Like a piece of delicious baklava, Jonah’s story has many layers. Layers of significance and application. That’s part of its genius. It stands out in the Bible because it is the only book with a persistently rebellious prophet, the only large-scale repentance of a pagan society, and the only time God gave one of His messengers an attention-grabbing voyage inside a fish. However, there is a New Testament episode that echoes some key elements of Jonah’s adventures, minus the fish.  

Echoes of Joppa

About 800 years after Jonah’s adventures, we find another of God’s envoys, Peter, in the port city of Joppa (Acts 10). Like Jonah, Peter is sometimes known for his “independent spirit.” He ran from God and even denied his Lord three times. Mercifully recommissioned in John 21 at the Sea of Galilee, Peter is now headed in the right direction as a leader of the nascent Church.  

One day, Peter is on the roof of a house in Joppa, overlooking where Jonah embarked for Tarshish centuries earlier. Suddenly, he receives instructions from God to do something he finds unthinkable. In a vision, a sheet descends from heaven filled with unclean, forbidden creatures. A voice tells him to eat them. When Peter objects that he would never eat unclean food, the voice instructs him, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15). The process repeats twice more, and then the vision ends. The number three, in the Hebrew mind, signifies importance and completeness. Whatever it means, this vision is a message from God.

Peter is confused, so the Holy Spirit clarifies. Messengers are coming to invite Peter to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion who follows God and is seeking the truth. The Spirit tells Peter to go with them without hesitation. Accepting an invitation to visit someone hardly seems extreme to us today, but it was shocking to Peter. As shocking as eating forbidden food. For centuries, Jews had considered Gentiles to be unclean. Jews didn’t eat with Gentiles or enter their homes. God is asking Peter to do something he considers off-limits. How could this be what God wants?

In some important ways, Peter’s experience echoes Jonah’s story. Two men in different centuries receive a similar call to take a message of salvation to an unlikely and “undeserving” audience. Both have strong objections to God’s plan. Jonah responds by catching a ship headed as far away as possible. Although bewildered by the vision and its implications, Peter packs his mule and obediently heads up the coast to Caesarea. Cornelius is waiting there with his entire family and circle of friends. Peter has a much more pleasant experience than Jonah since he goes voluntarily.  

In both stories, the recipients of God’s message have been prepared by God and are incredibly responsive. Cornelius has already shown his submission to God by sending for Peter. Before the apostle finishes his sermon, God interrupts him with another huge surprise: “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God” (Acts 10:44-46).

It’s as if the Spirit of God has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a human messenger of the gospel so that He can save the extended family. Peter and his Jewish companions are amazed, but they recognize the hand of God and baptize the new believers. The events in Caesarea are so unexpected that Peter has some serious explaining to do when he returns to Jerusalem (as Jonah likely did when he reported back to Gath Hepher). But once the Apostles heard the whole story, the Jewish church “had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (Acts 11:18). It was the beginning of a massive paradigm shift.

The bursting of the gospel reservoir out of an exclusively Jewish framework into the Gentile world is indescribably history-altering. Peter had a front-row seat to witness God do something new and wonderful, showing His love for unlikely people in an unexpected way. However reluctant he may have felt at first, Peter got to be the conduit of Abrahamic blessing, not only to Cornelius but to the entire Gentile world. When he looked back on his experience later, I’m sure he was as amazed and surprised as anyone by what God did. Following in Peter’s footsteps, the Apostle Paul and many others would later flood the Roman world and beyond with the life-saving message of the gospel. Every believer today owes their salvation to Peter’s door-opening obedience and the events that followed.

A Better Jonah

While God was working on Jonah, He was also using him as a mirror to illustrate the self-centeredness and obstinacy of His people, Israel. Jonah didn’t just tell his story. He was the story. Israel had abandoned her covenantal purpose. As God’s worshippers with special knowledge of Him, Abraham’s heirs had been commissioned to be a blessing, not just to be blessed. By Jonah’s time, Israel had been adrift for many generations. God had been patient, but time was running out. Just as Nineveh was under impending judgment, so was Israel. In fact, Nineveh’s repentance showed unrepentant Israel in an even worse light.  

The message of Jonah applied equally to the people of Jesus’ day. In Matthew 12:38, the Pharisees and teachers of the law press Jesus for a miraculous sign to prove His credentials. They have already seen many miracles, but somehow, they aren’t satisfied. Just a short time earlier, when Jesus healed a man who was both blind and mute, they blasphemously attributed it to Beelzebul, the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24). Hard-heartedly refusing to believe, they now demand another, bigger miracle. They want irrefutable proof that He is the promised Messiah. Jesus replies, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matthew 12:39).

What is Jesus saying here? First, Jonah’s experience is a miraculous sign tailored for the hardest of hearts. Being eaten by a fish and spending three days in the ocean's depths, only to be spit out onto the beach and walk away is one of the greatest and most dramatic miracles of all time.

Secondly, Jesus is expressing in “code” that He will answer their request for a greater sign, but not in the way they expect. Jesus the Surpriser will Himself rise from the dead after three days. It will be the greatest miracle of all—far greater than Jonah’s. Jonah’s three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, it turns out, were a prophetic and symbolic foreshadowing of Jesus’s death and resurrection (Matthew 12:39-40). As Jonah was “banished from [God’s] sight” (Jonah 2:4) in the depths of the sea (for his rebellion), so the Messiah will soon offer to be “thrown overboard” to bear the penalty, not for His sins, but the sins of the world—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1).  

