Sublime

His three-day burial at sea foreshadowed Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus acknowledged this connection between Jonah and himself in Matthew 12:38–40. God responded to the vow Jonah made within the fish and caused it to vomit him back onto land.

decides that Jonah's leadership is less evolved than He thought. God concludes that Jonah is in need of some serious leadership development. And so, a whale rises from the ocean and swallows him. Jonah is now riding the Descending Current. He has to go into the deep and the dark to find his light. Jonah probably does not know this. All he knows is

First, Jonah’s message reflected pronouncements by other prophets who expected their hearers to repent. As Southwestern Seminary Old Testament professor Josh Williams has said when lecturing to students, “The Old Testament prophets preached judgment through destruction in order to achieve repentance.”

Herein lay Jonah’s greatest flaw as leader. He wanted justice for others and compassion for himself.

His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. 14He did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.

emerges. We are not sure what happens for Jonah in the belly of the whale, but we suggest that he is riding both currents of transformation.