'Jonah In The Book Of Jonah'

As we further read the Old Testament, we come into several accounts that show a connection between God’s missional work and the city. One of these stories is described in the book of Jonah when God sends his prophet Jonah on a unique mission – to go to a pagan city of Nineveh. This is the first time that a prophet is sent to be a messenger in a non-Jewish, pagan city, nevertheless, at first he choses to run away from the city, and finally goes to preach there. Why does God send an Israelite prophet to a pagan city? He does so because of his love and his intentions to reconcile all humanity back with himself. We see in this story that God shows compassion to more than 120,000 people living in this city (Jonah 4:10-11, ESV). He is saying to Jonah, “You can show pity to the plant, but cannot bear my compassion to many people”. His compassionate love is way deeper and wide than Jonah can …show more content…
Through Scriptures, Babylon is represented as a city of rebellion against God, a center of civilization built on selfishness, pride, and other sinful agendas. Regardless, God calls his people not to attack this city or withdraw from it, but to love it, pray for it, and take care about its wellbeing. It shows that the relationship between the people of God and the city of man becomes a key aspect of God’s plan to redeem the world (2012, 143).
We can see that in both of these accounts, the story of Nineveh and Babylonian exile, God does not treat these cities as irredeemable places. In addition to compassionate attitude toward them, he develops a strategic plan that involves his call upon the people of God, the call to engage, to establish relationship, and to become conduits of God’s merciful love toward humanity. Let us further examine how this missional call of God is fulfilled through the life and deeds of the apostles and the first century church in the New