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Jona 4

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1 A Joni bi vrlo nedrago, i rasrdi se.

2 I pomoli se Gospodu i reče: Gospode! Ne rekoh li to kad još bejah u svojoj zemlji? Zato htedoh pre pobeći u Tarsis; jer znah da si Ti Bog milostiv i žalostiv, spor na gnev i obilan milosrđem i kaješ se oda zla.

3 Sada Gospode, uzmi dušu moju od mene, jer mi je bolje umreti nego živeti.

4 A Gospod reče: Je li dobro što se srdiš?

5 I Jona iziđe iz grada, i sede s istoka gradu i načini onde kolibu, i seđaše pod njom u hladu da vidi šta će biti od grada.

6 A Gospod Bog zapovedi, te uzraste tikva nad Jonom da mu bude sen nad glavom da mu pomogne u muci njegovoj; i Jona se obradova tikvi veoma.

7 Potom zapovedi Bog, te dođe crv u zoru sutradan, i podgrize tikvu, te usahnu.

8 I kad ogranu sunce, posla Bog suv istočni vetar; i sunce stade žeći Jonu po glavi tako da obamiraše i požele da umre govoreći: Bolje mi je umreti nego živeti.

9 A Bog reče Joni: Je li dobro što se srdiš tikve radi? A on reče: Dobro je što se srdim do smrti.

10 A Gospod mu reče: Tebi je žao tikve, oko koje se nisi trudio, i koje nisi odgajio, nego jednu noćuzraste a drugu noćpropade.

11 A meni da ne bude žao Ninevije, velikog grada, u kome ima više od sto i dvadeset hiljada ljudi koji još ne znaju šta je desno šta li levo, i mnogo stoke?

   

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Exploring the Meaning of Jonah 4

Napsal(a) New Christian Bible Study Staff

In this fourth chapter of the Book of Jonah, (Jonah 4), the prophet Jonah has a strange reaction to his success. He's angry, and sulky. He thinks he knows better than God does. What is this story about?

Rev. George McCurdy, in his exegesis of this chapter, offers a summary in his Study Guide for the Book of Jonah, which is available for free as a .pdf, for your use. Below, we've excerpted part of his summary, and edited it for use in this context.

The people of the Jewish church in Jonah's time didn't want to reconsider their belief in their "most-favored-nation status." They challenged the Lord. They couldn't understand why He wanted to save their enemies in Nineveh.

Despite the hard lessons in chapters 1 and 2, and his success as described in chapter 3, Jonah still thought he knew better than the Lord. He thought that God was being too soft and loving -- too forgiving -- and that He needed to come around to Jonah’s tougher view.

Jonah got so angry and vengeful that he preferred to die rather than approve of the Lord’s way to save the Ninevites. His self-love wanted shade -- protection for its concepts. The Lord needed to bring such thinking to an end; the worm brought about death to the gourd from within. The Lord then sent a vehement east wind, that represents a blowing away of the stagnant thinking of the church.

The Lord's heavenly sun shone upon Jonah, but he felt faint. Here, Jonah's insistence on his own troubling view of things made him uncomfortable with the Lord’s view. The Divine guidance offered him a way to learn to enjoy the success of his neighbors as his own, but he wouldn't take it.

For us, then -- what? This story is telling us that we can't just keep the truths of the Word for ourselves; we have to go to Nineveh and share them. And then, if people start to hear them, and use them to turn their lives around, we can't allow ourselves to get resentful that the Lord accepts their repentance and forgives them. It's a very human reaction; think of the disciples vying to be first in the Lord's command structure (Luke 9:46), or the brother of the prodigal son (Luke 15:28-29), or the workers in the vineyard who had worked all day for a denarius (Matthew 20:10-12). But... it's not a good reaction. The Lord doesn't admire it in Jonah, and doesn't admire it when it crops up in our minds, either.

Rev. Martin Pennington recommends several explanatory passages from Swedenborg's theological writings:

"Shade or shadow means the perception of good and truth lies in obscurity." (Arcana Coelestia 2367)

"A vine is spiritual good (the spiritual church)". (Arcana Coelestia 217)

"A worm represents falsity gnawing away and tormenting one." (Arcana Coelestia 8481)

"'And the sun grew hot' in the contrary sense means self-love and love of the world." (Arcana Coelestia 8487)

And... here's a link to an interesting (audio) sermon on this chapter, by Rev. Todd Beiswenger.

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Luke 15:28-29

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28 And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: