April 22, 2025 • 17 mins
Lauren and her small group are going through the late great Pastor Tim Keller's book, "Rediscovering Jonah". She guides us through some shocking themes in the book of Jonah that most people miss. Jonah is far from the hero in his own story and, even more unsettling, many of us might have something in common with him.
What does Jonah have to say about how believers should behave and treat unbelievers? Is it possible unbelievers do a better job at exhibiting God's love to their neighbors than we do? And why are some Christians hesitant to partner with unbelievers in pursuit of the common good?
Join us as Lauren peels back the layers on this supposedly familiar and straightforward story.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:30):
I have been going through a book by Tim Keller
called Rediscovering Jonah.
S2 (00:35):
Oh, Tim Keller is so good.
S1 (00:38):
Yeah, you just discovered Tim Keller.
S2 (00:40):
Because I have this awkward tendency in life where I go,
if everyone else is into something, I'm like, I'm not
doing that. I did it when I when I had
a bass guitar with, like, everyone likes Fender bass and
Fender guitars. I'm like, losers. I'm gonna do something else.
Turns out they were right. Turns out Tim Keller too.
Turns out everyone likes that guy. I don't know what
their problem is. He's so great.
S3 (01:00):
Yes. Now that he's gone on to glory, you've grown
to like him. Yeah.
S1 (01:06):
When he first passed, you really were having a hard time.
You're like, I just found him. I was just, like,
getting into his sermons.
S2 (01:12):
I don't know why I have that tendency. I don't
know what it is about it.
S1 (01:14):
And then for probably about two months, every day, you'd
be like. I was just listening to Tim Keller this morning.
S2 (01:18):
Yeah. I found, like, he had an app. I was
all in. I was listening to his, like, his sermons.
It was so great. Yes. I don't even like listening
to sermons all that much. No offense. Anyone listening?
S1 (01:28):
It's okay. So I've been doing his book called Rediscovering
Jonah with my small group. I'm just finding like little
tidbits all the time. I shared one a couple of
weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and I have another one.
So I'm going to read the passage for us and
then kind of walk us through what's going on here.
And then after the break, we'll talk about so what now?
S2 (01:46):
It's like our little we're having a small group.
S1 (01:47):
We are having a small group.
S2 (01:48):
Should we do an icebreaker?
S1 (01:50):
No.
S2 (01:52):
Trust falls.
S1 (01:53):
That's I don't do that at my small group.
S3 (01:55):
Right. Okay.
S1 (01:57):
Jonah one verses five and six. This is the NLT version.
Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their
gods to help, and they threw cargo overboard to lighten
the ship. But all this time, Jonah was sound asleep
down on the down in the hold. So the captain
went down after him and he said, how can you
sleep at a time like this? He shouted, get up
and go pray to your God. Maybe he will pay
(02:18):
attention to us and spare our lives. Any first thoughts
of like what you notice here? Before I get into it.
S2 (02:26):
It's like the Boston Tea Party with Jonah. They threw
everything overboard.
S1 (02:30):
Wow.
S3 (02:30):
And the sailors realized it may not have been their
first choice of what could be going on, but they
realized Jonah might have an answer to this problem they face.
S1 (02:42):
Yeah.
S4 (02:42):
I mean, sailors, they're used to some storms.
S1 (02:45):
And so this one has been big storms.
S4 (02:46):
It's bad enough that they're all on their knees praying
to their God and like, let's go ask this other
random guy to pray to whatever his God is. Yeah.
So it was desperate. It was a bad storm.
S1 (02:54):
Yeah. They're like, these are these are sailors that do
this all the time. This is it had to have
been a big storm. Might have happened quickly, especially considering
it was most likely a spiritual situation. It was probably
all of a sudden it wasn't something that they could
have seen coming. So we often think of the book
of Jonah about us going to go talk to people
(03:16):
to share the gospel with people of other faiths, other nations,
things like that, which it is, but it's also about
how we treat non-believers. Unbelievers.
S2 (03:28):
Mm.
S1 (03:29):
Because the sailors are pagans, obviously, or as we'd say today, unbelievers, non-Christians.
They have all these other gods that they believe in
that they're praying to desperately trying to figure out, like,
get this to stop. But what happens is that the
sailors who are pagans act more admirably than Jonah. Because
(03:50):
what is Jonah trying to do? The whole reason he's
on the ship is because he's fleeing, because he doesn't
want to deal with the unbelievers in Nineveh, in Nineveh.
S3 (03:57):
Right.
S1 (03:58):
And then God's like, lol. You're going to be on
this ship with unbelievers and have to deal with them.
S4 (04:04):
And they're going to know to turn to a higher power. Yes,
might be the wrong higher power, but they've got sort
of the idea and you're down there sleeping and ignoring me.
S2 (04:12):
What an uncomfortable truth for Christians today.
S1 (04:14):
Yeah, he's like, I'm not dealing with those Ninevites. God, like,
joke's on you. I'm running away. And he said, actually,
God said, actually, you will deal with these pagans on
the boat.
S4 (04:25):
That's really cool. I never picked up on that part.
S1 (04:26):
Yeah. Me neither.
S2 (04:27):
And they're going to behave more appropriately than you.
S1 (04:30):
Yes. The pagans act more admirably. Admirably than Jonah. He's.
Jonah is dismissive and unhelpful in the time of a
common chaos. They're all in a ship together. We are
all experiencing this chaos together. And you, Jonah, are being
unhelpful and dismissive. This is the main storyline of Jonah.
God cares about how we as believers relate to people
who are deeply different than us. He wants us to
(04:52):
treat with them respect, love, and generosity, no matter their
race or religion. And this comes out in the overarching
story to the Ninevites and now to the sailors. So
verse five, the storm comes. And these experienced sailors, as
we discussed, are terrified. So it's not a normal storm.
There's a 16th century Scottish minister, Hugh Martin. He said,
(05:15):
this is a sleep of sorrow. We've all had the
sleep of sorrow where you're just trying to like sleep
so you don't have to feel the realities of life.
S2 (05:23):
Except he said it with his Scottish accent.
S1 (05:25):
Well, yeah.
S2 (05:26):
It's a sleep of sorrow.
S1 (05:27):
Exactly. So he's just, like, deep and asleep. I don't
even I don't care what's going on. I don't want
to talk to anybody. I'm just trying to sleep away.
Reality to sleep away life right now.
S2 (05:38):
Have you done that?
S1 (05:39):
Yeah.
S2 (05:41):
Were you just, like, just shut down?
S1 (05:42):
Yeah. You just shut down. And all you can do
is sleep because you don't want to deal with the
pain or whatever it was that you're going through. Mhm.
The sailors are seeking the common good of everyone in
the boat because they're all in this tragedy together. They
all go around trying to find out which God to
pray to, to make them safe. And they're even open
to Jonah's God, even though it's not theirs. They actually
seem more ready to call on Jonah's god than Jonah himself.
S2 (06:05):
Wow. That's true.
S1 (06:06):
Jonah is seeking his own good and wallowing in his
pride while the sailors are trying to save everybody on
the boat. Then the sailors, they cast lots. And even
when they seem to have found divine guidance, they don't
turn on Jonah and throw him overboard like they could have. Instead,
they listen to him and take the information in and
make the right decision. They show Jonah and Jonah's God
(06:27):
respect at every turn. The pagans outshine Jonah.
S2 (06:34):
I've never thought about it like that.
S1 (06:36):
Jonah was like, throw me overboard. Let's just get this
over with. Just throw me overboard. And they're like, no, no. Like,
let's let's, you know, show you some respect and show
your God respect and try to do this right so
that we can all be saved.
S4 (06:47):
And I always thought of that as, like, self-sacrifice, like
being noble. But is it possible that maybe Jonah was
actually suicidal? He just didn't care at that point? Could be.
S1 (06:56):
Could be.
S2 (06:57):
Yeah. So often you think of it as like he's
the hero of the story.
S4 (07:02):
He's really not.
S2 (07:04):
Like, he was bad for a little while.
S1 (07:05):
But then he gets better.
S2 (07:06):
And then he goes to Nineveh and everything's better.
S4 (07:08):
He really doesn't make a single good choice in this
entire story when you really think about it.
S2 (07:13):
And it's pretty convicting to hear that the most godly
people were the ungodly ones. We don't like that message.
S1 (07:21):
Yeah. The overarching theme of Jonah's of the Book of
Jonah seems to be God cares how we treat people
of other faiths and other thought, thought worlds and other races.
S4 (07:31):
Stop it. And people of other faiths might be better
at your faith than you. Yeah.
S2 (07:36):
So that's a very uncomfortable.
S1 (07:38):
There's two things that we can take away from this.
So we've talked about what's happening in the story. There's
two things that we can take away from this. Kind
of like the what now the application, the first one
Tim says, is people outside of the Christian community have
a right to evaluate the church on its commitment to
the good for all. He says, we see a pagan
sailor basically reprimanding God's prophet because Jonah is doing nothing
(08:01):
to help, and he's like, what are you doing? Why
are you not trying to help us? We're all going
to die and you're not helping us. So a pagan
sailor is reprimanding God's prophet.
S2 (08:11):
I wish this didn't sound so familiar.
S1 (08:13):
Yeah. Tim Keller says they were in the same perilous boat,
and their safety depended on what each of them does.
And God's prophet didn't do anything. Believers and non-believers today are,
quote in the same boat. If crimes, plagues, poor health,
a water shortage economy, or social orders are out of
out of whack, all of those are harming our community
(08:36):
and we're in the same community together. We're in the
same boat with nonbelievers in our communities, and we cannot
flee from the non-believers and seek only good for Christians.
God is the God of all people, and we can
see ourselves as a part of the whole community and
not just our faith community. So he's saying if there's
(08:56):
poor health, if there's a water shortage, if there's plagues
or crimes in your community, you need to seek the
good of your entire community, not just the Christians in
your community.
S2 (09:06):
I think we're scared of that in the church.
S1 (09:08):
Often, why.
S2 (09:10):
Partnering with unbelievers? Because there's a verse that says you
shouldn't be unequally yoked.
S1 (09:15):
Yeah.
S2 (09:15):
So we can't partner fighting crime or poverty in our
own community with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or non-religious people.
S4 (09:24):
I'm pretty sure that passage is referring to marriage. Don't
intentionally marriage marry someone that is an unbeliever.
S2 (09:31):
No, I'm totally with you on that. And yet, what
I'm saying is, I think I often hear that there's
resistance from Christians to partner with non-Christians because they're scared
God will be mad at them for it.
S4 (09:44):
I think it's more than that. I think they're afraid
that their beliefs will rub off on them and that
they will adopt Judaism or, you know, Islam or whatever,
which kind of goes back to what we were talking
about yesterday with whether Christians should have an open mind
or not. If your faith is that fragile, then you
probably don't have any faith at all.
S2 (10:02):
Well, and how about this one? Well, I don't want
to give the appearance of evil, so I can't work
with them.
S4 (10:08):
Is someone who's an unbeliever doing the work that God
called you to do evil, though.
S2 (10:12):
Right? Yeah. It was a startling thing for me over
the years to see some atheists I became good friends
with doing more good than me. When so, so much
that the church chooses to demonize non-Christians like, watch out,
they're going to get you and your children. Yeah, and
(10:34):
it turns out they're like the sailors actually doing a
lot of good, and we're just crossing our arms and
staring at them.
S1 (10:38):
Yeah, and that's Tim Keller's second point. So the first point,
people outside of the Christian community have a right to
evaluate the church on its commitment to doing good for all.
The second point is recognizing common grace. God gives good
qualities to all people. Christians get specific and more deep
ones through the Holy Spirit. But pagans can be kind, loving, generous,
(11:00):
and care for others as well. And we Christians can
humble ourselves and respect people of all faiths and appreciate
their work and their actions, because we can learn from
them too.
S2 (11:08):
Boy, we've lost that. That idea.
S1 (11:13):
Yeah, that unbelievers can be kind and loving.
S2 (11:15):
Yeah, like.
S1 (11:16):
Generous.
S2 (11:17):
Because what they are is they're out to get us.
S4 (11:19):
We think we've cornered the market on love. And we're
also not loving ourselves. Like, I mean, we've seen people
text us that think that just because someone is not Christian,
they're inherently bad parents that, like you are not inherently,
you know, out doing evil things like, yes, you should
believe in God, but you're not doing evil things as
part of your daily life just because you're they're a
(11:40):
different religion or don't have one at all. Some of them,
like Brian was saying, are doing better work for the
kingdom than we are.
