Speaker 1 (00:00) Hey, I’m so excited to have my friend Erica Van Heidsma back on the show. Erica, welcome. It’s so great to have you back. Your episodes have been some of my favorites all along. And, we’ve been friends for a while now. I just love talking about the Bible with you. But for those who don’t know you, you got an undergrad degree in Bible at Moody Bible Institute and then got your master’s degree studied over in Jerusalem at

Speaker 2 (00:05) Thank you, Shannon. It’s always an honor.

Jerusalem University College.

Speaker 1 (00:30) There you go, Jerusalem University College. And what was your degree in?

Speaker 2 (00:33) Historical Geography and Archaeology.

Speaker 1 (00:35) Okay. Which is so cool. mean, who gets to study that further? Like I love those things. So, ⁓ and you bring in so much of that into our conversations, which I always love. So, you know, we’re in the middle of this judgey series and we’re going to be talking about the judgey prophet, judgey Jonah. know judgey Jonah. I think, you know, he could have his own, a whole book about him. There’s so much in this short little four chapter book in our Bibles.

Speaker 2 (00:54) Great title.

Speaker 1 (01:05) But one of the things that we’re going to talk about is how this there’s a lot of irony in this book. so irony is when you know, you’re expecting like the status quo would be this ⁓ a to happen and then Z happens. It’s like the exact opposite of what you were expecting. ⁓ And so we were trying to come up with, you know, we were brainstorming like, can we think? I’m sure we’ll think of five other examples after we stop trying. But ⁓ I did think of this one.

So my son Cade worked at Big B, which is a coffee shop. I don’t know if that’s everywhere. But he was working and oftentimes in the drive-through for whatever reason, people, well, one thing is he would sing to them. I don’t know if that’s normal. He would sing songs to them in the drive-through. he’s, I think he was a music major at that point, but they would often ask, like, so what’s your favorite coffee drink? And he would say, ⁓ I don’t like coffee.

So I always get the hot chocolate. His manager was like, you can’t say that. But so it’s, think, a little bit ironic that someone who works at Big B Coffee would not like coffee. ⁓ And so that’s not a great illustration. Sorry. Sorry, listeners. We’ll see if something else comes to mind as we.

Speaker 2 (02:23) now

that you say that, we used to be good friends with the family that owned the big house of flavors in our areas, the big ice cream shop. And the son who ran the business, his favorite flavor was vanilla. And they have like, I don’t know how.

Speaker 1 (02:35) that’s yeah. So

I mean, you’re, you’re thinking, we’re thinking just what is irony? It’s when you’re expecting one thing and the opposite happens. so there, this book is filled with irony, right? There’s a lot of, you know, here’s what you would expect from a prophet of God and all the opposite stuff happens. And also the outcome is very ironic, you know?

So I won’t give away too much, know, if you know the story of Jonah, you know what I’m talking about. But first, before we read our text, you know a lot about prophets and that historical part of our Bible. Tell us what would you expect of a prophet? Because I think that’s part of why we don’t get the irony of Jonah is we don’t really know what a prophet, what they did, what was expected of them, you know, the Jewish people. Give us a little backdrop of who’s a prophet.

Speaker 2 (03:32) Well, a prophet was someone called by God to give a specific message. And normally they’re sent to Israel. So that right away for Jonah is unique that he sent to. And at this point, they’re kind of the big bullies. Assyria is the big bully on the scene. They’re coming and like 30, 40, 50 years after Jonah, they wipe out the Northern Kingdom of Israel. So God, you’re sending a prophet to our enemies.

in itself is a very unique thing. And we’re used to prophets struggling, know, Jeremiah, Moses, you see hesitation on their side. It’s a big deal to be called by God to be a prophet. But at the end of the day, they all obey. They all go, okay, I’m thrilled, but I’ll do it, God. And now you have Jonah, who, as we learned, his father’s name means truth or faithfulness. And so you have this prophet, the son of truth.

the son of faithfulness, who is anything but faithful, is God.

Speaker 1 (04:33) Okay. Okay.

You just expect it’s sort of like the way that we might think of our pastors, right? We would expect for them to be faithful to God, you know, do what God asks of them. Like of all the people in our churches, if we were going to pick one who would say, yes, Lord, it would be our pastor. That’s just what you would expect. And that’s how it was with the prophets. ⁓ So, but the Lord is going to send our guy.

