Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. – Jonah 1:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 3, 2016): Jonah 1 & 2

Aristotle wrote “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” Unfortunately, both of Aristotle’s “qualities of mind” are often in short supply.

The men that Jonah is sailing with seem to be the exact opposite of the prophet. It appears that Jonah lacks both of Aristotle’s two “greatest qualities of the mind.” He had no desire to go to Nineveh. Oh, he wasn’t scared of the Ninevites – okay, maybe he was little afraid of the Ninevites. To be honest, Nineveh had a horrible reputation. They were a cruel people, and Jonah wanted nothing more than to see the city destroyed. But his greatest fear was that God might actually forgive them. Jonah did not trust God enough to see God’s plan through to the end. It was a lack of courage, both to face the people of Nineveh and to confront the God-dream that God had placed in front of him

But for Jonah, his running in the opposite direction of Nineveh was also a classic lack of honor. God had called him to the front line of the battle with evil. God’s plan did not involve destroying the evil, but rather changing evil into good. Even Jonah would have agreed that Nineveh was the epicenter of evil in his world. And instead of running toward the battle, Jonah decided to run the other direction and take a vacation. He had made a commitment to God as a prophet to speak the words of God wherever God decided to send him, and then when push came to shove, he allowed his personal desires to override that commitment. And that is a question of honor.

The men in the boat, on the other hand, seemed to possess both of Aristotle’s “greatest qualities of the mind.” Scholars have wondered if maybe they were afraid of what God might do to them if they threw a prophet, even a floundering one like Jonah, into the sea. But maybe a simpler solution is that they were willing to face the dangers of the sea with great courage. They were going to give themselves entirely to fighting the waves and getting to shore. But they also were completely aware that they had promised safe voyage to Jonah. To throw him overboard, reneging on their commitment, was the last thing they wanted to do. So as Jonah tells his new friends that he is the source of the problem and that their best action would be to throw him into the angry sea (destroying Jonah the way that Jonah wanted Nineveh to be destroyed), the men fought as long as they could against that suggestion. And in doing so, they gave Jonah an image of what men of courage and honor were truly like.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jonah 3 & 4