More Than a Man and a Big Fish

By: Summer Martin

The following is adapted from our upcoming Bible study, Jonah: God’s Relentless Grace.

When you think of the book of Jonah, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

A man who ran from God’s calling and ended up in the belly of a big fish?

That’s usually where our minds go. It’s the story many of us learned as children: God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah ran the opposite direction, a storm came, Jonah got thrown overboard, and a big fish swallowed him.

But somewhere along the way, we can become so focused on the fish that we miss what the book of Jonah is actually showing us about God.

Because Jonah is a story of relentless grace.

Grace for a disobedient prophet.

Grace for pagan sailors caught in a storm.

Grace for a wicked city called to repentance.

And ultimately, a story that points us toward Christ.

You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

God didn’t ask Jonah to go to Nineveh. He commanded him:

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it…”
—Jonah 1:2

Jonah arose alright.

He just went the wrong way.

Nineveh was northeast. Jonah headed toward Tarshish, putting as much distance as possible between himself and where God had commanded him to go.

The problem?

You cannot outrun an omnipresent God.

As I wrote while working through this study, “We cannot outrun God. We cannot hide from God. And honestly, when we try to ‘run from God’ we never get to where we are going.”

Most of us aren’t buying a ticket to Tarshish.

Our running looks a little different.

Sometimes it’s ignoring what we know Scripture says. Sometimes it’s justifying our inaction. Sometimes it’s choosing what is comfortable over what God has called us to do.

And sometimes we can convince ourselves that because nothing bad happened immediately, we must be getting away with it.

Jonah probably thought that too.

Until the storm came.

Sometimes the Storm Is Grace

Jonah’s disobedience didn’t change God’s sovereignty.

God sent the storm.

God appointed the fish.

Later, God would appoint a plant, a worm, and a scorching wind.

Again and again throughout Jonah, creation obeys its Creator while the prophet struggles to do the same.

But even the storm wasn’t God abandoning Jonah.

It was God pursuing him.

Jonah eventually finds himself about as low as a person can possibly go—thrown into the sea, sinking beneath the water, and swallowed by a great fish.

And there Jonah prays.

That’s where we begin seeing something beautiful about God’s discipline.

Punishment is about retribution—getting what you deserve. Discipline is about correction, being redirected toward where you need to be.

Jonah deserved death.

Instead, God sent a fish.

Not exactly the rescue plan any of us would have requested.

But that’s another lesson Jonah gives us:

Deliverance isn’t always pretty. It’s effective.

The thing Jonah probably thought was going to kill him became the very thing God used to preserve his life.

That’s grace.

But Grace Wasn’t Just for Jonah

This is where Jonah gets uncomfortable.

Because Jonah loved God’s mercy when Jonah needed it.

Then God gave him another chance.

“Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time…”
—Jonah 3:1

I love those words: the second time.

Jonah failed.

God wasn’t finished.

Jonah finally went to Nineveh and proclaimed the message God gave him.

And Nineveh repented.

The people believed God. From the greatest to the least, they responded. The king humbled himself. Their repentance wasn’t merely emotional; their behavior changed.

And God showed them mercy.

You would think Jonah would be thrilled.

He wasn’t.

He was angry.

Jonah finally admits that God’s mercy was the very reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place. He knew God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Jonah knew God’s character.

He just didn’t want his enemies benefiting from it.

And doesn’t that step on some toes?

We love grace when it is poured out on us.

But what about when God shows grace to them?

The person who hurt you.

The person who made terrible choices.

The person you don’t trust.

The person you think deserves consequences.

Jonah wanted mercy for himself and judgment for Nineveh.

And if we’re willing to look closely enough, sometimes we do too.

Knowing Truth Isn’t the Same as Having an Aligned Heart

One of the statements from this study that has stuck with me is:

“Sometimes our mouths can declare truth before our hearts are fully aligned.”

Jonah knew good theology.

He could tell you exactly who God was.

But knowing God’s character and having a heart aligned with His are two different things.

We can quote Scripture and still need repentance.

We can know God is sovereign while fighting Him for control.

We can preach grace while withholding compassion.

We can obey outwardly while inwardly resenting where God has called us.

That’s why I think Jonah is far more relatable than we’d like him to be.

The Question Jonah Leaves With Us

The book of Jonah doesn’t end neatly.

God doesn’t tell us what Jonah ultimately did.

Instead, God asks him a question.

And Scripture ends the story there.

Maybe that’s intentional, because eventually the question stops being about Jonah.

It becomes a question for us.

Do we share God’s heart for the lost?

Do we resent His mercy for people we dislike?

Do we value our comfort more than compassion?

Are our hearts actually aligned with His?

The book of Jonah is so much more than a man sitting in the belly of a big fish. It’s about God’s sovereignty, our disobedience, repentance, discipline, second chances, compassion, and a mercy that reaches much farther than we sometimes want it to.

And through it all, Jonah points us beyond himself toward Christ—the One who said that just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the great fish, the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40).

Jonah’s story is ultimately not about how impressive Jonah was.

Quite the opposite.

It’s about how gracious God is.

And as we wrote at the beginning of Jonah: God’s Relentless Grace, there are a few things we want readers to walk away remembering:

God is sovereign. His mercy is for all people. Repentance matters. And sometimes we need to check our hearts and align them with His.

Maybe that’s the invitation of Jonah:

Stop staring at the fish long enough to see the God who appointed it.