Judgy Jonah somewhere. could you read, we’re in Jonah chapter one, could you read verses one through three and tell us what translation?

Speaker 2 (05:11) So this one I have right now this one’s NASB. Okay. The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, arise go to Nineveh the great city and cry out against it because their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship that was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and boarded it to go with them to Tarshish away.

from the presence of the.

Speaker 1 (05:42) Okay, so ⁓ what’s surprising here? Where’s the irony?

Speaker 2 (05:51) Well, when we read Jonah gets up, we immediately expect that he’s going to go to Nineveh like a prophet should. And instead he goes in the exact opposite direction.

Speaker 1 (06:02) Yeah, I mean, he’s fleeing from God’s presence. What would that be for us? It would be like, I’m going to plug my ears in church. I’m not going to read my Bible. I’m not going to go to church. like, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not doing, I’m not going. I’m not doing what you’re telling me to do. ⁓ And.

Speaker 2 (06:23) But like Jonah does the exact opposite because Nineveh is Northeast and you have to go over land. So he goes Southwest and he’s going to cross the sea. So like he is not just sitting there saying, I’m going to ignore you, God put my finger in my ears. He’s like, I am doing the exact opposite.

Speaker 1 (06:43) Yeah. so does this mean like, I mean, he’s going far. mean, this isn’t just a weekend trip.

Speaker 2 (06:49) This would be like a one-way trip to the moon. I mean, Tarshish to get there takes a year. I think it’s in Spain. So he is going a year journey in the exact opposite direction. And in fact, it says that he paid the fare. In the Hebrew, it’s actually her fare. It’s a feminine form and ships are feminine. And so the rabbis, the Jewish teachers wonder if Jonah like bought the boat.

to make sure he was getting as far away as he could, which means he had to liquidate probably all his assets. So he sold everything, he’s gone and he’s not coming back.

Speaker 1 (07:30) this is drastic. This is like not just a plug your fingers in your ears. This is like extreme defiance to the Lord. Man, mean, can you imagine being that committed?

Speaker 2 (07:47) to disobey God, that you are gonna do whatever it takes.

Speaker 1 (07:51) Right. I to sell everything. Like I have been disobedient, but like he’s put a lot behind this decision. What is driving this? Why would you be that adverse, that opposed to doing this thing that God wants? And I think, you know, the writer of this book, do we think it’s Jonah?

Speaker 2 (08:13) There’s thought that it might be Jonah, which is hopeful.

Speaker 1 (08:16) Yeah, that would be great if it was, you know, he’s telling funny stories on himself, right? right. But, whoever’s telling the story story does a great job. You know, we always like to look at the literary aspects. And so when you tell a story, you want to hold tension. So you want there to be something interesting. You know how when you watch a movie and something happens in the opening scene, you’re like, that is weird. Why would that be? And you don’t really get it until you know, you find out, ⁓ there’s

Speaker 2 (08:20) He learned his lesson.

Speaker 1 (08:46) you know, this whole backstory that explains it. Well, for Jonah, the part that we don’t see until I think it’s, yeah, the beginning of chapter four is he’s talking to God and he’s like, he’s saying, this is why I fled Tarshish in the first place, because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate God and you are slow to anger and abounding and faithful love and one who relents from sending disasters. So I’m giving it away early.

just because I want for you to have this thread going through. We’re talking about judge Jonah. We’re talking about when we judge other people. so Jonah is the whole reason he’s willing to buy the ship, liquidate everything, go a year’s journey in the opposite direction. What’s driving all that? He doesn’t like the Ninevites. And I mean, that is an understatement.

He cannot stand them. And he is afraid that God would do would be compassionate, you know, because look at what what God told him to do go to the great city of Nineveh and preach it because their evil has come up before me. And so he’s sent to preach against it to give them bad news. Like God’s heard you and you would think, okay, if you don’t like these people, then

you’d be happy to tell them that God is going to get you, you know? But why? So what’s, what is he reacting to? He’s reacting to the fact he said that he knows God is compassionate. So if he goes and tells them ahead of time, then God might relent. And that’s what he’s afraid of. So that’s why he, that is what is behind this huge trip in the wrong direction. There’s some, there’s some pretty, there’s some big stubbornness there. Some big, big defiance.

