After closing out chapters 1 and 2 with Jesus as being higher than the angels and like us in every way, the author of the Hebrews moves forward by identifying Jesus as the one who is above the greatest human in Jewish history, Moses.

Why was Moses the greatest? First, the first five books of the Old Testament, the foundation of all of Judaism, known together as the Torah, were also referred to simply as the books of Moses. In addition, in Deuteronomy 18:15-22, God outlines that He will send a new leader like Moses, a role filled by Jesus.

In fleshing out his argument as to why Christ is greater, the author of the Hebrews identifies Moses as one who was faithful in God's house (Numbers 12:1-9), while Christ is faithful over God's house. Moses was a servant, while Christ is the heir.

To add too this, the author argues that Moses being faithful was aimed at pointing people to the one who was greater, namely Christ.

In the first four verses, the author of Hebrews reveals to us a great deal about the character of God, namely, that throughout Biblical history, He has been seeking to share a word of grace that is delivered in it's fullness with Jesus. The chapter closes by reaffirming this with a statement that God's angels are sent out to serve those who are to receive this word of grace from God.

Between this opening and closing, God addresses the person of Christ, humanity in general, and angels.

Concerning Christ, the author identifies His eternal existence with God and His ultimate rule and reign over all creation, a role He received because He addressed the issue of sin.

We should pause for a moment here to consider how Hebrews talks about sin. If we look at Paul or popular Christianity in the US today, sin is predominantly about things that we do, so, as a result, we come up with lists of sins and things that we tell people to avoid.

There are, however, no such lists in Hebrews. Rather than sin being a commission (something we do), sin is portrayed as a condition (part of our nature). This condition then reveals itself in different ways in different people. This of course can be helpful in our contemporary culture where, for far too long, Christians have been about the business of saying, "We don't do these five things, so we're better than the people who do those five things." It's this universal condition that Christ came to address.

Using the language of Hebrews and Genesis, the term "image" is a good way to understand this. In Hebrews, Christ is revealed to be made in the exact image of God. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are revealed to have been created in God's image, however, after the Fall, Adam and Eve's third child, Seth, is said to be born in the image of Adam (Genesis 5:3). In the book of Hebrews, Christ has come to restore this fallen human image.

Of course, if Christ is going to accomplish this, He has to be far more than just an angel, as some were apparently trying to claim. To challenge this, Hebrews 5:1-13 pulls texts from the Old Testament that speak of both Christ and angels.

Now some could debate this selection of texts as some of them very specifically refer to people in the place and time where they were first written, however, to jointly apply these texts, a practice known as typology, is very common. The basic idea is that you have the Old Testament application, the type, which is then fulfilled in a much greater way in the New Testament, the antitype. So, when David writes in Psalm 2 that he is God's son, it's accurate, however it is accurate in a much greater way with Jesus.

This use to typology again reveals that Jesus is intimately linked to human over angels, and that His work will be done for the benefit of humanity rather than the benefit of angels.

Discussion Questions:
1. If the entire Bible is about God proclaiming a word of grace to people, how should that effect the work of the Church in the world?

2. What impact does sin as condition rather than as commission have on how you think about both sin and people?

As we wrapped up Jonah, the narrator finally revealed why Jonah tried to run away from Yahweh in chapter 1; Jonah knew that Yahweh would forgive the people of Nineveh. At this point we not only see how vast the chasm is between God's ways and our own, but we are receive confirmation that the central struggle in the book of Jonah is between God and Jonah himself.

In many ways, there in a New Testament version of this same story, it's Jesus parable of the prodigal son where, a man has two sons, one of whom abandons his father and wastes his inheritance on wild living, only to return and beg for forgiveness which the father grants. However, upset with this gracious response to the "Nineveh son", the son who remained with his father the whole time, the "Jonah son" in irate (and blind to the fact that the father had been equally gracious to him all along).

Yahweh uses a shade tree as one final attempt at teaching Jonah about His nature, but the book ends on a question, forcing us to wonder what happened and inviting us to figure out where we fit in the story.

Discussion Questions:
1. If you were placed into the story of Jonah, would you be Jonah or the people of Nineveh? Why do you place yourself there?

2. What is the amazing grace that God had already shown Jonah and all of Israel? What is the grace He has shown in your life?

3. What do you think happens with Jonah? What should happen to you following a study of Jonah?

Jonah chapter 3 does an amazing job of portraying the grace of God, first to Jonah and then to the people of Nineveh.

