Side trip with Jonah.

Thought I would put up an original translation of Jonah I worked on a few years ago while I am getting some other things together. Enjoy the journey.

Jonah 1

1. There came a time in the history of Israel when the Word of the Lord made Himself known unto the son of Amitay, who was the prophet, Jonah. This is what the Word said to him:

2. "Get your things together, Jonah, and get going toward the great city Nineveh.  When you arrive there you will proclaim my message, pronounce my word upon her because her wickedness has risen through the heavens and is right in front of me."

3. But, instead of following the Word, Jonah got his things together and headed out toward Tarshish which was on the other side of the Great Sea from Nineveh. He first went away from Nineveh as far as Joppa and there he found a small ship that would sell him a bunk on their voyage toward Tarshish. So he paid the fare and climbed down into the tiny berth and sailed away with the men toward Tarshish; with their backs to Nineveh.

4. Somewhere along the way, the Lord Himself blasted the sea with a powerful wind and stirred up a hurricane. The small ship was tossed about by the terrible storm until it seemed as though she would be broken to pieces.

5. All of the sailors were terrified and helpless to bring their ship under control. They began to pray and shout to their gods and shouted out to the god of the sea. They also started throwing their cargo overboard to try and appease the gods and to make the small ship lighter. But Jonah, who knew that there was no sea god, decided to find himself a comfortable place in the back of the boat where he could bed down during the brief calm that was coming. In a few moments, he was fast asleep.

6. When the ship's captain found out that Jonah was napping below decks, he could hardly believe it. When he found Jonah, the captain shook him and called his name, "Jonah. Jonah! What are you doing? How can you be the only one sleeping? Get yourself up and do what we are all doing. Cry out to your god and ask for help. Perhaps he will be considerate and save us from death, from perishing in the sea!"

7. Meanwhile, all the others on board got together to decide what to do when the calm was over and the other side of the storm came over them. Someone shouted more loudly than the rest, "Come on, let's draw straws and find out on whose account this disaster is happening to us." When the captain came back on deck with Jonah, they drew straws and Jonah had the short straw.

8. Everyone stared at the short straw in Jonah's hand for a moment. The captain finally began to ask him questions, one right after the other: "Tell us why this harm has come upon us." "What sort of business are you in? What is your trade?" "Where do you come from?" "Who are your people?" "What land are you from?"

9. Jonah held up his hand. "Hebrew." Everyone stared at the short straw in his hand as he said, " I am Hebrew, from the land of the Hebrews, the people who crossed over the sea upon the dry land by the hand of God. I am one of those who fear the Lord, the God of the heavens. He is the Creator; It is He who has made the sea and it is He who has made the dry land. The sea does as he commands and obeys his will.

10. When they heard the words of Jonah, every man was gripped with fear as they remembered that he had told them before that he was running away from the presence of  the Lord. "What is this that you have done to us?" they exclaimed in one voice. "How could you bring this disaster upon us?"

   11) No one spoke for a short time. The boat began to move about as the waves began to swell again. The captain looked out to sea and then looked at Jonah. "What can we do unto you that will make him be quiet? The sea is starting to walk and toss again and the ship cannot bear up under the crushing waves."

   12) And Jonah said to the men, "You must lift me up and toss me overboard. Throw me down into the sea and he will be quiet, you will be safe. I know this is true because I know that this tempest is sent against you on my account."

   13) Without a word, the men ran to their oars and began to pull as hard as they could toward the shoreline that was still visible on the horizon. They rowed until they were exhausted and weak but the sea was tossing them back two lengths for every ship's length they gained.

    14) Finally, they succumbed to their fears and impotence and they cried out to the Lord as they lifted Jonah up to the side of the ship, "O Lord, we don't want to die here because of the life of this man. We beg that you will not let us perish and that you will not hold us to account for the blood of this innocent man. We are trusting in the words of this man that you have done this thing, O Lord!"

    15) So they lifted Jonah and cast him down into the sea. Immediately, the sea became calm and was not raging against them as it had been.

  16) When the men reached the shore, they were still overwhelmed by the things that had happened and by the fear of the Lord that was unshakeable. They got together and made sacrifices and made promises and vows to do things that were good.

Not a do-over... New Creation

Revelation 1:14

White wool is a very interesting symbol.  It is certainly alluded to in Daniel 7:9.  However, the earlier picture that is given that has authority here is that of Isaiah 1:18, though your sins are “red as crimson, they shall be as wool”.  There is no doubt that the wool is the whitest since the earlier parallel in the verse is that sins will be white as snow.  So the white wool hair of Jesus indicates that He who became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) has dealt with all sin in His own body and turned it into spiritual purity and cleanliness. 

This purity He provides as a gift to those who will come to Him and receive that gift of life.  The gift is available for the asking.  No one has had it injected into him or her in advance.  God worked out the details of His plan for dealing with evil by providing the cleansing blood transfusion we all need at the cross.  He did not provide it before that point in time.  ALL are welcome to come to the cross and receive life from Life Himself (John 1:4).  Come to Jesus Christ and live.