So tell us more though about who are these Ninevites? know, it says that their evil has come up before the Lord. You know, the Assyrians, how bad were they? Were they that bad?

Speaker 2 (10:53) They were, yeah, there are horror stories that history tells of the Assyrians. ⁓ First of all, you can even see when they started out, Nimrod in Genesis found the city of Nineveh and Babylon.

Speaker 1 (11:07) That’s like in Genesis chapter five or four. Yeah, Nimrod. I remember that.

Speaker 2 (11:12) And it calls him a mighty hunter before the Lord. And you could take it a couple different ways in the Hebrew, but one way to take it like, is that even God is amazed at what type of a man he is, but not in a good way. And so this is the man that founds the city of Nineveh. And so he’s like the father figure that his people will be like him. And then the mother figure is, ⁓ and I got to look for her name, Ashtar, I believe.

Speaker 1 (11:40) yeah, Ashtar.

Speaker 2 (11:42) And she was terrible. She was this horrible goddess. She was cruel. She was vindictive or she could be a lover. You just didn’t know. And so when these are your two figures that you kind of base your city on, this is who you are. This is what you’re like. And so they were incredibly cruel to people. And they were one of my professors at JUC would call them cat and mouse nations.

And so Israel was a mouse nation. They were small, tiny, never could expand too much because of resources and where they were. But like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, these are cat nations. They have the ability to make an empire and to get huge. And so Assyria and Egypt are constantly at this point battling back and forth and they have to go through Israel. Assyria’s in the north, Egypt’s in the south. And so they’re…

going back and forth through Israel battling who’s going to be the bigger cat and Assyria wins. And like I said, 50 to 60 years after Jonah, they come through and wipe Israel off the map. They’re just, they exile everybody. They’re horrible. And they were cruel to their people. they, I mean, they would skin you alive. They would put a fish hook through your nose and lead you thousands of miles that way.

just to be cruel. They were absolutely merciless in how they treated their people.

Speaker 1 (13:13) Okay. So Jonah’s not just then reacting to how cruel they are. mean, that sounds really, really bad, but he’s also, you know, there’s some nationalistic. Yeah. And these are, these are enemies who are going to take the irony is that, you know, these nationalists might take all of his belongings. Well, he just.

Speaker 2 (13:26) Yeah, you can see what’s

Speaker 1 (13:37) liquidated all of his belongings because he doesn’t want to go. So even more than hating them, he would hate for God to be mercy, merciful to them. There’s the irony. And I wonder if there’s anybody that we hate that much. You know, we are so disgusted with them that even more than for that person to do bad things for us, the worst possible scenario would be

that God would show mercy to them and they would be sitting down the row from us at church. I mean, and I think, as I’ve been writing this book, Judgy Girl, we live in such a polarized generation. I think that has something to do with our phones and social media and like reinforcing our biases. I’m thinking politically or racism or the haves and the have nots.

all these different ways, generationally there’s divides. We’re just divided up in so many different ways. And so like this polarization of like, I loathe you because you

Speaker 2 (14:48) You think differently than me. You voted differently. You look differently. You’re acting different. You’re not loving the same way I think love should look.

Speaker 1 (14:56) Yeah, yeah. And yet even worse would be for me to have to accept you into the family of God. And that is just not okay, right? In other episodes, we’ve been talking about the story of Noah, people were evil in Jonah’s generation. And then in the story of Rahab, we looked at city of Jericho, they were evil too. So there’s evil, evil all over the world. just seems like it just spreads so naturally. ⁓

In within Jerusalem, within the generation of Noah, there is someone, you know, who God shows mercy to and Jonah, in Noah’s case, keep getting Noah and Jonah because they’re both water stories. In Noah’s case, it’s Noah and his family, God shows mercy on them. they’re, the story moves forward just with them. God shows his mercy on them.

Rahab, God plucks her out of the city and God shows mercy on her. So always God’s heart is not to demolish and to destroy. You we tend to think that in God’s heart is pent up all of this anger and judgment. He he loathes us. He’s so sick of those sinners. But that’s exactly the opposite of what we see. I mean, Rahab just has to basically say, you know, wave the white flag. Hey, could I have your mercy?

she is ushered out in the middle of battle. They usher her out of the battle and bring her and she’s now on the enemy, her enemy’s side. She is welcomed into God’s people. so like that’s God’s heart. That’s who he is. He scans the world looking for who can I show my mercy to? God loves to show his mercy on whoever will receive it. And that’s why he’s sending Jonah.