S2 (11:46):
I get some comfort in that it's not a new problem. Clearly.
And yet part of me still goes, why can't we
figure this out?
S1 (11:54):
Yeah. So, like, looking at this back to the story
of Jonah, these unbelieving sailors were trying to do a
common good. They were trying to save themselves. And the
others in the boat, they're doing something kind and loving.
And then then they're also showing respect to Jonah and
to Jonah's God. But they're unbelieving, but they still have
(12:17):
common grace, good qualities that God has given them, not
necessarily the gifts of the spirit, because that only comes
through having a relationship with Jesus and being changed by
the spirit. But unbelieving people can have good qualities as well,
and us as Christians can humble ourselves to respect people
of all faiths because we can. They do good works too, sometimes.
S2 (12:41):
And often well, and sometimes more than we do.
S1 (12:44):
Sometimes.
S2 (12:46):
So What do we do with this? Like, how do
we make those changes? What would it look like in
Northeast Ohio if we were working towards the common good
with nonbelievers?
S1 (13:01):
I mean, I think it first starts as changing ourselves,
that people who don't believe in Christ can still be
good people. I mean, obviously everyone is inherently bad, but
doing good things, yeah, can still be loving. Two of
the most generous people in my life. Unbelievers.
S2 (13:18):
Right?
S1 (13:20):
They would do anything for me. They would give me
anything I needed. And with not even a thought, some
of the most generous people are unbelievers.
S2 (13:31):
That should be disorienting to us, because that's been my
experience as well. Um, and I'm thinking even of a
cool example we learned about recently our friends at City Mission. Right.
They're a Christian based, I mean, 100% funded by donors.
And they're Christian. No, no federal money. They're helping the
unhoused and those experiencing homelessness. But right now, they're partnering
(13:53):
with the city of Cleveland because Mayor Bibb has a
program where he's trying to reduce the number of people
living on the street.
S3 (14:01):
Right.
S2 (14:02):
And they're like, that sounds great. We'll help. Isn't that
what you're talking about here? Common good.
S1 (14:08):
Yeah.
S2 (14:09):
So why are we so afraid of that? I mean,
we talked about that a little bit before, but what
is like the big obstacle that keeps Christians from working
for the common good as opposed to our own good?
Because right now we're obsessed with our own good.
S1 (14:22):
We make it an us versus them. Instead of we
are all made in the image of God. We are
all people who shouldn't have to have, you know, water shortages.
We shouldn't have to have poor health in our communities.
And we can do something to have everyone in our
community have good health things, have water, have less crime.
(14:48):
Not just Christians should have less crime. Everybody deserves less crime.
S3 (14:53):
I wonder if we want control of the messaging, too.
We want to be able to say we're doing this
in Jesus name, and that's the extent of it. Rather
than you partner with other other people who are not
your church or other Christians. And you can say, we're
doing it our part in in the name of Christ,
(15:15):
but these other people are doing it because they just
feel a bond with society and a need to contribute,
you know, to humanity.
S2 (15:26):
Yeah. You know, another odd observation. We're really good at
doing this in natural disasters and short term problems. Like
we're probably the best at it. If there's a hurricane,
Christians show up first. If there's a tornado, Christians show
up first. Why? Common good. We don't. We're not going
to refuse to give you water and clothes and food
if you're not a Christian. But we struggle dramatically with
the chronic problems in society that can't be solved in
(15:49):
a couple of weeks. Why is that? Like homelessness? Poverty, uh,
bad education for those in poverty?
S1 (16:00):
I'm not sure. And so, like, a Christian problem. But
a human problem is we don't get the instant gratification
after a hurricane, and you go to serve somebody you don't.
You get to see relief and joy on their face
right away. You get to see a new house being
built in four days. Yeah, but the long and hard
work of ending homelessness, you don't get to see that.
S2 (16:23):
Yeah, probably.
S1 (16:23):
And it's more of a wave than just like instant gratification.
It's a wave of emotions. There's going to be peaks
and valleys of serving people for the long term.
S2 (16:35):
But that also means then that when we're doing the
crisis help, there's part of it that's self-interest motivated and selfish.
I want to feel like I'm doing good. Could be
part of it. Not all of it. Yeah. I don't
want to stop doing those things. I love those things.
May have to revisit this on Friday. Um. Great stuff. Lauren.
Thank you. Sure.
I have been going through a book by Tim Keller
called Rediscovering Jonah.
S2 (00:35):
Oh, Tim Keller is so good.
S1 (00:38):
Yeah, you just discovered Tim Keller.
S2 (00:40):
Because I have this awkward tendency in life where I go,
if everyone else is into something, I'm like, I'm not
doing that. I did it when I when I had
a bass guitar with, like, everyone likes Fender bass and
Fender guitars. I'm like, losers. I'm gonna do something else.
Turns out they were right. Turns out Tim Keller too.
Turns out everyone likes that guy. I don't know what
their problem is. He's so great.
S3 (01:00):
Yes. Now that he's gone on to glory, you've grown
to like him. Yeah.
S1 (01:06):
When he first passed, you really were having a hard time.
You're like, I just found him. I was just, like,
getting into his sermons.
S2 (01:12):
I don't know why I have that tendency. I don't
know what it is about it.
S1 (01:14):
And then for probably about two months, every day, you'd
be like. I was just listening to Tim Keller this morning.
S2 (01:18):
Yeah. I found, like, he had an app. I was
all in. I was listening to his, like, his sermons.
It was so great. Yes. I don't even like listening
to sermons all that much. No offense. Anyone listening?
S1 (01:28):
It's okay. So I've been doing his book called Rediscovering
Jonah with my small group. I'm just finding like little
tidbits all the time. I shared one a couple of
weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and I have another one.
So I'm going to read the passage for us and
then kind of walk us through what's going on here.
And then after the break, we'll talk about so what now?
S2 (01:46):
It's like our little we're having a small group.
S1 (01:47):
We are having a small group.
S2 (01:48):
Should we do an icebreaker?
S1 (01:50):
No.
S2 (01:52):
Trust falls.
S1 (01:53):
That's I don't do that at my small group.
S3 (01:55):
Right. Okay.
S1 (01:57):
Jonah one verses five and six. This is the NLT version.
Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their
gods to help, and they threw cargo overboard to lighten
the ship. But all this time, Jonah was sound asleep
down on the down in the hold. So the captain
went down after him and he said, how can you
sleep at a time like this? He shouted, get up
and go pray to your God. Maybe he will pay
(02:18):
attention to us and spare our lives. Any first thoughts
of like what you notice here? Before I get into it.
S2 (02:26):
It's like the Boston Tea Party with Jonah. They threw
everything overboard.
S1 (02:30):
Wow.
S3 (02:30):
And the sailors realized it may not have been their
first choice of what could be going on, but they
realized Jonah might have an answer to this problem they face.
S1 (02:42):
Yeah.
S4 (02:42):
I mean, sailors, they're used to some storms.
S1 (02:45):
And so this one has been big storms.
S4 (02:46):
It's bad enough that they're all on their knees praying
to their God and like, let's go ask this other
random guy to pray to whatever his God is. Yeah.
So it was desperate. It was a bad storm.
S1 (02:54):
Yeah. They're like, these are these are sailors that do
this all the time. This is it had to have
been a big storm. Might have happened quickly, especially considering
it was most likely a spiritual situation. It was probably
all of a sudden it wasn't something that they could
have seen coming. So we often think of the book
of Jonah about us going to go talk to people
(03:16):
to share the gospel with people of other faiths, other nations,
things like that, which it is, but it's also about
how we treat non-believers. Unbelievers.
S2 (03:28):
Mm.
S1 (03:29):
Because the sailors are pagans, obviously, or as we'd say today, unbelievers, non-Christians.
They have all these other gods that they believe in
that they're praying to desperately trying to figure out, like,
get this to stop. But what happens is that the
sailors who are pagans act more admirably than Jonah. Because
(03:50):
what is Jonah trying to do? The whole reason he's
on the ship is because he's fleeing, because he doesn't
want to deal with the unbelievers in Nineveh, in Nineveh.
S3 (03:57):
Right.
