{"id":7657,"date":"2021-07-30T17:26:57","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T22:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7657"},"modified":"2021-07-30T17:26:57","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T22:26:57","slug":"devotional-on-jonah-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-jonah-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Jonah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 2048px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dy4bTnV3nco\/YQLS6yYDHyI\/AAAAAAABK10\/xfKKz8ttLLUbp5d8v2KTOEvHtbXIyiAIQCPcBGAsYHg\/s2048\/P8209021.JPG\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Shenandoah National Park, VA &#8211; Skyline Drive<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGod\u2019s man isn\u2019t much like God<br \/>\nJonah 4: Jonah was furious.<br \/>\nThe heart of the book of Jonah isn\u2019t the first part with the oft-repeated big fish story.  Instead, it\u2019s the last part.  It\u2019s here that we find the motor that drives the story.  When the reluctant prophet gives in and goes to Nineveh he does so in fear, not that he&#8217;ll fail, but that he&#8217;ll succeed.  Jonah is nationalistic to the core and he\u2019d like nothing better than for the capital city of Israel\u2019s enemy, Assyria, to be destroyed.  Still, with all his failings, Jonah knows a thing or two about God.  The priests and other religious leaders of his country may promote a doctrine of Israel having a corner on the Almighty, but Jonah understands that God has compassion on all people.  Israel may be the chosen people but that means God wants to use them to bless all the nations on earth, not that God loves them and hates all others.  When Jonah runs from God, refusing to go to Nineveh he does so because he understands these things.  He understands them, but he doesn\u2019t agree with them.  Now that his mission to Nineveh is a success Jonah&#8217;s angry with the Lord, not only for sparing his enemies when they repent, but for using him to bring it to pass.  In spite of his unique understanding of God, Jonah isn\u2019t much like God at all.<br \/>\nTake Away: God is love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s man isn\u2019t much like God Jonah 4: Jonah was furious. The heart of the book of Jonah isn\u2019t the first part with the oft-repeated big fish story. Instead, it\u2019s the last part. It\u2019s here that we find the motor that drives the story. When the reluctant prophet gives in and goes to Nineveh he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1508,6,7],"tags":[135,198,518,691,713,913],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7657"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7657"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15432,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7657\/revisions\/15432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}