Digging Deeper Daily: By Daily Bible Reading PodcastSample

JONAH 3-4: Running from God didn’t work for Jonah. When saved from the ocean, Jonah grudgingly obeys God. For most of my life I have been fooled by Jonah's prayer in chapter 2, because he borrows a lot from the Psalms. However Jonah really prays a selfish, me-centered prayer, self-righteous prayer. The worst thing about it is there is no hint of repentance. I have heavily paraphrased Jonah's prayer so as to make these overtones obvious to a modern American audience. So inside the fish, he prayed: “You and me, Lord, we're pretty thick. I mean, ‘Who else gets rescued out of such a fix?’ I can go all the way down to the world of the dead, and say a little prayer, and right away my personal escort vehicle will appear to rescue me. 3 True, you played with me like I was a Frisbee, and tossed me into the ocean. It looked like I was being buried alive in a grave— as I sank to the deepest part and the waves covered over me. 4 And I thought, “How sad. This will ruin my perfect attendance at church, and they will miss my sweet voice at choir practice.” 5 I was on the bottom by now, having breathed my last, with seaweed wrapping around my head and the last bubble escaping from my mouth. … 7a But even in such a place my thoughts came right back to You, Lord. 6b That's when You did it, Lord, snatching me at the last moment from the jaws of death. … 10 The Lord gave the fish the order to spit Jonah up onto the beach, and it was only too glad to comply (being, by now, thoroughly sick of Jonah). PSALM 137: As a musician, I can imagine what the musician who wrote this felt. The imprecation at the end should be taken in view of God’s justice. Compare the thought here with Rev. 6:9 and following (the cry of the saints under the altar), and also the ending chapters of Revelation that portray the vengeful judgment against ‘Babylon’— which in that book is used as a figurative name. Rereading JOHN 17: The pinnacle of the upper room discourse is Jesus’ high priestly prayer.