Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jonah 1-4 and Micah 1-2.

God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and prophesy that it would soon be destroyed.  However, Jonah did not want to preach this message to the people of Nineveh because he wanted them to be destroyed and was afraid that they would listen to his prophecy and repent.  So, in order to avoid inadvertently delivering God’s message to the Ninevites, Jonah decided he would go in the opposite direction.  However, when God brought misfortune upon Jonah, Jonah surrendered and agreed to deliver God’s message.  When the Ninevites repented, Jonah was angry that God chose to withhold the destruction He had Jonah prophesy.  Finally, Jonah gets angry because a vine which had grown up to give him shade died.  God uses the death of this vine to point out to Jonah that he was more concerned with his own comfort than the lives of thousands of people.  Ultimately, the Book of Jonah has two vitally important messages for us:

1. There is no place to which we can run to escape God’s plans for us
2. We should value others more than we value our comfort

I was not sure I was going to write about Micah, but after reading it I had some thoughts I wanted to write down.   Micah prophesies that God’s judgement is about to pour out against Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and against Judah, the Southern Kingdom.  The sins of the people of both kingdoms will result in terrible destruction for them.  Micah tells us that the sins of these nations spread out from their capitals.  Samaria and Jerusalem were to blame for the people of Israel and of Judah sinning in ways which led to invasion and desolation.  As we read on into chapter two we realize that Micah’s prophecy against Samaria and Jerusalem is not specific to those geographic locations.  Instead, Micah tells us that the leaders of the people were responsible for their sins.  Micah’s message here is twofold.  First, the rich and powerful will suffer the same desolation from their sins that the common people will experience.  Second, if we allow our leaders to lead us into sin, we will suffer the consequences.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.