Speaker 2 (16:47) I think we all tend to sit in Jonah’s seat and maybe we’ll get to this later on because we want God to deal with evil and wickedness and we say deal with it, but we always look at someone else. God deal with the evil in that person, deal with that sinner. We forget that, guess what? I sin. And my heart is ugly and deceitful at times, many times. And so if God deals with sin,

then I need to be dealt with as well. But I want mercy on me. So how do I then say, but don’t give mercy to that person. ⁓

Speaker 1 (17:21) Yeah,

I mean, I think of it as othering, you know, that word othering. they’re so completely different than me. I see no parallels. And that’s really what our disgust communicates. When we’re disgusted with somebody, we’re not only saying something about how bad that person is, we’re saying, am completely different than that. There’s no like, yeah, I can understand. I too struggle in these ways. disgust is, here’s what disgust says. It says, I never have, I never.

I never would. Disgust always has this othering mindset of like, I would never be like those people. And that’s what we see in Jonah. He’s disgusted. It’s like, if you take disgust out of the story, it makes no sense that he would go to such extremes to do exactly the opposite of what it’s the disgust for the Ninevites. And that’s what I see in this polarization, you know, of our generation.

just extreme disgust. We had this little dog named Gracie who was super naughty and she would get into things. You know, if you didn’t put the stools under the counter, she didn’t get anywhere she went. So she had a whole pan of brownies one time. ⁓ she was like a little 10 pound dog. well, she almost did. She got super sick and she’s like running around the house, totally spazzing out because of all the caffeine and the chocolate. And so when she did stuff like that, I was like,

concerned for her. was mad at her. I’m like, I’m going to have to clean this up when she throws up in the house. You know, I was upset and I was worried about her. Like this is really bad, but sometimes Erica, I come home and she would have gotten into the poopy diapers. Now that is a whole different level. that is like, that is just nasty. I cannot, like I can relate to eating a whole.

Speaker 2 (19:11) That sounds young.

Speaker 1 (19:13) Not

that I should, I can relate to that temptation. But chewing up hoopy diapers, it is so disgusting. And I literally can say, never have, I never would, I never could. There’s just this total othering with my dog, this disgust, and that it makes sense. And yet sometimes we do that with certain kinds of sin. We look at…

this person’s sin and we’re just like, we’re so disgusted. And yet what Jonah misses in his disgust is his own sin and how on like God he is. Cause like we just said, God is merciful. He like what’s pent up. love this quote from gentle and lowly by Dane Orland. says, you know, we expect what’s pent up in God’s heart is anger and wrath and like judgment, but it’s the opposite. What’s pent up in his heart is compact.

Speaker 2 (19:52) you

Speaker 1 (20:09) passion and love and mercy. And it’s like, just takes the tiniest prick and we are flooded with his, just the tiniest turn of repentance. That’s it. It’s like Rahab, you know, saying, can I be on your team? And so in the city of Nineveh, that’s all it’s going to take. And Jonah kind of knows that and he’s going in the opposite direction. So, okay. Well, we’ve only gotten through a couple of verses here, Erica, sorry about that. But I did really want to, ⁓

emphasize his decision. So how does God respond? Just tell us the story of what happens next. Jonah’s in the spoke on the opposite direction.

Speaker 2 (20:46) Well, God lets Jonah start.

on this boat journey. I just, God has such a sense of humor. And so God hurls a storm, ⁓ a great wind at Jonah. And like, you can’t just picture it like a little catch. Like it’s the word hurl. When David is in Saul’s court and Saul tries to kill David, he hurls a spirit, David. Like it’s that word. Think of Zeus hurling a lightning bolt. So he hurls this terrible wind at the boat and the boat begins

to get flooded. mean, and the sailors, these pagan sailors are terrified, understandably so. These are, and you have to realize these are like crusty old sailors. They’ve been there, done that.

Speaker 1 (21:30) It’s all the musicals you’ve watched with the sailors and the peg legs and that. Yeah, it’s all these guys.

