2024, January 21 ~ Jonah 3:1-5,10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

TODAY’S READINGS IN CONTEXT
JANUARY 21, 2024

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Reading

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Commentary

The Book of Jonah is one of the shortest in the Bible and is included with the 12 Minor Prophets. Even though Jonah is never described in the Book as a “prophet,” he is a “reluctant prophet” who speaks for YHWH (translated as “LORD” in the NRSV) by urging the Assyrians to repent (3:4). Ironically, although Jonah rejected YHWH’s call, he was — according to the story – the most successful prophet ever.

The Book of Jonah, unlike the other prophetic books, is a narrative. It was written during the “Persian Period” (539 BCE to 333 BCE). The story, however, was necessarily set hundreds of years earlier in the period of Assyrian power – a time of Assyrian conquests and threats against Israel and Judea (850 to 612 BCE).

Sending Jonah to convert Nineveh (the Assyrian capital, and modern-day Mosul) at the height of Assyria’s power would be seen by everyone as a “Mission Impossible” task. When told by God to go to Nineveh, Jonah got on a ship for Tarshish (the end of the earth for a Mediterranean person, namely, Spain) – about as far from Assyria as he could possibly go.

Notwithstanding his attempts to avoid his mission to Nineveh, the story recounted that Jonah was thrown overboard by the sailors because his disobedience to God was seen by the sailors as the cause of a great storm. A fish then swallowed him, and he was spit out by the fish on the shore and went to Nineveh. Once there, he accepted his commission and warned the Assyrians of impending destruction if they did not repent. To Jonah’s amazement, the Assyrians and their king repented (vv. 5-6). God’s mind was changed, and God decided not to punish them (v.10).

Today’s reading recounts Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh, the repentance of the people, and God’s relenting in the decision to destroy Nineveh.

The story emphasized two theological understandings that are found in many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible: (1) God directs and controls all that happens and (2) God sometimes has a change of mind.

The Jewish Study Bible points out that the themes derived from the book have included: (1) the power of repentance; (2) a contrast between a doctrine of retributive justice and one of divine grace; (3) a conflict between God’s universalist approach and Jonah’s nationalistic tendencies; and (4) a conflict between an understanding of God as constrained by particular rules as known to human beings and another understanding that stresses the radical independence of God.

In the next chapter of the book, Jonah became angry with God for being merciful to the Assyrians. Echoing YHWH’s “self-description” in Exodus 34:6 that God is merciful and abounding in steadfast love, Jonah told YHWH that he fled to Tarshish precisely because he knew God would be willing to relent from punishing the Assyrians (4:2). Jonah wanted Nineveh to be punished and was so angry about God’s relenting that he preferred to die (4:3, 4:8) rather than see the “enemy” repent and receive God’s mercy.

The Jonah story is not history. Nineveh never repented in the 8th Century BCE. The Assyrian Empire destroyed the Northern 10 tribes (Israel) in 722 BCE. Assyria put Judea under siege for many years around 700 BCE. By the time of the writing of this story, Nineveh had long since been destroyed by the Babylonians in 612 BCE and was never rebuilt.

The JSB raises interesting questions: “What are the readers of the book supposed to make of the well-known fact in their time [the Persian Period] that historic Nineveh had long been destroyed and never rebuilt? Surely, they thought, such destruction must have been a manifestation of God’s will. But if so, are some of God’s words, as recorded in the prophetic books, valid at one time but not another, even if God’s explicit argument seems universal? Are prophetic words contingent on a particular set of historical circumstances and therefore of no absolute value and general scope? Is it possible to distinguish between the contingent and noncontingent words, and if so how? Or are all of them contingent?”

The New Oxford Annotated Bible points out that archaeological excavations show that Nineveh was about 3 miles long with a wall of eight miles around it. The city was not a “three days’ walk across” (v.3) – which would be about 90 miles (3 mph x 10 hours x 3 days). The exaggeration was intended to show the difficulty of the task facing Jonah, the vastness of his success, and the expanse of God’s mercy.

