Author TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN
Publisher CROSSWAY
ISBN 1-4335-0775-5
This is an excellent little book by a younger Presbyterian Pastor from Florida. It cannot be described as a ‘commentary’ on Jonah, but more a devotional unfolding of the story of this prophet and his experience of God’s grace and His mercies toward the Assyrian people whose capital city was Nineveh. It is a particularly readable exposition of God’s heart of grace in the context of one of His servants shut up in his own view of what God should or shouldn’t do. The chapters are divided into three sections, “A Deadly Plunge,” “Hearts Exposed,” and “Never Ending Surprise.” It is obvious that this author has pondered deeply in his subject matter; he has also researched in the art world commenting on various portrayals of Jonah and the events of his life both in picture and sculpture. These are reproduced so that the reader can carefully look at them and catch something of what is being revealed and emphasized by the artist.
This is a helpful addition to the book. God’s unchanging and persistent grace is the thrust of the whole book of Jonah and this within the story of a recalcitrant and rather awkward tribalistic Hebrew prophet. The story resonates because many of us will have traveled, at least in part, a similar road and have made the same discoveries of God’s heart and been ‘surprised by grace’ and that surprise has not abated with the passing of the years.
We have discovered our own unwillingness to acknowledge and rejoice in God’s generous heart towards His enemies (which we have all been) and have been sometimes stung into the states of brokenness so essential to heart repentance from which all true prophetic ministry ought to flow. Tchividjian quotes liberally from a good number of commentators and authors and these reveal the breadth of his reading and the main stream of his doctrinal emphasis, Calvin, Spurgeon but also H.L.Ellison and C.S. Lewis and all contributing to the winsome but weighty substance of what he is writing about. The more you get into this book the more gripping it becomes as you are borne along in the story line and drama of a messenger of God.
Although the terms are a bit harsh, perhaps we can say that we discover that God’s ‘project Nineveh’ is very much about His ‘project Jonah.’ There is plenty of good spiritual food here.
