The Error of Separation

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

-Jonah 4:5-11

Many of us have heard the story of Jonah, whether it be through the Old Testament book or the Veggie Tales movie. If you haven’t the story is simple: Jonah was told to go preach repentance to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, he disobeys, tries to flee, gets swallowed by a big fish, prays and gets spit out on the shore, goes and preaches, and then sits on a hill to watch God not bring calamity upon the city. But here are three errors Jonah made that we can apply to our society and how to interact with culture.

1. Jonah separated himself. In Jonah 4:5 we see that Jonah goes and separates himself from people and culture in order to watch the Lord bring judgment upon Nineveh, which didn’t happen. To add to things, he built for himself a shelter there. How does this apply to ourselves? Do you ever notice that there are people in society who elevate themselves and then justify themselves with arguments that people could easily poke holes into? This is similar to Jonah building a shelter. He separated himself from society and then built a shelter in order to make his separation feel better. But notice in verse 6 that God provides a plant to ease his discomfort. Though Jonah built a shelter, he was still uncomfortable. But sometimes, God leads us to a place where he affirms and comforts us in our separation. This might include people in our lives who are supporting us. Does that mean that God approves of our separation? No because we see the plant die. By God’s authority we see that the plant dies, and once the plant dies, Jonah is once again vulnerable to the heat. In our separation, in our elevation of ourselves, we will get heat. There might be times where God supports us in circumstances of our separation, but remember that God is for His own glory, and in that, He will also expose us to the heat if that’s what it takes for Him to receive the glory.

2. Jonah expected something that was contradictory to God’s nature. In Jonah’s separation, he was left alone to form his own thoughts about God. This is one of the many dangers of not involving yourself in community and the Word. By separating yourself, you become subject to your own perceptions, when we as believers should form our convictions against what the Word says, and then apply what we believe through experience and community. You are not subject to any of that through separation. Involve yourself in community and God’s word and find out more of God’s nature.

3. Jonah had no personal investment in the people of Nineveh. When the vine disappeared, Jonah was angry because he was only concerned about what the vine provided for him in the moment. Jonah did not grieve because he was not personally invested in the vine itself. Now this related with his relationship with Nineveh. He wasn’t personally invested in Nineveh. He only justified himself and his sins by passing judgment on the people. He wasn’t invested in Nineveh because he would have rejoiced in the compassion of the Lord. There is a great danger to this. We cannot believe that the Word of God applies to us in one way and then to another in another way.  We cannot separate ourselves to this degree.

Overall point: Do not separate yourself from culture, but rather engage it. As believers, we are distinct, but this distinction does not call us to elevate ourselves and pass judgment on people like some believers I see in the media. It calls us to go out into the world, preach the Gospel, and represent the change that the Gospel is suppose to bring about in our life. By drawing our self out of the world, we bear no fruit, and it is the branch that has no fruit that is more apt for the fire.

We see with Jonah that it is a lot more work to elevate yourself because then you have to justify yourself, come up with things for yourself, and have no outlet for you to pour out. Remember, Jonah would have had a much better time if he chose to stay within Nineveh and rejoice in the repentance of the people. But instead he chose to separate himself. As Christians, we need to be relational people in order to learn of God’s true nature and apply what He wants of us in this world. 

The Flesh Is Willing, But The Spirit Is Weak

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

-John 1:14

“That’s ridiculous!” was the cry of the crowd.

“That man should respect boundaries. I have no problem with religion, but when someone tries to talk to me about it is when I get annoyed. Stop trying to shove it down my throat,” said one highly opinionated and cynical gentleman.

But then, like a sudden calm before the storm, an eerie silence swept over the room. With shifty eyes the friends shot glances at one another. Yet while they were exchanging looks, not one of them dared to glance my direction. They were fully aware of the elephant in the room- that I was a Christian. It would probably be too much of your dismay that I did not respond to the conversation. It was not right at the moment for me to sling my convictions around like stones defending against an attack. I was outnumbered by people feeding off each other with their shared negativity.

But half of me sought to figure out where they got this notion that Christians are out there trying to shove religion down their throats with force. From where did this hostility arise? It wasn’t a hard question to answer. Flip on the news and you see headlines about Christians’ judgmental antics, but rarely do you see anything about their love. I can just envision the newscaster yelling to our face, “And in other news, those crazy Christians are at it again saying that God desires that we need to kill all the gays, fornicators, adulterers, and dirty politicians!” What? Since when did Jesus say that?

