not ourselves. If God's glory can shine through the life of such a flawed character as Jonah, then He can shine through any of us.