"I looked in vain and bought it / I looked for recompense." stolen from Wesley Price, that great poet of grace

Having written on Calvinist/Augustinian doctrine in the past 6 months, it came to me that perhaps I should describe my journey through Calvinism...and back again.
I had heard of Calvinism in my teen years at school but didn't pay much attention to the principles or ideas that formed this school of thought.  Growing up Southern Baptist in the 60's and 70's, one heard little of doctrine that was outside the practical walls of the church.  Jesus died for our sins and expected us to behave ourselves.  If I had been given any other parents than those God gave me, I dare say I would have heard little more than the above with a blending of Bible stories.  By and large, Southern Baptists are not overwhelmed with great brilliant minds...they have always been blessed with people of great, loving hearts.  At any rate, my dad was not a Calvinist and focused his attention on Jesus and salvation and trying (painfully at times) to understand what the Bible was trying to say from one end to the other.
I had been listening to Chuck Swindoll for a few years in the late 70's and kept feeling a stirring in my heart.  I spent a lot of time at church and listened to some powerful preaching and great music in the early 80's.  I was reading a lot and trying to understand why I felt an emptiness in my heart.  I knew a lot about the Bible and had begun to read more widely than Swindoll and those who were popular evangelicals in those days.  I was introduced to Arthur Pink's works (afraid I cannot remember the name of any of them--and don't care to try to find out what they were!), that outlined the Calvinist position.  I took to the ideas like a duck to water and ran the gamut...all the way to Warfield.  Interestingly enough, I had begun to read the works of C.S. Lewis at the same time.  I was working my way very slowly through the essays in the collection God in the Dock when one day I realized that the intellect of Lewis was so great that I had to reread most of his stuff 2, 3 maybe 5 times before I got what he was saying.  The Calvinist stuff was boring.  I had already reached the place where I realized that they all repeat the same propaganda over and over again.  There was NO "further up and further in."
C.S. Lewis did not lead me out.  He just made it clear to me that if I stayed, I would be a fool and not trustworthy in any intellectual or spiritual way.  Jesus led me out with His word...the book of Esther (yes, Calvinists, scoff.  Too bad no one asked YOU how to arrange the canon of Scripture!).  Basic to Calvinist doctrine is the unbiblical lie that there is a single decree of God by which He establishes who are the saved (elect) and the lost (reprobate).  The picture that unfolds to anyone who reads Esther is that there are two separate decrees that converge upon the same day.  The day of damnation IS the day of salvation.  You choose which camp you want to be in on that day.  Once I got the picture, I never looked back; realizing that Calvinism leaves out a key element that is woven throughout the Old Testament and is fulfilled on the cross: Salvation is spiritual warfare under the command of the LORD of Hosts.  Good luck trying to work out any other kind, especially the "I am so special--look at me" kind. 
It took a few more years to get past the intellectual understanding and come to the place of surrendering my heart to Jesus.  I met Him at the cross.  He made it plain that I was rejected and wandering unless I gave up my sinful self and accepted Him personally.  It was a choice.  I could have continued to choose self-deception and self-satisfaction in the army of the devil.  I figured that the Lord of Jude 9 was a safer option and went with Jesus.
When I tell people to meet Jesus at the cross, it is not hyperbolic.  It is the only method of time travel you can experience on this earth.  Jesus will meet you there.  It's guaranteed.

We see a dim reflection.

Still on a bit of a detour from the usual.
In Kenya, as in Ireland, England, etc., they drive on the left side of the road. Anyone who has ever driven under these conditions has some dificulty adjusting to making right turns and responding to a threat that is coming in your direction; your tendency is to respond to the right as the safe place of escape. My personal belief is that this condition points out that, to some degree, all humans suffer from some form of left/right confusion. (Here is a test...try cutting your own hair using a mirror...then 2 mirrors! Thank your dentist that he has this issue trained out of him!) The really interesting thing that is revealed by driving on the wrong side of the car when the 5-speed gear shift pattern is the same as ours is that we are not as rational as we think we are...or ought to be. The shift pattern appears to have a schematic logic which we think is put into play as we use it daily. We soon forget that it took a few minutes (or days for some) to master the pattern because we are more concerned with the obvious difficulty of higher priority = stalling the vehicle. Clutch and gas and brake and shift and turn all have to be worked in concert so we misunderstand how the process came to fruition. Once it is done, it seems to be a thing that was pre-destined.
Driving on the wrong side of the car is an oblique commentary on this supposed sense of destiny. If asked, we would probably say that we are folowing after the prescribed logical pattern of shifting gears that is outlined on the shift knob -- 1 up, 2 down, 3 over/up, etc. Drive on the wrong side of the car and the pedals remain the same, as does the shifter. The prescribed pattern is the same. The logic of your brain is the same. Guess what you will do more than once?? You will down-shift when you want to up-shift or vice versa. You will! Shifting gears like this demonstrates that you store the activity in your mind in relation to your body core, not because it makes sense. I assure you that you feel very helpless when you are passing a farm tractor with a truck approaching from over the hill ahead and you senselessly (irrationally, stupidly, maniacally) up-shift and feel the vehicle speed slump when you needed Pep, pizzzaz, Go-get-em (as my dad would say.)!
Pre-destined, Calvinist type people seem to be mostly right-handed people in a right-handed world of their own making or choosing. God forbid they be put into a simple test condition of left-handed consciousness (in other words, give up their Augustinian nonsense about a Greek style ball of fire they CALL God and accept the Old Testament Jesus as really, fully God Himself...the LIVING Word!) to see whether there may be some right/left confusion they have avoided by refusing to use mirrors.
Another solution might be to try the hair-cutting test above and laugh uproariously at the results. Absurd, little provisional creature. Your only eternal hope is to trade in your sin as raw material for new creation (2 Cor. 5:21...you weren't made righteous in advance). Come to the cross!