Jason Albertson

Uber review: "1 star. Cramped vehicle. Poor snacks. Reckless driving.  Thankful to be alive." The message of a story is usually communicated by the characters. In the story of Jonah, there are three main characters: God, Jonah and pagans. The characters make the author's points. The first two posts here looked at contrasts between God and God's prophet. Those contrasts show us how Jonah was unlike God, and the contrasts call us to be like God, not like Jonah. There's another comparison/contrast relationship going on in this story: God's prophet versus the pagans. In chapter 1, God's prophet receives God's call. God's prophet  refuses  to obey because he hates the Ninevites (4:2), and he skips the country. This probably indicates that Jonah thought Yahweh, who is the God of Israel, might be  merely  the God of Israel, and so hemmed in by national boundaries. It turns out that Yahweh is not hemmed in by national boundaries. Jonah is stupid; he b...

Jonah: "See ya, buddy! You really have been a 'great fish.' Ha ha ha" This post is second in a series reflecting on what I've learned from writing a Theology of Jonah. The topic of this one is God's compassionate kindness, especially in contrast to Jonah's character. God demonstrates His compassionate kindness throughout the entire story of Jonah. The story begins unfolds because God speaks to Jonah, a servant who doesn't share God's character or values. God speaks because He wants to show mercy to Nineveh, the people whose wickedness has come up before Him. God pursues Jonah because He is determined to show mercy to Nineveh. He prepares a great fish to preserve Jonah’s life, then recommissions His prophet, giving Jonah another chance to serve Him. God accepts the repentance and abasement of the Ninevites and relents from the disaster He had planned. Finally, God gives Jonah an object lesson that called him to change his thinking and adopt God...

Great fish: "Please remove your foot from my mouth." This weekend I had the privilege of writing a theology of Jonah, the Old Testament prophet. I enjoyed the project. The class spent four weeks translating and discussing the book and this paper gave us a chance to reflect on what we've learned and make some observations. Here's one I took away: God shows Himself to be the  Ruler of everything  in the book of Jonah, both by what God does and what Jonah is so bad at doing. Nothing can stop God from doing what He wants to do. Here's a list of examples: He caused a violent storm on the sea (1:4), caused the storm to dissipate (1:15), prepared a great fish to preserve Jonah (1:17), appointed a plant to grow (4:6), appointed a worm to strike the plant (4:7), appointed a hot wind to strike Jonah (4:8), and prepared judgment for Nineveh down to the very day (3:4). In contrast, when Jonah tried to assert his self-sovereignty by refusing God's summons for service a...

I happened to read Psalm 11 this morning as part of my devotions. Afterward, I opened my facebook feed to see this post from Ken Ham.​ He finishes the post by quoting Psalm 11:3, probably because of its convenient use of vocabulary that matches the theme of his post ("foundation"). Having just read this Psalm, quoting only verse 3 struck me as ironic. David begins this Psalm by saying, "In Yahweh I take refuge." Then David says to someone, "How can you say to my soul, 'Flee as a bird to your mountain;    For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string    To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed,    What can the righteous do?'" Someone is trying to terrify David with bad news. His response? In the second half of the Psalm, David shows how pointless this worrying is in light of the sovereignty, justice and grace of God. David wasn't bemoaning the state of t...