Speaker 2 (21:36) can swear with

the best of them. They have seen things you couldn’t even fathom and they’re terrified.

Speaker 1 (21:42) Even they think like, this is not just some normal storm. So they’re like asking, who are you? Who’s your God? What is going on here behind the scenes? Like, this is not normal. And they’re trying to figure it out. And they come to Jonah and he doesn’t even really offer up the information very easily.

Speaker 2 (22:00) No.

There’s more irony that, you first of all, these sailors are terrified and they’re praying and Jonah’s asleep in the boat. And finally they wake him up, they get him on the deck and they’re like, what’s going on? Who are you? And we already know, they already know he’s been running away from his God. He tells them, but back then each God was considered regional. Like you were either the God of the mountains or the God of this city or the God of this land. Every God had their specific territory and they really couldn’t cross their bounds.

And so now Jonah comes along and says, well, I was running away from God, but the God I serve is God of land and sea. He’s everywhere. it’s like, Jonah, if you know this, why would you think you could run away from him?

Speaker 1 (22:31) ⁓ interesting.

There is some irony there, right?

Speaker 2 (22:49) about

your God? What were you thinking?

Speaker 1 (22:52) Yeah, I mean, he really is revealing what he thinks of God. And what we think of God is, I’ve heard this said repeatedly, it’s the most important thing about us, right? What we think of God, how we think we can talk to him, how we think we can respond to him. And we’re going to see the Ninevites have it right, how they’re going to respond to God. actually,

the sailors and the captain, they kind of have it right. You know, the captain is like concerned for Jonah, like comes like, what are you doing sleeping here? Like get up, you know? And at the end of this chapter, Jonah tells them, well, just throw me in the sea. I feel like it’s a little bit dramatic. just resignation, like fine then just throw me in the sea. And he’s saying that more to God than I’d rather die.

then then do what you say. He recognizes this storm is from God. He’d rather die than do what God says. And the sailors are like, no, you know, it says, nevertheless, where’s that word? He says, pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to the land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more. So they called out, please, Lord.

Don’t let us, so they call out to the Lord. know, Jonah hasn’t, he is not willing to call out to the Lord. And even these sailors are willing to call him out. Don’t let us perish because of this man’s life and don’t charge us with innocent blood. So they’re crying out for God’s mercy. Like our God is so full of mercy that if Jonah, just that slightest little, you know, turning of mindset, God would have calmed that storm, right?

Any thoughts on the storm of Jesus and how He was asleep in the boat too?

Speaker 2 (24:46) there actually are definite connections and you’re supposed to see almost opposite. At the end of the story, Jonah really becomes an anti-Christ figure because Jonah, as we’re gonna see, he says, throw me in. First of all, he’s not willing to commit suicide. He’s not willing to throw himself in to save these sailors. He still wants them to do it. And his death is almost his trump card.

Speaker 1 (24:51) Yeah, that’s what I

Speaker 2 (25:13) you know, not only am gonna flee, if I can’t flee, then I’m gonna kill myself, God. So you can’t send me. And so he’s willing to die so other people will die. you get this definite, yes, you’re supposed to see the connection and compare and contrast.

Speaker 1 (25:23) That’s so interesting. Oh, there it is.

There it is. He’s willing to die so that God might not show his mercy on the Ninevites. And Jesus dies that God might show his mercy on all of us. wow, that is a powerful connection. But it just shows how far Jonah’s disgust has grown in his heart. It’s so it’s it’s really ugly. And I think it’s in mine, too. I think it’s in my heart. I see it in myself.

Speaker 2 (26:01) I think if you don’t see a bit of Jonah in yourself, you’ve missed the point of the entire book. Because the book closes without a real end. God finishes the book. And the whole point of the irony is so that at the end of the book, the author takes it and kind of twists it around and it becomes a mirror that now you get to see inside yourself. When am I like Jonah? When am I feeling this much disgust towards someone else?

Speaker 1 (26:31) And I

do see the irony also that it’s the church people who have the most disgust. It’s the church ladies, you know, who it’s like the longer we’ve been around the church, the more we know God’s word, the more we’re disgusted with sinners. And that’s so misrepresentative of our heart of the heart of God, right? ⁓

Speaker 2 (26:52) It’s a hard balance though, because on the one hand there is sin and there should be disgust for the sin. The sin of the sinner.

