Jonah - part 2

Thank you.

Good morning, Freedom.

Such a privilege to be with you guys again.

Mish and Daryl are out on the West Coast this week, and they're enjoying some downtime.

But I've got the privilege today of sharing with you a little bit more about the story of Jonah.

So if you missed it last week, as Foxy has said, we've just started this new series on the word in Jonah.

And Michelle got us going with an absolute bang.

And if you missed it last week, I would encourage you to listen to the podcast.

She started us off in chapter one.

And in chapter one, we hear how the word of the Lord came to Jonah, instructing him to go to the city of Nineveh, which is located in northern Iraq, and more specifically to the east of a city called Mosul.

Now during Jonah's time, this would have been part of the kingdom of Assyria.

So the word of the Lord comes to Jonah, but Jonah had his own ideas about what he wanted to do.

And so rather than following the Lord's instructions and going where he was told to, he decides that instead he would go to a place called Tarshish.

Now, the exact location of Tarshish is the subject of some debate.

But to the Israelites of Jonah's time, that would have represented the furthest western boundary of the known world.

So not only did Jonah decide that he wasn't going to go where God told him, he decided that he would go as far as possible away from where God had told him to be.