While Jonah spent chapter 1 running away from God and chapter 2 not taking responsibility for his sinful actions, Jonah 3 opens with God calling Jonah to be His voice to the people of Nineveh once again. There is no suggestion of Jonah's past failings, rather, God offers Jonah a clean slate and a chance to start anew.

Taking advantage of this opportunity Jonah goes to Nineveh and, in the Hebrew, offers a five-word sermon about God overturning the city. This prompts the question, what does it mean to overturn? While it could be a military coup or fire from heaven destroying everything, another option is mass repentance on the part of the people so that, rather than following their own desires, they seek to honor God. This of course it what happens, fulfilling Jonah's sermon in an unexpected way.

This of course is what God wants to do in all of our lives. He desires us to not trust in ourselves, but to follow the example of those in Nineveh and realize that our only hope in this life and the next is to cling to the grace of God. What's different between those in Nineveh and us, is that we have the direct promise from God that He will forgive those who trust in Him.

The conversion of the Nineveh also opens an interesting discussion on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. After all, the people of Nineveh had five words to shape their understanding of Yahweh, yet this was enough for God to look upon them graciously. To this end, we could define a disciple as someone who, in as much as they know Jesus, wants to follow Him, and who wants to know Jesus more.

Discussion Questions:
1. How has God overturned your life?

2. The people of Nineveh fasted and prayer to deepen their faith in God. What do you do in your life that reminds you that God has overturned your life?

3. Given the above definition of being Jesus' disciple, how well do you know Him and what more do you want to know?

Jonah is one of those stories that almost everybody knows something about, even if it's just that some guy was swallowed by a fish. However, when we take time to explore the whole book, it has much to offer to us both individually and as a Christian community.

However, before we being working our way through Jonah, let's ask ourselves two preliminary questions: (1) How does the author of Jonah invite us to read his book? and (2) How does the book of Jonah point us to Jesus?

How does the author of Jonah invite us to read his book?
One of the most obvious characteristics of Jonah is that it clashes with our everyday experience, both in that it has a guy living in the guts of a fish for three days and that it has an entire wicked city repenting at the words of a less than persuasive messenger.

There is evidence that the book of Jonah is set in the context of actual historical events. For example, Jonah is first mentioned in the Bible in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet who served during the reign of Jeroboam II which lasted from 786-746 BC. Extra-biblical records indicate that during this same time frame (772-745 BC), Nineveh was in turmoil as a city making it ripe for mass conversion. In addition, Jesus points to Jonah and his experience with the fish and the repentant Ninevites as historical events that compare to Jesus' own upcoming experiences in Matthew 12:38-42 and Luke 11:29-32.

However, a more important question is to ask ourselves is, "How does the author of Jonah invite us to read Jonah?"

One of the characteristics that differentiates Jonah from other prophetic books is the style of literature. While most of the prophetic books open with a historical action where God calls the prophet and then moves into more of a sermon style, Jonah, with the exception of Jonah's prayer in chapter 2, holds to a narrative format. Not only does this imply that, unlike most of the prophetic books, Jonah was written by someone other than the prophet, but it also says that the book is to be understood as historical, much like Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

In this sense, the author of Jonah invites us to believe in a God who is active and involved in the creation and capable of breaking laws of nature (such as the digestive functions of a fish) to accomplish his purposes in the world.

At the same time, Jonah is filled with satiric irony and is repetitive in nature. This makes it obvious that, while historically rooted, it's been carefully crafted to communicate a specific message.

Given these two realities, it is best to consider Jonah a historical-narrative, much like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament.

How does the book of Jonah point us to Jesus?
In Matthew 12:38-42 and Luke 11:29-32 Jesus is confronted by religious leaders of his day and is asked for a sign to prove that he is who he claims to be. In both cases, Jesus replies that only the wicked would need a sign and that he's only going to give them the sign of Jonah, which he links in Matthew to Jonah's three days and nights in the belly of the fish.

So, what is the sign of Jonah? Given that Jesus only appears to his followers after his resurrection, the only "sign" witnessed by his enemies was his death and burial. Therefore, the "sign" that Jesus offers for them to believe in is the offering of himself to save the lives of many. This makes Jesus one who is greater than Jonah in that Jonah was sacrificed (without actually dying) to save the sailors from danger that he brought upon them while Jesus was sacrificed to save humanity from the wrath of God that we have brought upon ourselves.

This statement by Jesus was embraced in Early Church art, which, of the pieces discovered to date, portrays Jonah 108 times with Noah, the runner up, appearing only 8 times.

Next week we'll begin exploring Jonah chapter 1 in detail.