However, when the gourd was smitten by a worm, and the sultry wind blew, and the sun shone hot upon his head, our mean little Jonah again asked God to kill him. Now Jonah, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" "Yes, I do well to be angry even unto death." Were ever such words of irony spoken! O Israel, you are smitten with grief because of your poor little gourds, but don't you think you might have a little pity for all those innocent people who were so untaught morally that they did not know their right hand from their left?
It would be well for us to remember that we, as well as ancient Israel, fret and fume over a lot of little nothings. Little griefs and little deprivations vex us sorely. But while our brothers and sisters over much of the earth go naked and starved and diseased, we feel no pity. We are very tender-hearted over little things, we are deeply moved over some fictitious story; but for the appalling tragedies of dark continents and exploited peoples, our hearts are flint.
Obviously, Israel understood only too well the biting sarcasm and bitter irony of Jonah's ringing satire. If the author of this parable could know that a generation has since risen, with so little historical and literary acumen as to believe that Jonah is literal history, I think his body would turn over in its grave. If he knew that he had set people to wrangling over the question of whether a fish could swallow a man, instead of sending them out as missionaries to all the Ninevehs of the earth, he would feel sorry that he ever wrote the book.
When intelligently understood, there is no other literature extant that makes such a strong moral and religious appeal for social justice and political righteousness as the prophets. The writings of the great prophets of Israel constitute a practical sociology, founded on the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; a sociology so enriched by a wealth of historical materials as to make it a treasure-house for all workers in social betterment.
To save the ordinary Bible reader from confusion, I have purposely avoided all questions of origin and composite character, along with many other interesting and useful facts concerning the Scriptures. This simple approach to the Scriptures is for the purpose of helping the average person to find the soul of the Bible. For it is the soul of the Bible, and not its incidental features, that enriches the soul of the reader.
4. The New Testament in general
In the New, as well as in the Old Testament, the letter kills while the spirit makes alive.
As the historical and literary methods of study have imparted a new beauty and a new significance to the messages of the Old Testament, the same methods will, in like manner, affect the messages of the New Testament.
The personal Christ is the soul of the New Testament. In Jesus, righteousness is more than a decalogue or a catalogue to be followed; it is a character to be possessed. In Jesus, God is more than a Divinity to be obeyed; the Infinite Will is an indwelling Spirit,—the soul of man's soul. While the Old Testament never recognizes God as dwelling in man, the New Testament takes the God of Israel and the righteousness of Israel and places them in human life; not as a theory, but as personal experience. This is the old righteousness and the old religion made new.
When we say that Jesus is the soul of the New Testament, we have no reference to perplexing questions about how He came or how He went. We mean that the God-filled Jesus is the soul of all the New Testament teachings. The pure, strong Son of God is the lodestone of the Gospels and the Epistles. It is He that draws honest souls into divine fellowship with the Father and His family. To see the character of Jesus in its most lovely aspects, and to feel His love that heals and transforms, is to receive the very best that the New Testament has to give.