What follows are the summary notes from the 1-15-2012 Sunday AM Bible study…
Are you more likely to encounter people who think God is too compassionate or not compassionate enough? It probably depends on the culture you’re in or your family background. It seems as though most in the United States believe that the God of Judaism and Christianity is not compassionate enough. How could He possibly torture so many people in hell for not believing Jesus? There are others who would think the opposite. They stand horrified how this supposed holy being could possibly let someone like a Hitler or Ted Bundy off the hook because they profess allegiance to Jesus. Furthermore they wonder how anybody would pledge allegiance to such a being. I can sympathize with both arguments but the interesting thing is that God cannot win. You have some who think God is too soft and others who think He’s too rigid. That’s why we need to seek to understand God for who He is as described in scripture. If God took our input for how He should be, He would be neither consistent nor attractive. Who wants to worship a God who’s constantly changing?
The book of Jonah is a short but complex story. It’s complex because you can never quite get a beat on whether or not Jonah really understands that the compassion Jonah doesn’t want God to show to the people of Nineveh, because the people of Nineveh were a very brutal and ruthless people, is the same compassion that God has been showing to Jonah all along. It’s a theme that runs throughout the book. From the beginning Jonah runs because he doesn’t want God to show compassion. After Jonah spends time in the big fish, repents and is vomited out he goes to Nineveh to proclaim God’s message. After the people repent, to some degree, and God relents, Jonah complains that God is exactly as compassionate as Jonah knew God was and Jonah is really ticked off by that. That sounds odd doesn’t it? Especially when you consider that Jonah was just as much an unworthy recipient of God’s compassion as the people of Nineveh. Yet God remains consistent in His compassion towards all humanity. He attempts to reason with Jonah at the end of chapter 4 by asking how He could not have compassion on people He created who didn’t know what they were doing with their lives. Jonah was angry that his source of shade was destroyed. He had more compassion on a plant than people. God has more compassion on people than plants.
The kind of compassion that God reveals to us in Jonah and throughout the Old and New Testaments is different than the kind of compassion we experience. It’s not that we don’t show compassion but it’s just that when you begin to explore the kind of compassion God shows and compare it to our compassion we’re a little lacking. We rightly find ourselves moved to help people we can sympathize with because they’re in a difficult situation we once found ourselves in. We’re moved to help children who suffer or elderly who cannot take care of themselves because they are helpless. We might be moved to help a young Christian overcome a deep disturbing pattern or sin as we remember having similar problems in our walk. In each of those cases we find that we’ve attached ourselves to people. We feel for them. We associate with them. This seems pretty normal because we’re relational people and making attachments is pretty normal for us. Biblically speaking we were made in the image of God who is a triune God (one being and three persons). We are one being and one person with an image of a three person God so we naturally long to attach ourselves to others.
This is where things are a little different for God. He is self-sufficient. Before this universe and all within it was ever created there was perfect unity and harmony between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They didn’t experience an emptiness or need that required them to create (Isaiah 43:7; Acts 17:25). Yet we find God attached. We find Him telling the Israelites in Hosea 11:8, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? … My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender”, or in Matthew 23:37 when Jesus tell the people, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” This sounds pretty attached doesn’t it. But why would a God attach Himself to people when He didn’t need to? The answer is that He chose to. He chose to attach Himself to us when He didn’t have to. Jonah had an attachment for a plant and Jesus had an attachment for all of humanity. Jonah wept because his shade was taken from him and Jesus wept because people were perishing without hope. It’s quite amazing to wonder why God would choose to attachment Himself to us when He does not need us but we need Him and yet He did.
There’s one example from book of Jonah that I think points out the great gap between God’s compassion and our compassion. There are 3 times in the book of Jonah (1:2; 3:2; 4:11) that God refers to Nineveh as a “great city”. It was certainly a huge city (120,000) in comparison to average cities of the day (3,000) but the term “great city” carries with it the idea of it being very important. You could certainly argue that it was important to God because cities provide an excellent place for a large number of people to be reached by a message. This is very practical and we see in in the New Testament book of Acts where missionary trips run through larger cities in order to plant churches to gain a foothold for the gospel to spread. Though there is something more concerning God’s description of Nineveh as a “great city”.
In a recent message I was listening to from Tim Keller he described a conversation he was having with a friend of his, Brian Crispin, who is an urban missionary. Keller asked him why he continued to live in the city. Crispin responded, “The country is a place where there are more plants than people and the city is a place where there is more people than plants and because God loves people more than plants God loves the city more than the country.” I thought that was pretty interesting. He pressed the point further by asking Keller where God’s image was more visible. It’s hard to deny that since God’s image is stamped on people that the city and in Jonah’s case the “great city”, would be filled with image bearers. As fun as it was to hear that piece of logic it caused me to think deeply about the whether or not I share that same sentiment. I live in the city but I want to live in the country. I long for a house with 5 acres so I don’t have neighbors right next to me. I thought back to the number of times, many of which I was joking but some of which I wasn’t, where I said, “if it wasn’t for people, life would be grand”. People can be annoying and I’ll gladly put myself right up there with the most annoying.
While I thought about this, I think I had a better understanding of the gap in compassion and my need to develop a God kind of compassion in my own life. A compassion that is consistent toward all people everywhere. A compassion that is much less selfish then the compassion I seem most familiar and comfortable with. A compassion that is happy to be around people because I’ll have a chance to impact other image bearers for eternity.