S1 (03:58):
And then God's like, lol. You're going to be on
this ship with unbelievers and have to deal with them.
S4 (04:04):
And they're going to know to turn to a higher power. Yes,
might be the wrong higher power, but they've got sort
of the idea and you're down there sleeping and ignoring me.
S2 (04:12):
What an uncomfortable truth for Christians today.
S1 (04:14):
Yeah, he's like, I'm not dealing with those Ninevites. God, like,
joke's on you. I'm running away. And he said, actually,
God said, actually, you will deal with these pagans on
the boat.
S4 (04:25):
That's really cool. I never picked up on that part.
S1 (04:26):
Yeah. Me neither.
S2 (04:27):
And they're going to behave more appropriately than you.
S1 (04:30):
Yes. The pagans act more admirably. Admirably than Jonah. He's.
Jonah is dismissive and unhelpful in the time of a
common chaos. They're all in a ship together. We are
all experiencing this chaos together. And you, Jonah, are being
unhelpful and dismissive. This is the main storyline of Jonah.
God cares about how we as believers relate to people
who are deeply different than us. He wants us to
(04:52):
treat with them respect, love, and generosity, no matter their
race or religion. And this comes out in the overarching
story to the Ninevites and now to the sailors. So
verse five, the storm comes. And these experienced sailors, as
we discussed, are terrified. So it's not a normal storm.
There's a 16th century Scottish minister, Hugh Martin. He said,
(05:15):
this is a sleep of sorrow. We've all had the
sleep of sorrow where you're just trying to like sleep
so you don't have to feel the realities of life.
S2 (05:23):
Except he said it with his Scottish accent.
S1 (05:25):
Well, yeah.
S2 (05:26):
It's a sleep of sorrow.
S1 (05:27):
Exactly. So he's just, like, deep and asleep. I don't
even I don't care what's going on. I don't want
to talk to anybody. I'm just trying to sleep away.
Reality to sleep away life right now.
S2 (05:38):
Have you done that?
S1 (05:39):
Yeah.
S2 (05:41):
Were you just, like, just shut down?
S1 (05:42):
Yeah. You just shut down. And all you can do
is sleep because you don't want to deal with the
pain or whatever it was that you're going through. Mhm.
The sailors are seeking the common good of everyone in
the boat because they're all in this tragedy together. They
all go around trying to find out which God to
pray to, to make them safe. And they're even open
to Jonah's God, even though it's not theirs. They actually
seem more ready to call on Jonah's god than Jonah himself.
S2 (06:05):
Wow. That's true.
S1 (06:06):
Jonah is seeking his own good and wallowing in his
pride while the sailors are trying to save everybody on
the boat. Then the sailors, they cast lots. And even
when they seem to have found divine guidance, they don't
turn on Jonah and throw him overboard like they could have. Instead,
they listen to him and take the information in and
make the right decision. They show Jonah and Jonah's God
(06:27):
respect at every turn. The pagans outshine Jonah.
S2 (06:34):
I've never thought about it like that.
S1 (06:36):
Jonah was like, throw me overboard. Let's just get this
over with. Just throw me overboard. And they're like, no, no. Like,
let's let's, you know, show you some respect and show
your God respect and try to do this right so
that we can all be saved.
S4 (06:47):
And I always thought of that as, like, self-sacrifice, like
being noble. But is it possible that maybe Jonah was
actually suicidal? He just didn't care at that point? Could be.
S1 (06:56):
Could be.
S2 (06:57):
Yeah. So often you think of it as like he's
the hero of the story.
S4 (07:02):
He's really not.
S2 (07:04):
Like, he was bad for a little while.
S1 (07:05):
But then he gets better.
S2 (07:06):
And then he goes to Nineveh and everything's better.
S4 (07:08):
He really doesn't make a single good choice in this
entire story when you really think about it.
S2 (07:13):
And it's pretty convicting to hear that the most godly
people were the ungodly ones. We don't like that message.
S1 (07:21):
Yeah. The overarching theme of Jonah's of the Book of
Jonah seems to be God cares how we treat people
of other faiths and other thought, thought worlds and other races.
S4 (07:31):
Stop it. And people of other faiths might be better
at your faith than you. Yeah.
S2 (07:36):
So that's a very uncomfortable.
