A Gracious and Compassionate God

The book of Jonah is arguably just as jarring for us as it was for the ancients. Ninevah's repentance, Jonah's estrangement from God and the book's bracing moral conclusion all pose unsettling questions for today's readers.For biblical theologians, Jonah also raises tough questions regarding mission and religious conversion. Here, Daniel Timmer embarks on a new reading of Jonah in order to secure its ongoing relevance for biblical theology. After an examination of the book's historical backgrounds (in both Israel and Assyria), Timmer discusses the biblical text in detail, paying special attention to redemptive history and its Christocentric orientation. Timmer then explores the relationship between Israel and the nations--including the question of mission--and the nature of religious conversion and spirituality in the Old Testament.The study concludes with an injuction for scholars and lay readers to approach Jonah as a book written to facilitate spiritual change in the reader.

Series preface	p. 7
Author's preface	p. 9
Abbreviations	p. 11
Introduction	p. 17
What is the book of Jonah?	p. 17
Approaching the book of Jonah	p. 18
The nations and mission in Jonah	p. 21
Universalism	p. 22
The nations	p. 25
Israel between universalism and mission	p. 30
A definition of mission in the Old Testament	p. 38
Mission in Jonah?	p. 40
Mission from Pentecost onward	p. 42
Evaluating contemporary approaches to mission	p. 42
Mission and the priority of the gospel	p. 44
Conversion and spirituality in Jonah and in biblical theology	p. 47
Conversion in biblical theology and in Jonah	p. 47
Abram's faith	p. 47
Abram's repentance	p. 49
Conversion elsewhere in the Old Testament	p. 50
Approaching conversion in Jonah	p. 51
Spirituality in biblical theology and in Jonah	p. 52
The possibility of a unified biblical spirituality	p. 53
Approaching spirituality in Jonah	p. 55
Looking into Jonah 1	p. 59
Meeting the main characters	p. 59
Initial identities and contrasts	p. 67
Identities clarified and remade	p. 69
The aftermath of the storm	p. 74
Looking into Jonah 2	p. 77
Yahweh prepares a fish	p. 77
Jonah prays	p. 81
Jonah is saved from drowning	p. 89
Looking into Jonah 3	p. 91
Introduction	p. 91
Assyria in the eighth century BC	p. 91
Nineveh in the eighth century BC	p. 94
Jonah's message	p. 96
The response of the Ninevites	p. 100
The limits of Nineveh's repentance	p. 103
The response of Nineveh's king	p. 105
Who was Nineveh's king?	p. 109
Nineveh's repentance in context	p. 111
How does God 'relent'?	p. 111
God's justice and his relenting	p. 113
Looking into Jonah 4	p. 117
Jonah's anger against Yahweh	p. 118
The root of Jonah's anger: God's gracious character	p. 119
The fruit of Jonah's anger: life with God impossible	p. 124
Yahweh's first response to Jonah's anger	p. 125
Jonah's anger over his discomfort	p. 126
Yahweh's second response to Jonah's anger	p. 130
Conclusion	p. 133
Conclusions	p. 135
Christocentric interpretation and application	p. 135
Sin and its consequences in Jonah	p. 137
Judgment and salvation in the Day of the Lord	p. 138
Jonah, mission and the gospel	p. 140
Jonah, conversion and spirituality, and the gospel	p. 143
Jonah, imitation of God, and the gospel	p. 146
Mission, Christ-conformity and our triune God	p. 149
Bibliography	p. 155
Index of modern authors	p. 189
Index of Scripture references	p. 194
Index of ancient sources	p. 201
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A Gracious and Compassionate God

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