Jonah 3–4: Job's Outrage | ☧ Shows Weakness to Save

Rev. Curtis Deterding, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Fort Myers, Florida, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Jonah 3-4.

“But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you do well to be angry for the plant?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.’” Jonah had good reasons to be angry. The Assyrians were a thousand-year empire that eventually destroyed most of Israel—why would God betray His people’s safety and security by refusing to serve long-overdue justice? But Jonah’s leafy refuge from the blistering heat—taken by God just as quickly as it was given—proved Jonah’s hypocrisy. Beneath the rationalizations, our anger is almost always arrogant and selfish. Jesus Christ humbly exposed His weakness to invite us to lay down our arms, and to save life where we would’ve destroyed it.