S1 (07:38):
There's two things that we can take away from this.
So we've talked about what's happening in the story. There's
two things that we can take away from this. Kind
of like the what now the application, the first one
Tim says, is people outside of the Christian community have
a right to evaluate the church on its commitment to
the good for all. He says, we see a pagan
sailor basically reprimanding God's prophet because Jonah is doing nothing
(08:01):
to help, and he's like, what are you doing? Why
are you not trying to help us? We're all going
to die and you're not helping us. So a pagan
sailor is reprimanding God's prophet.
S2 (08:11):
I wish this didn't sound so familiar.
S1 (08:13):
Yeah. Tim Keller says they were in the same perilous boat,
and their safety depended on what each of them does.
And God's prophet didn't do anything. Believers and non-believers today are,
quote in the same boat. If crimes, plagues, poor health,
a water shortage economy, or social orders are out of
out of whack, all of those are harming our community
(08:36):
and we're in the same community together. We're in the
same boat with nonbelievers in our communities, and we cannot
flee from the non-believers and seek only good for Christians.
God is the God of all people, and we can
see ourselves as a part of the whole community and
not just our faith community. So he's saying if there's
(08:56):
poor health, if there's a water shortage, if there's plagues
or crimes in your community, you need to seek the
good of your entire community, not just the Christians in
your community.
S2 (09:06):
I think we're scared of that in the church.
S1 (09:08):
Often, why.
S2 (09:10):
Partnering with unbelievers? Because there's a verse that says you
shouldn't be unequally yoked.
S1 (09:15):
Yeah.
S2 (09:15):
So we can't partner fighting crime or poverty in our
own community with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or non-religious people.
S4 (09:24):
I'm pretty sure that passage is referring to marriage. Don't
intentionally marriage marry someone that is an unbeliever.
S2 (09:31):
No, I'm totally with you on that. And yet, what
I'm saying is, I think I often hear that there's
resistance from Christians to partner with non-Christians because they're scared
God will be mad at them for it.
S4 (09:44):
I think it's more than that. I think they're afraid
that their beliefs will rub off on them and that
they will adopt Judaism or, you know, Islam or whatever,
which kind of goes back to what we were talking
about yesterday with whether Christians should have an open mind
or not. If your faith is that fragile, then you
probably don't have any faith at all.
S2 (10:02):
Well, and how about this one? Well, I don't want
to give the appearance of evil, so I can't work
with them.
S4 (10:08):
Is someone who's an unbeliever doing the work that God
called you to do evil, though.
S2 (10:12):
Right? Yeah. It was a startling thing for me over
the years to see some atheists I became good friends
with doing more good than me. When so, so much
that the church chooses to demonize non-Christians like, watch out,
they're going to get you and your children. Yeah, and
(10:34):
it turns out they're like the sailors actually doing a
lot of good, and we're just crossing our arms and
staring at them.
S1 (10:38):
Yeah, and that's Tim Keller's second point. So the first point,
people outside of the Christian community have a right to
evaluate the church on its commitment to doing good for all.
The second point is recognizing common grace. God gives good
qualities to all people. Christians get specific and more deep
ones through the Holy Spirit. But pagans can be kind, loving, generous,
(11:00):
and care for others as well. And we Christians can
humble ourselves and respect people of all faiths and appreciate
their work and their actions, because we can learn from
them too.
S2 (11:08):
Boy, we've lost that. That idea.
S1 (11:13):
Yeah, that unbelievers can be kind and loving.
S2 (11:15):
Yeah, like.
S1 (11:16):
Generous.
S2 (11:17):
Because what they are is they're out to get us.
S4 (11:19):
We think we've cornered the market on love. And we're
also not loving ourselves. Like, I mean, we've seen people
text us that think that just because someone is not Christian,
they're inherently bad parents that, like you are not inherently,
you know, out doing evil things like, yes, you should
believe in God, but you're not doing evil things as
part of your daily life just because you're they're a
(11:40):
different religion or don't have one at all. Some of them,
like Brian was saying, are doing better work for the
kingdom than we are.
S2 (11:46):
I get some comfort in that it's not a new problem. Clearly.
And yet part of me still goes, why can't we
figure this out?
