The book of Jonah ends with God’s startling question to His petulant prophet, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?”—a window into the missionary heart of God and a mirror exposing our own reluctance. The scene finds Jonah brooding east of Nineveh, angry that the people he had just warned have repented and been spared. God’s gentle object-lesson—a vine that springs up overnight to shade Jonah and then withers at His command—reveals how far Jonah’s priorities lie from the Lord’s.
God recommissions Jonah to Nineveh, a brutal Assyrian metropolis infamous for violence and idolatry. Jonah obeys, announcing, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” To his dismay, the city—from king to cattle—fasts, repents, and receives mercy. Jonah erupts: he knew God was “gracious and compassionate… slow to anger, abounding in love,” and that, if given half a chance, He would relent. Here the prophet’s three heart problems surface:
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He misunderstands grace. Having enjoyed God’s rescue from the storm and the fish, Jonah still insists Nineveh is too wicked for forgiveness, forgetting that grace, by definition, is never deserved.
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His motives are flawed. Pride makes him value his reputation as a prophet more than thousands of lives. If the threatened judgment does not fall, he fears looking foolish—better, in his eyes, that Nineveh perish than Jonah be mocked.
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His values are upside-down. Jonah mourns a plant yet is unmoved by multitudes. God contrasts Jonah’s 24-hour attachment to an unearned vine with the divine investment in 120,000 image-bearers “who cannot tell their right hand from their left.”
The book closes without telling us Jonah’s response, leaving the question hanging over every reader and every church: Do our hearts beat with God’s missionary concern, or Jonah’s petty comfort? Galway, like Nineveh, teems with people oblivious to coming judgment, burdened by guilt, and starving for news of Christ. Our comfort, hobbies, or reputations must not outweigh God’s passion to save. The Lord still asks, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
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