The Redeeming God Podcast

Is God a divine enabler? The book of Jonah says He is, which is why Jonah is so upset. As we see in Jonah 4:8, Jonah wants God to kill him, so that God will also kill the wicked and violent people of Nineveh. But this is not the way of God. God prefers to bless and forgive the people of Nineveh.

You might have heard someone say that God is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice. It this true? Must God punish people for their sin? Does God punish people for sin? While it is true that God is both merciful and just, both forgiving and just, the question is How? This study of Jonah 4:7 explains more.

What is evil? Do you know evil when you see it? We all think we know what evil is, that we can recognize it, and that we are able to accurately judge between good and evil. Jonah 4:6 reveals that judging between good and evil should be left up to God.

There are lots of calls for justice in the world today. And God is a God of justice, but most Christians are not really aware of how God carries out justice. We are going to learn more about justice today as we study Jonah 4:5. Jonah wants Nineveh brought to justice, and takes steps to see if God will act.

Have you ever been angry at how God runs the world? Have you ever felt like that? I have. And Jonah did too. This is one reason the book of Jonah was written. It shows a prophet who is angry at God for how God runs the world. And we see in the book what God says to Jonah about it. This is what we learn in this study of Jonah 4:4.

Two pressing questions in the book of Jonah are why he fled to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh, and why Jonah preferred to die instead of obey. In this study of Jonah 4:3, we finally discover the answer to both questions. And the answer is shocking. So shocking, in fact, most fail to see it. But I will point it out to you in this study.

Have you ever been angry at God? Of course you have. Life has a way of crushing us all, and when that happens, we often get angry at God about it. When you’re angry at God, what do you do? Do you try to handle it yourself? Or do you lash out at God in your anger? In this study of Jonah 4:2, w see what Jonah does, and you will find it very encouraging for your own prayer life going forward.

After Nineveh experiences a city-wide revival in response to his preaching, Jonah becomes angry at God in Jonah 4:1. What do you think about that? Have you ever thought that he should have rejoiced instead? In this study of Jonah 4:1, we see Jonah’s response, and come to understand that Jonah’s response is actually quite normal and natural. You and I might have had a similar response. Maybe we do.

What is repentance? What is evil? If you think you know, here are some harder questions: Does God ever need to repent? Does God commit evil? Jonah 3:10 seems to indicate that God does commit evil and does repent of it. Yikes! What does that mean? This is what we look at in this study.

What is repentance? How do we repent? Does God ever need to repent? It is these sorts of questions we are considering today as we look at Jonah 3:9, where the king of Nineveh expresses his hope that God will repent.

What if there was another way to defeat violent groups of people, other than with more violence? What if there was a better, godly ways to defeat violence? This is one of the questions we consider today from Jonah 3:6-8. This is what we are going to learn about today, as we see how God brought the violent and evil empire of Assyria to its knees in sorrow and repentance. If you want to defeat evil,...

God can start a city-wide revival through the smallest of acts. You don’t have to be Billy Graham. This is what we are going to learn today from Jonah 3:5.

How do you evangelize? Do you use tracts? Invite people to church, or to an evangelism crusade? Do you use the Roman’s Road? Do you shout into a bullhorn that people are going to hell unless they repent? In Jonah 3:4, we see how Jonah shared the message of God to the people of Nineveh. We’ll also see that his approach to evangelism left much to be desired.

What does God think of evil people? What does God think of people who disobey Him, and are opposed to Him and His ways? Well, according to Jonah 3:3, God thinks they are great. We’re going to see that the wicked and violent people of Nineveh are great to God. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and so this is why I titled today’s podcast Making Assyria Great Again. Assyria was in modern day Iraq,...

Do you ever feel like you are stuck on a hamster wheel in the life of discipleship to Jesus? That you hear the same things over and over? You go through the same steps over and over? That you just keep going round and round and never seem to make any progress or do anything new? If so, what you learn today from Jonah 3:2 will be helpful for you.

Jonah 3 begins in almost exactly the same way as Jonah 1. Jonah 3:1 is nearly identical to Jonah 1:1. Jonah 3:1 reveals that God is a God of second chances. After Jonah’s blatant rebellion and shameful disobedience of chapter 1, and after Jonah’s self-righteous, unrepentant behavior in chapter 2, God still calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to it the message that God to him.

As we have studied through Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2, I have been fairly critical of Jonah and what he says. But what does God think of Jonah’s prayer? This question is answered in Jonah 2:10. This verse contains God’s response to Jonah’s prayer, which is what we look at in this episode of the One Verse Podcast.

If I say “salvation is from the Lord,” what do you think of? If you are like most Christians, you think of how God forgives your sins so you can receive eternal life and go to heaven when you die. Well, the phrase “salvation is from the Lord” is found in Jonah 2:9, which are looking at in this podcast episode, and we will see that it means something quite different from what many Christians think...

Do you think that theology can be an idol? That is, do you think that we sometimes allow our study of God, or even what we think we know about God, to get in the way of actually worshiping and obeying God? In other words, do you think we Christians ever make our theology of God more important than God Himself? Is it possible for our theology to become idolatry? That is what we discuss in my podcas...

What is your prayer life like? Do you ever wonder if you are praying properly? As we continue to look at Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2:5-6, we learn some more lessons today about how to pray, and how not to pray.

In Jonah 2:4, Jonah states that he prayed to worship God in His holy temple. In this way, Jonah seems to take credit for his deliverance from drowning. And though he has no interest in obeying God by going to Nineveh, Jonah is happy about the prospect of worshiping God in the temple. But which do you think God would prefer?

Do you fear death? I do not. But as we study the book of Jonah, we see that Jonah sort of wanted to die, but he did not want to die by drowning. We see why in this study of Jonah 2:3. We see that Jonah prefers to die by digestion that to die by drowning.

When the Bible talks about hell, or hades, or sheol, a completely different picture emerges about hell than most people think. We talk a bit about this today when we look at Jonah 2:2, where Jonah goes to hell.

My two recent books have referenced René Girard's Mimetic theory. If you want to learn more about this theory, and why it is so important for understanding life, Scripture, and ourselves, below is a video I recorded about all of this last year.

In my own prayer life, I find it helpful to pray the prayers of Scripture. I sometimes pray the prayer of Daniel in in Daniel 9. Or the prayer of Jesus in Matthew 6. Or any of the numerous prayers of Paul found throughout his letters, such as the one at the end of Ephesians 3. I especially find it helpful to pray the Psalms. There is a Psalm for every emotion. If you do something like this, the on...