The problem is that with Christianity there is always this question of how we are to interact with the world. It is right to say that we, as disciples of Jesus, are set apart from the world, but where do we go from that? Often the only Christians that get publicized are those that take this question to the extreme and give their own conception of the ideal standard and place that over the world. But the true disciple realizes that the standard is not to be found in the self, but in Christ. As disciples we are conforming to His likeness (Romans 8:29), and that is what we should strive for.

Here is my interpretation of how to interact with the world:

We are not to lift ourselves higher than we are to look down on the world. We are not to forsake our convictions by tolerating everything. We are to strive for Christ who exists as the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit.

In John 1:14 it says that The Word became flesh. Jesus Christ, in all His perfection, bound himself within flesh, yet was still God. He stood for us as the new standard to a depraved and desolate world, the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit. The verse above says He was full of grace and truth. Being full of grace and truth is synonymous with the balance between flesh and Spirit because Jesus needed grace to redeem the flesh on one side and then on the opposite side needed the truth of the Spirit to speak direction and vision to a lost people.

How do we apply this? Well you often get perversions of the Gospel and false teachings from distortions of grace and truth. For instance, ministries that preach that we need to be concerned about all this political and social activism has an overemphasis of spirit leading them to believe that they have the truth of God when in reality, through their perversion, they are preaching their own truth. With this truth, there is no grace for anyone on the outside. But then on the opposite side of the spectrum we see ministries saying that everything is permissible, much like the church in Corinth. They tolerate anything and everything, but without any guiding truth from the Spirit, their church merely becomes a social club that gives them an excuse to gather once a week to gossip, slander, etc. etc. The extremes are the ones that get publicized to my friends mentioned above.

Yet we find Christ in the middle, with the fullness of grace in one hand and the fullness of truth in the other. Being the perfect balance between flesh and Spirit, He gave us the standard with which we are to approach the world.

But then comes the question on the side of grace: how tolerant are we to be before we become too tolerant or too intolerant? Where is the balance? Just consider this: Christianity is NOT a tolerant religion. It is an intolerant religion in the sense that its values do not function in the operations of this world. If Christianity were a “tolerant” religion, there would be no impetus to preach the Gospel. The Gospel would merely become pillows in a coffin meant to comfort a decaying corpse. It would affirm all the actions of the world. But the fact that the Gospel inspires change shows that it is not tolerant to the state of this world. So the answer to the question is this: everything that affirms Jesus Christ as the truth. Jesus Christ didn’t say, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE”  (John 14:6) for nothing. He said this with the desire that we filter our life, our goals, our values, and our direction in this world through THE TRUTH of Him. Anything that affirms the truth is true, and anything that doesn’t is simply false.

But then this leads us to the other question, on the side of truth: How are we to bear this truth before we become very dogmatic and hostile with it? Think about it like this: the truth is like dangerous material in a chemical plant. You handle it with caution, discernment, and gentleness for it is very powerful. If you go throwing it around, it ceases to become truth and just blows up in your face. Look to how Jesus handled the truth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this, “The love of Christ for the sinner is in itself the condemnation of sin and expression of His extreme hatred of sin.” Jesus handled the truth with love and care, not forsaking it by hurling it around to obliterate the people. Think about it like this: if someone throws a stone at you, you’re naturally going to want to throw it back. That’s what happens when you force truth upon people. But when you treasure and love the truth it is like passing precious pearls. The receiving party does not dare retaliate in a hostile manner, but rather, feels humbled accepting your treasure. That’s how Jesus handled the truth.

You see what I did with the questions of grace and truth? There is a relationship between the two. Grace is only formed upon finding the truth and the truth is only conveyed through grace. They cannot exist in the right manner outside of each other. They exist, to us, perfectly bound together in the figure of Jesus Christ.

Never find yourself in a position where you misrepresent or pervert Christianity through a willing flesh and weak spirit. That where most miscomprehensions come from: people who desire their own ambitions outside of the truth of the Spirit conveyed through His Holy Word. They will with the flesh and their own weak spirit. But we know that is not how things are to be. Flesh and spirit were meant to be perfectly married together when we, fleshly humans, commit ourselves to the True Spirit, Jesus Christ.