What is our take away?
Do I hear Jesus inviting me to change my life, or am I worthy of the same condemnation as Jesus’ contemporaries? Jonah’s work was to call a whole people to recognize their sin and need for God’s forgiveness.

All scripture can lead us to repentance – to a change of mind and heart to be more like the heart and mind of Jesus provided we heed the words of scripture. Sadly, it is rarely referred to and the Bible is in serious danger of deserving the cynical definition of a classic -a book of which everyone has heard and which no one reads.

For a sin to be a sin there must be full knowledge and full consent. Culpability is linked to knowledge. If you have no knowledge of the existence of the word of God how can you be held liable; but you can’t cling to deniability when you know what God has said. The people of Nineveh knew nothing while the people of Jesus’ generation knew so much more. They had been taught the word of the prophets, every Sabbath day they came in the synagogue and they heard the Word of God read and explained and they sang the psalms together but before the presence of God now before them they choose not to respond. We have freedom to worship as we think right, the tragedy is that so many people have used that freedom in order not to worship at all. That privilege, too, is a responsibility for which we shall answer.

For more reflections visit www.PottyPadre.com