The Book of Jonah emphasized the inclusivity of God’s love and mercy for all, not just the people of Israel and Judea. Similarly, the Book of Ruth (in which a Moabite woman – the Moabites were a hated enemy of Judea — became the great grandmother of King David) and portions of the Book of Isaiah convey the message that God’s mercy and love are inclusive.

Other books of the Bible, such as Ezra and Nehemiah (written around 450 BCE), required the Jewish people be exclusive. Some of the Jews who remained in Jerusalem during the Exile had intermarried. After the Exile, Ezra required them to send away their foreign wives and the children they had by them (Ezra 10:3).

The tension (and disagreement within Judaism) between inclusivity and exclusivity continued into the First Century of the Common Era. In opposition to the exclusivist Sadducees, Jesus of Nazareth was clearly presented in the Gospels as an inclusivist.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Reading

29 I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

Commentary

Corinth, a large port city in Greece, was among the early Jesus Follower communities that Paul founded. Its culture was diverse and Hellenistic. Corinthians emphasized reason and secular wisdom. In addition to Paul, other Jesus Followers taught in Corinth, sometimes in ways inconsistent with Paul’s understandings of what it meant to be a Jesus Follower.

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was written in the mid-50’s (CE) and presented his views on many issues that were controversial in this Jesus Follower Community. According to Acts 18, Paul spent over a year organizing several house-assemblies after arriving in Corinth around the year 50. The letter is primarily addressed to Gentile Jesus Followers.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament points out that 1 Corinthians is “one of the New Testament’s most important books” because it includes one of the earliest proclamations of both Jesus’ death on behalf of sinners and Jesus’ resurrection, and has a basic formula for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (Communion/Eucharist).

The JANT also notes that the letter is considered to have been written by Paul “with the exception of 14.33b-35, whose content – the silencing of women in the assemblies – contradicts 11.5 where Paul mentions, approvingly, women praying and prophesying.” The JANT observes that the later-written Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy and Titus) advocate women’s subordination, and speculates that the authors of those letters may have inserted these verses about women into Paul’s original letter.

Today’s reading is lifted from a chapter that dealt primarily with Paul’s views on sexual morality, and that responded to part of a letter to him from the Corinthians that said: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” (7.1) The NAOB and The JANT regard this saying as “another Corinthian slogan.”

In the first part of this Chapter, Paul rejected mandatory celibacy and presented a more nuanced approach. But because he believed the current age was about to end (“in view of the impending/present crisis” (v.26)), Paul was more concerned with changes in marital status than with marriage per se.

The verses for today reflected Paul’s understanding that the current economic system in Corinth (private property, slavery, commerce) and social forms (such as patriarchal marriage) were about to disappear (v. 31) when a new order arrived. Accordingly, Paul urged persons to practice abstinence, and to behave contrary to their expected roles in preparation for the end time.

These notions of a new order evolved into the idea of the “Second Coming” of the Christ. This “Second Coming” developed relatively early in the Jesus Follower Movement because the Jesus Followers recognized that Jesus of Nazareth had not fulfilled all the traditional “job descriptions” of the Messiah in his earthly life – the nation was not unified; the Romans were not expelled; and Shalom (peace and order) did not reign. It became understood that at the Second Coming, all will be fulfilled.

Mark 1:14-20

Reading

14 After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Commentary

The Gospel According to Mark was the first Gospel that was written and is generally dated to the time around the Destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest gospel and formed the core for the Gospels According to Matthew and Luke (both of which were written around 85-90 CE. Over 50% of the material in those two Gospels is based on Mark. Because these three Gospels follow similar chronologies of Jesus’ life and death, they are called “Synoptic Gospels” for the Greek words meaning “Same Look/View.”