S1 (11:54):
Yeah. So, like, looking at this back to the story
of Jonah, these unbelieving sailors were trying to do a
common good. They were trying to save themselves. And the
others in the boat, they're doing something kind and loving.
And then then they're also showing respect to Jonah and
to Jonah's God. But they're unbelieving, but they still have
(12:17):
common grace, good qualities that God has given them, not
necessarily the gifts of the spirit, because that only comes
through having a relationship with Jesus and being changed by
the spirit. But unbelieving people can have good qualities as well,
and us as Christians can humble ourselves to respect people
of all faiths because we can. They do good works too, sometimes.
S2 (12:41):
And often well, and sometimes more than we do.
S1 (12:44):
Sometimes.
S2 (12:46):
So What do we do with this? Like, how do
we make those changes? What would it look like in
Northeast Ohio if we were working towards the common good
with nonbelievers?
S1 (13:01):
I mean, I think it first starts as changing ourselves,
that people who don't believe in Christ can still be
good people. I mean, obviously everyone is inherently bad, but
doing good things, yeah, can still be loving. Two of
the most generous people in my life. Unbelievers.
S2 (13:18):
Right?
S1 (13:20):
They would do anything for me. They would give me
anything I needed. And with not even a thought, some
of the most generous people are unbelievers.
S2 (13:31):
That should be disorienting to us, because that's been my
experience as well. Um, and I'm thinking even of a
cool example we learned about recently our friends at City Mission. Right.
They're a Christian based, I mean, 100% funded by donors.
And they're Christian. No, no federal money. They're helping the
unhoused and those experiencing homelessness. But right now, they're partnering
(13:53):
with the city of Cleveland because Mayor Bibb has a
program where he's trying to reduce the number of people
living on the street.
S3 (14:01):
Right.
S2 (14:02):
And they're like, that sounds great. We'll help. Isn't that
what you're talking about here? Common good.
S1 (14:08):
Yeah.
S2 (14:09):
So why are we so afraid of that? I mean,
we talked about that a little bit before, but what
is like the big obstacle that keeps Christians from working
for the common good as opposed to our own good?
Because right now we're obsessed with our own good.
S1 (14:22):
We make it an us versus them. Instead of we
are all made in the image of God. We are
all people who shouldn't have to have, you know, water shortages.
We shouldn't have to have poor health in our communities.
And we can do something to have everyone in our
community have good health things, have water, have less crime.
(14:48):
Not just Christians should have less crime. Everybody deserves less crime.
S3 (14:53):
I wonder if we want control of the messaging, too.
We want to be able to say we're doing this
in Jesus name, and that's the extent of it. Rather
than you partner with other other people who are not
your church or other Christians. And you can say, we're
doing it our part in in the name of Christ,
(15:15):
but these other people are doing it because they just
feel a bond with society and a need to contribute,
you know, to humanity.
S2 (15:26):
Yeah. You know, another odd observation. We're really good at
doing this in natural disasters and short term problems. Like
we're probably the best at it. If there's a hurricane,
Christians show up first. If there's a tornado, Christians show
up first. Why? Common good. We don't. We're not going
to refuse to give you water and clothes and food
if you're not a Christian. But we struggle dramatically with
the chronic problems in society that can't be solved in
(15:49):
a couple of weeks. Why is that? Like homelessness? Poverty, uh,
bad education for those in poverty?
S1 (16:00):
I'm not sure. And so, like, a Christian problem. But
a human problem is we don't get the instant gratification
after a hurricane, and you go to serve somebody you don't.
You get to see relief and joy on their face
right away. You get to see a new house being
built in four days. Yeah, but the long and hard
work of ending homelessness, you don't get to see that.
S2 (16:23):
Yeah, probably.
S1 (16:23):
And it's more of a wave than just like instant gratification.
It's a wave of emotions. There's going to be peaks
and valleys of serving people for the long term.
S2 (16:35):
But that also means then that when we're doing the
crisis help, there's part of it that's self-interest motivated and selfish.
I want to feel like I'm doing good. Could be
part of it. Not all of it. Yeah. I don't
want to stop doing those things. I love those things.
May have to revisit this on Friday. Um. Great stuff. Lauren.
Thank you. Sure.
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