The Prophet from Nazareth, just three miles from Gath Hepher, would go to a great city (Jerusalem) and weep over it. Rather than waiting outside the gates for the city’s destruction, Jesus would carry His cross outside the city to save it from eternal destruction. It is the greatest real-life drama with the highest stakes and the ultimate climax. Jesus is the perfect embodiment of all Israel intended to be and do. He embraced the Father’s heart full of “amazing grace” and willingly yielded His rights for the sake of a wretched, undeserving world. Jesus is the perfect Jonah.

Jesus goes on to warn the Jewish leaders that the notorious Ninevites will one day rise at the judgment and condemn them. The wicked Assyrians repented at the preaching of Jonah, while these arrogant leaders encountered one “greater than Jonah” and failed to repent (Matthew 12:41). Jesus declares in no uncertain terms that they are inviting an even greater punishment.

We see a clear link here between the level of light people have received and their responsibility to respond. It is intriguing that different societies and generations will testify for or against one another relative to their response and responsibility to the gospel. Jesus has already condemned Chorazin and Bethsaida, declaring that the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes if they had seen the same miracles (Matthew 11:21). The teachers of the law have encountered in Jesus a greater founder of the faith than Abraham, a truer fulfiller of the law than Moses, a supreme prophet above Elijah, and the ultimate sign beyond the testimony of Jonah, yet they have not believed. Their guilt is overflowing. The men of Nineveh will testify against them on Judgment Day.

A Message for Today

What is the core message of the book? Simply this: Our sovereign, saving God expects us to share His heart for a lost world.

And what are the realities and assumptions undergirding this fundamental truth? What does God teach us in the context of Jonah and his generation? Here are seven key propositions to ponder:

1. The world is in rebellion against God and, therefore, hurtling toward judgment. Most people do not realize this, but the situation is urgent.
2. God has a plan, summarized in a promise He made to Abraham. He will bless all peoples through Jesus, Abraham’s “seed.” This plan involves the entire world, and nothing can stop God from accomplishing it. He is the God who saves.
3. God has a special role for His people in the plan, including you. He loves the world, but He also loves you individually. His plan for your life is superior to your own. He works patiently with you in this life-long process.
4. No one can escape God’s sovereign power. The more we try, the more difficult things will get. Storms are intended to prune and prepare us. The deepest lessons are learned in the darkest places.
5. Jesus is the hero of the Great Story. He is the perfect Jonah who reflects the Father’s heart and gives His life for the “great city.” Everything is from, through, and for Him. God’s justice and mercy have been reconciled in His finished work on the Cross.
6. God prepares people for the message He gives us. The gospel must go everywhere. Our job is to communicate it faithfully. No one is ever the same after understanding the message. It is wonderful news for those who accept it and dangerous news for those who refuse.  
7. The global Church, God’s people, must embrace His heart and lift our eyes to the harvest. We must stay true to our mission.

As the book of Jonah spoke to people in generations past, it still speaks today. In many quarters of the Church, we’ve lost our way. We’re more preoccupied with our own comfort than with the needs of a lost world. We view ourselves as spiritually erudite when, in fact, we have much to learn. We know little of true repentance or living sacrificially for the sake of the gospel. While generalizations can be dangerous, and there are many shining examples of God’s faithful ones in our ranks to inspire us, we need to take stock from time to time, both personally and corporately. Pride and complacency lull us into a deep and deceptive sleep. And yet, Jesus challenges us still, “Come, follow me … and I will send you out to fish for people” (Matthew 4:19).  

Today, we are experiencing the greatest spiritual harvest the world has ever known. That’s exciting but also creates a massive need for harvest workers. It is time for all hands to be “on deck.” There are many roles to play. It’s time for the whole body of Christ to be mobilized. Do we leave room for God’s surprises in our prayers and plans? Maybe He is calling us out of Gath Hepher, our comfort zones, to a Nineveh that needs to know things we have known for a long time. Will we respond like Peter or like Jonah? Let’s live sacrificially for the one thing that matters in eternity: the glory of God through the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.  

When God gave Abraham the “original” Great Commission 4,000 years ago, He revealed His game plan for the present age. What are we doing as stewards of that tremendous treasure? I believe God is setting aside some of us for very direct, front-line roles, including reaching the 7,000 unreached people groups in the world today. Most of us will play essential support roles, giving, praying and encouraging our brothers and sisters who obediently leave Joppa for the regions beyond while we carry out the same mission in our own circles of influence. All of us should pray with a posture of openness and expectation. We might not get instructions as clear as Jonah’s or Peter’s, but we can all take steps of obedience as God gives us faith and opportunity.  

I hope you will join me in worshiping God as the Great Surpriser. Be on the lookout for unanticipated things He may do in your life. I often voice the prayer of Psalm 67: Lord, bless the nations through me. That’s a prayer God loves to answer.

Discussion Questions

1. What parallels do you see between Jonah and Peter’s experiences in Joppa? What was different about their circumstances and responses?  
2. How well does the summary statement, Our sovereign, saving God expects us to share His heart for a lost world, capture the message of the book of Jonah? Which of the seven propositions under “A Message for Today” resonate the most? Which do you find challenging?  
3. How are you already participating in God’s mission of mercy to the world? Are you fully “on board?” If not, what’s holding you back?  
4. What steps of obedience can you take this week to deepen or expand your involvement in God’s global mission? What questions do you have? Who can you talk to about your concerns and ideas?  
5. In your prayers and plans, how can you leave room for God’s surprises?  

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Acknowledgments

I’m forever grateful to Maxine McDonald for helping me tirelessly with this project and to Shelly Kearns, Carol Richardson, and Marti Wade for their refining textual touches.