Speaker 1 (26:58) Yes. Yeah. Sin

is disgusting. It is. It’s just that othering part. It’s like not seeing it in my own heart and that I need the mercy as well. Right. And so you’re right. I’m not going to ever say sin is not disgusting. It’s just too. problem is that when I don’t want mercy for other people, when I don’t want God to give his mercy to other people like that, man, when we put that

And I do see that in church people, you know, when they are more invested in their politics, their, ⁓ I don’t know, their agendas, their money, whatever it is, so invested in that, they’re not even concerned about how ⁓ they’re repelling unbelievers with their attitudes.

And when an unbeliever comes in among us, how are they treated, you know, if they’re not like us? ⁓ know, like it’s, it’s, God’s heart is so for the outsider bringing them in. That’s just what I’m seeing over and over and over in these stories that I’m looking at in the Bible. God’s heart is for the Ninevites. Not that he wants them to continue in their sin. No, absolutely not. But he’s willing to send his prophet.

you know, however far to go to them. And Jonah’s response to that is, no, not going to do it. I heard about a Facebook post that someone put up about, I think it was a school board. Yeah, it was a school board election. And someone said, I don’t, I don’t remember what the issues were.

but they said clearly everyone on this school board is of the devil. Goodness. know. So, ⁓ yeah, so it’s like, there were believers on that. know, it’s like, is that the, that’s so polarizing.

Speaker 2 (29:06) Social media is so hard because it’s easy to almost create like a fake person in your mind that’s on the opposite side of your opinion. And then you speak so harshly against that false person, but everybody who disagrees with you, you end up attacking. If we could actually sit down and see someone who saw differently than us, I think conversations face to face would be so different.

But because it’s social media, we do, we attack and we are so harsh.

Speaker 1 (29:40) Yeah. Well, and I mean, look at the parallel with Jonah. He doesn’t actually know the Ninevites. He doesn’t, he hasn’t seen them. He hasn’t, you know, he just knows they’re this big power, you know, they’re the cat. He doesn’t like the cat. He’s the mouse and he does not like them and has, you know, characterized, characterized or what’s the word? Caricatur. There’s a caricatur in his head of who they are, what they look like. You know, I’m thinking Tom and Jerry with our mouse and you know, but ⁓

Yeah, he is so turned them into, he’s so disgusted with them. They’re so different than him. mean, imagine Jonah in heaven meeting some Ninevites. You know, like how’s that gonna be for him?

Speaker 2 (30:23) It makes me think of Cory Ten Boom. Remember her story? She after World War Two and she’s traveling around speaking and a German soldier came up to her.

Speaker 1 (30:33) Yeah. And offered his hand and she didn’t want to take it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:38) And you can appreciate why. I think it wasn’t it when she knew in the camp.

Speaker 1 (30:42) knew him.

Yes. She recognized him. And he was so moved. had become a believer. He was so moved by her message. He didn’t recognize her. she recognized him. so she, she said, I, I’m remembering correctly, like Lord, help me in this moment to extend my hand. And when she did, she just felt the love of God flowing to him. So, but she, she did the opposite of Jonah.

Right? She welcomed a sinner because she saw the parallel in herself, you know, that she too is a sinner. She too needs God’s mercy. That’s, I think that’s a controlling idea when we deal with these others is, ⁓ you know, do I need mercy? I do. They need mercy. They do. That is what we hold in common.

⁓ And God, in that moment that we are so disgusted with another person who believes differently, who looks different, who lives differently, in that moment that we’re expressing our disgust, well, we’re the sinner in that moment, because that’s just so contrary to God’s heart. Yes, sin is disgusting. It is. It’s loathsome. And yet, here’s what God thinks of.

sinners. He sent his only son to die in their place. He gave such a great sacrifice that he might bring them home, you know, like that he might gather them in so that we could all be seated at that table at the at the marriage supper of the lamb. So, I mean, we’ve kind of danced around it. How do we live like this is true, Erica?

Speaker 2 (32:28) I think with a lot of humility, that’s just what I keep feeling. know, instead of looking down on people, but looking straight on at them, like you’ve sinned, I’ve sinned. Could we not show compassion? Could we not have humility? I read in a book once, humility is the mother of giants. And it just, it’s stuck with me. Like what could God do through a humble person?

