Tag Wiersbe

A Ministry Lesson From Jonah

Todd R 2 Comments

In the Old Testament, God’s people – the Jews – were supposed to be a blessing to other nations[1], pointing them to God.  Ultimately this blessing came through Jesus Christ, but in the meantime God’s people didn’t always live up to His expectations.  One disappointing example was Jonah.  God said to him in Jonah 1:2 –

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

But Nineveh was in Assyria, one of Israel’s enemies.  God said in the call to Jonah that they were “evil.”  50 or so years later Assyria would conquer Israel.  Jonah hated his enemy Assyria and didn’t want to prophesy to them even though God told him to, so what did he do instead?  He ran away.

In his commentary on Jonah, Warren Wiersbe wrote: “When you turn your back on God, the only direction you can go is down.”[2]  What did he mean?

Notice that in verse 3, Jonah goes “down to Joppa,” and “down into” a ship he found to take him to Tarshish, far away from both Israel and Nineveh.  Later in verse 5, Jonah “had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.”  From the minute Jonah decided to run from God, he found himself in a descending spiral and ended up in despair, asking the sailors to throw him (down?) into the sea to calm a storm.  The Bible doesn’t use the word “down”, but you could say that after Jonah was tossed in the sea that he went down into the belly of the great fish when he was swallowed up.

It is only when Jonah prays a prayer of thanksgiving to God for saving his life and he says “you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God” that things start to look up for him.  He is then “vomited…out upon the dry land”[3] and given a second chance.

Like the ancient Jews, the modern church is also called to be a blessing to the nations, for example in Matthew 28:19-20, the verses known as the “Great Commission”:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This commission is to bless “all nations,” and note Jesus said to “make disciples,” not to “make converts” which means that the Great Commission goes beyond evangelism.  While we are all called to evangelize, and some are particularly blessed in it, the commission includes each Christian’s ministry to the church as well as we help each other live as Christ did, blessing those around us.  As Paul wrote in Romans 12:4-8, we all have a role in making disciples:

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

This isn’t a full list of what are called “spiritual gifts,” but prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leadership and mercy cover a lot of different activities and ministries.

While Jonah had his call to preach to Nineveh, and all Christians have the call to “make disciples of all nations,” but like Jonah do we also have certain people or types of people – maybe those we consider evil – we’d rather not minister to?  Are there tasks that we run away from, even if we feel God is calling us to do them, because of who else is involved?  Are there times where we, like Jonah, are what Wiersbe called a “narrow-minded patriot,”[4] more concerned about being on the right side from our worldly or political perspective than about being on God’s side?

If so, the lesson from Jonah is: don’t neglect what God has called you to do, because when you do, “the only direction you can go is down.”

Maybe even into the belly of a big fish.

Who is God asking us to minister to today?

[1] Genesis 12:3
[2] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Amazed (Minor Prophets Hosea – Malachi) (1996).  P. 99.
[3] Jonah 2:10
[4] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Amazed (Minor Prophets Hosea – Malachi) (1996).  P. 113.

The Zealot and the Tax Collector

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Mark 3:18 lists among Jesus’ 12 disciples “Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot.”

Matthew was a former tax collector for the Roman Empire, while Warren Wiersbe notes that “The Zealots were a group of Jewish extremists organized to overthrow Rome, and they used every means available to advance their cause. The historian Josephus called them ‘daggermen.’ It would be interesting to know how Simon the Zealot responded when he first met Matthew, a former employee of Rome.” They learned to prioritize following Jesus, but I suspect it took some time and patience on Jesus’ part.

No enemy of God is beyond His grace, and no enemy of yours is beyond His grace either!

Photo I took at the entrance to Westminster Abbey in July 2022.

Strength in Trials: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Dear fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, on the theme of suffering and trials:

“God had one Son without sin; but He has no son without temptation.” – Charles Spurgeon, on Luke 11:4

“When God permits His children to go through the furnace, He keeps His eye on the clock and His hand on the thermostat.” – Warren Wiersbe, on 1 Peter 1:6-7

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain

“Some things in the economy of grace are measured; for instance our vinegar and gall are given us with such exactness that we never have a single drop too much, but of the salt of grace no stint is made” – Charles Spurgeon

“Cheer up; you’re a lot worse off than you think you are, but in Jesus you’re far more loved than you could have ever imagined.” – Jack Miller

The Bible: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Dear fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, on the theme of the Bible.  I hope you find these five sayings interesting and thought-provoking.  What quotes about the Bible do you like?

Image by u_zscsfn7pja from Pixabay

“This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.” – D.L. Moody wrote this in the front of his Bible

“If people treated other books the way they treat the Bible, they would never learn anything.” – Warren Wiersbe

“Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes down from heaven?” – C.H. Spurgeon

“The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New revealed.” – Saint Augustine

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Driving Toward Morning’s 2025 in Books

Todd R 3 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

It’s become a tradition here to post what books I read during the year.  This year’s total was 23, relatively high for me, but I read a lot of short books.  Last year I noted that I read less books (16) because of my struggle to get through the over 900 pages of The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim (1883).  I still haven’t finished it even though I started in late 2023 and didn’t really try in 2025.  Maybe in 2026 I can “close the book” on that one.

So, what books did I finish reading this year?

Fiction books (in order read):

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

I’ve read all of these before except Pride and Prejudice and A Christmas Carol.  The first is one of my wife’s favorites and I finally read it and did enjoy it.  The key is to know Austen is making fun of her characters.  The second is a story we all know, but reading it fills in a lot of spaces.  I was surprised at how funny it was.

Just like Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, I re-read Lewis’s Narnia books every few years and they are as good as ever.  I’m in the middle of The Silver Chair now, and am alternating between these and other, “harder” books.  It helps me stay motivated to read.

A few history books:

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks by David Gibbins
Pax by Tom Holland
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
Wedding of the Waters by Peter Bernstein

Wedding of the Waters, a history of the building of the Erie Canal, is the only one of these I’d read before.  Pax, a history of part of the Roman Empire, was very well written and interesting, but I expected it to cover the time period of the New Testament.  It didn’t, but Dominion by the same author (which I got for Christmas) will probably cover that ground and more.

Plus several religious books:

In addition to regular Bible and study Bible reading, in 2025 I read:

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser
Making Me, and Like the Stars by Glenn Parkinson
Several books by Warren Wiersbe: Be Loyal (Matthew), Be Free (Galatians), Be Rich (Ephesians), Be Dynamic (Acts 1-12), Be Daring (Acts 13-28), Be Faithful (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon), Be Victorious (Revelation).

I picked up Wiersbe’s entire “Be” series in 2021 as part of a digital subscription and am working through it over time.  A long time.  I like his overall approach, and the books are a great source of thoughtful stories and quotes.  I’ve covered 32 of the Bible’s 66 books so far!

Have you read any of these?  What books did you enjoy in 2025? And speaking of reading, I want to thank all of you who take the time to read this blog.  In 2025 I nearly doubled my views from 2025 (the previous high)!  I don’t know what happened, but October through December of 2025 were very busy here.