#3 Contrasts between Jonah and Nahum, and practical applications to the world we live in today.

The book of Jonah and Nahum have some differences and some similarities that we can find while

reading. Both books tell the story of how God used prophets to deal with Nineveh. The first prophet that

was sent was Jonah, and after approximately a period of about 150 years, God sends the prophet Nahum

to deal with Nineveh.

To begin, in the book of Jonah, we can see how God teaches us through the life of the prophet. He calls

Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh about how they needed to repent or God would

destroy them. Even with the unwillingness of the Prophet, which preferred to run away from God, God

still used him to preach and redeem the people. In the end of the book, the Ninevites ask God for

forgiveness and they were spared from the destruction. Meanwhile, God teaches Jonah lessons about

Love, forgiveness and Compassion.

On the other hand, we have the book of Nahum. In this book God’s wrath can be seen against the people

of Nineveh. The people are worst, even worst than before. Now the destruction has got upon then. The

Assyrians had become brutal and even more sinful than before, so in this book we see how God brings

justice against them and hope to the people of Judah.

Some contrasts the we can see in both books is that in the book of Jonah, the prophet brought a

message of hope to the Ninevites, if they would ask for forgiveness God would spare them, but in

Nahum, there is no hope for the Assyrians, the time for destruction had come. Furthermore, while

reading both books, we can see how the people didn’t change, even though they recognized that they

were wrong and repented from their sins, the other generation turned back to the sinning life, actually

even worst than the generations before them.

Other contrasts the we can see in both books is how God works through the life of the prophets, while

one of them was willing to spread the message and obeyed God, in the other hand we can see that God

needed to work on Jonah’s heart as he wasn’t willing to do what God asked him to. Keeping this into

consideration both the people of Nineveh and the prophet learned a lesson from God.

Therefore, some lessons that we can learn from these books, is that God is patient in bringing his wrath.

We can see this by comparing the two stories, God gave Nineveh's people opportunities to repent in the

book of Jonah, but as they went back to their ways, God brought destruction in the book of Nahum. As

Christians it is our duty to stand up, like the prophets did in their time, and for it is only in repentance

and the of the gospel that any person can find hope.

While we are lost in our sins, we can see how God's love is for everyone. We can see how God used

Jonah's life to bring salvation to a people who were not God's people,

and it’s our job as Christians is to be the means by which God tells the world of the

offer and to rejoice in the salvation of others. Not like Jonah did, but with love and

compassion with the others, not running away from God’s will, but doing God’s will in

our lives. Even if sometimes His will for our lives is not going to be what we expect or what we

want, but He for sure wants the best for our lives and had a purpose for everything.