The Bible says Moses was the most humble man who ever lived. And you see that when Israel messes up time and time again, if anybody should be frustrated, I get frustrated with Israel. And yet Moses consistently stands up for them. And finally gets to the point where he says, God, if you wipe them out, you have to wipe me out. He constantly places himself with his people and doesn’t separate himself. And so-

Speaker 1 (33:19) which is why He’s like Jesus.

Speaker 2 (33:21) And so consistently God grants mercy. I think that’s humility, placing yourself saying, you know what, God, no, I’ve never committed that exact sin, but I have committed sin and sin is sin.

Speaker 1 (33:35) Yeah. Well, know, if you take any little, like, think of sin as like a cancer cell, you know, think of ourselves apart from God living through eternity and how much that sin would grow, right? If there’s nothing stopping it, it would take over every, like any little sin. Like, am I greedy? Yeah, I’m greedy sometimes, you know, and let that sin of greed grow to its fullest. Like it could

eat me alive. Our God saves us from who we would be without Him, you know? And so, like, to see that, to see even those granules of sin in myself is to recognize how unlike my God I am, and I need redemption. And, I mean, my disgust, I think, is the sin I’m looking at right now. Because that is a big sin. If there is a big sin in the Bible, it’s pride. And disgust?

is like pride impersonated. You know what mean? It’s like in my disgust is a lot of pride. Pride or I’m sorry, disgust always looks down. Disgust is always this condescending superiority. Like it’s that I would never, I have never. And I was just thinking about, we lived in a neighborhood once where there was a sex offender in our neighborhood. And ⁓

The way that everyone responded to that neighbor was quite telling. Sin is dangerous. I told my kids, they were little at the time, and I was like, if you ever see any kids going in that house, I think you should come get me. If we have kids over, we’re not going to play in their house.

Also, we’re going to love and include and hope that God would work as opposed to protect ourselves and put up these barriers like I’m just disgusted. know, just disgusted.

Speaker 2 (35:51) Like, yes, I’m not going to send my kids over to his house, but when I see him, I can say hi and engage him in conversation and be polite.

Speaker 1 (35:59) Yeah. And so we looked for ways, like, is that it was hard. It was actually hard for me to, you know, to deal with those feelings that I, and it was like, God was putting his finger on that in me. Um, like, no, you are going to deal with this. This is, it’s sort of like Jonah. He hurled that storm, like, no, you are going to deal with what’s going on in your heart. And sometimes God does that. He puts people in our lives, like whether it’s, you know, who, who your kids are friends with or who you’re, you know, who your kids marry, like who,

What they married the opposite political party. could never or, ⁓ or who’s in your, in your small group at church, like someone that it’s hard for you to include and accept or who just these people that God, he positions them, he puts them in our lives. Not like, don’t, I don’t want to compare that to hurling a storm. He does.

make put us in positions where we have to deal with it. And that’s what that that situation with the sex offender, it was me, I got to deal with this. And so he he encouraged me in so many different ways. Like, how can I show love? How can I show how can I invite you in? And there was no I don’t have the end of that story to share. Like, this is how God worked in that. But I have seen other stories where God works through doesn’t work through the disgust of Christians.

He works through those who are welcoming, who would show mercy like that Cory Ten Boom story.

Speaker 2 (37:28) I think the lady who started the Roe versus Wade, ⁓ she was the first one that it was a big deal. She wanted an abortion. And so it was her reason it went, she was her story and went to the Supreme court. And so of course it’s like, ⁓

Churches Christians wanted nothing to do with her. Well, years later, a little girl met her and had no clue who she was, but just loved her, was kind to her, and she became a believer. The lady who started Roe versus Wade became a believer, and it was because this little girl didn’t know she was who she was, and so just showed compassion and kindness. God did something.

Speaker 1 (38:09) Yeah, it’s beautiful. That’s compelling. That’s, that’s winsome. That’s what God was asking of Jonah. And that’s what he’s asking of us too. And he’s going to continue pursuing us, make us deal with it until we give in to him. ⁓

Speaker 2 (38:27) The more I study the Old Testament, the more amazed I am at the mercy of God and the goodness of God.

Speaker 1 (38:32) It’s so good. All right, are you going to come back for a second part of this conversation? OK, thank you.

Speaker 2 (38:37) would love to.