Like all the other gospels, it is anonymous (the names of the gospels were given in the late 2d Century CE). The New Oxford Annotated Bible describes it as a story of Jesus of Nazareth’s “multiple conflicts” – with the high priestly rulers and their Roman overlords and with his disciples (who consistently failed to understand him and deserted him at the end).

The Gospel was written in “everyday” (koine) Greek, and its style was not as elegant as Luke’s. The Gospel introduced a new literary genre, the evangelion (or “good news”), which was distinguished from a “history.” The NAOB points out that the “good news” always referred either to the act of preaching or its content. Outside the Christian Scriptures, the term was used for various happy announcements such as a military victory, the birth of a son or a wedding. The Jewish Annotated New Testament suggests that the word was intended to suggest the good news of God’s deliverance.

The JANT observes: “Although Mark presents an earthly Jesus and not the heavenly mediator emphasized in Paul’s letters (e.g., Phil. 2.6-11), Mark and Paul share several important themes: the centrality of the followers’ faith, the emphasis on Jesus’ death rather than his resurrection, and reservations about Peter’s role.”

In some respects, Mark has a “lower Christology” than the other gospels in that it placed more emphasis on Jesus’ humanity. Each of the gospels has its own “special theme” – and Mark’s presentation of Jesus used the motifs and imagery of the “Suffering Servant” found in Isaiah 52 and 53. It also substantially based many details of the Passion and Crucifixion on Psalm 22.

Today’s reading contains the first words of Jesus that are reported as part of his public ministry. In saying the “Kingdom of God has come near (v.15), Jesus proclaimed that the ideal state is beginning but has not yet been accomplished. In preaching repentance, Jesus (like John the Baptist) called for a “change of mind” in which one’s heart and whole inner being is called to “return” to God. The JANT observes “in ancient Israel and Mark as well “faith” and “believe” often connoted faithfulness and trustworthiness regarding both humans and God.”

The arrest of John (v.14) is presented as the triggering event for Jesus to begin his public ministry. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary notes that instead of “arrested,” the Greek should be translated as “handed over” – the same way that Jesus was “handed over” (14:44) by Judas to the authorities at the Garden of Gethsemane.

The NOAB sees verse 15 as a “summary of Jesus’ program and of the Gospel according to Mark. At the right time, in fulfillment of long-standing yearnings and hopes, God is finally acting to reestablish his beneficent will for the people.”

The area called “the Galilee” was, according to The JANT, the area north of Judea, and had “indistinct boundaries.” It was more rural and less Hellenized in the First Century than Judea. The people there thought of themselves as “Israelites” (see John 1:47) and distinct from the Judeans.

The NAOB points out that the Sea of Galilee is also called the Lake of Gennesaret and “is a large lake in a deep basin mostly surrounded by high hills.” It is about 10 miles from North to South, and about 6 miles from West to East. It is fed by the Jordan River on the north, and its outlet is to the Jordan River to the south.

The call of disciples in Mark in today’s reading is quite different from the story last week in the Fourth Gospel of the calls of Andrew, Peter, Phillip and Nathaniel. In last week’s story, John the Baptist referred to Jesus a “the Lamb of God” (John 1:36) to two of his disciples, one of whom was Andrew. Andrew found his brother Simon and told him “We have found the Messiah” (v.41). Andrew brought Simon to Jesus who told Simon, “You are son of John…You are to be called Cephas (Peter)” (v.42). Jesus then went to the Galilee and “found” Philip and said, “Follow me” (v.43) and Philip went and found Nathaniel (v.45).

Simon is later called “Peter.” James (son of Zebedee) is to be distinguished from James the brother of Jesus who became the leader of the Jesus Follower Movement in Jerusalem and from James “the Less” (another apostle).

In the First Century, it would have been unusual for a rabbi/teacher to call disciples. Typically, disciples sought out a master. Here, the Gospel writer follows a pattern set by Elijah in his call of Elisha to be his disciple (1 Kings 19:19).