When we think of the book of Jonah, we don’t usually think of the gospel. Actually, our first thought is usually a thought about Jonah getting swallowed by a fish, and our second thought is about Jonah getting spit out by a fish. Of course, though, the story of Jonah and the fish is really a story of God’s relentless pursuit of sinners.

Last week we posted a blog with quotes from our first free book for those who attend Clarus. Our second book giveaway, compliments of Christian Focus Publishing, is a book about Jonah by Collin Smith, Jonah: Navigating the God Centered Life.

Here’s the book description and an endorsement by Clarus speaker, D.A. Carson:

Facing an assignment equivalent to being sent to warn notorious terrorists of God’s anger with them, perhaps it was no wonder that Jonah ran away – certainly portrayed in Scripture as no “super saint”, he avoided God and His call on his life. Yet God turned the situation around as pagan sailors encountered the living God who made the land and sea and the entire population of a city realised that although they deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth, there was a God of compassion and mercy who forgave them. God’s mercy is greater than our failures and through adverse circumstances and pain, a character of Christ-like compassion is chiselled out.

“Here is a pastor reading the book of Jonah and finding a preacher who wants settled ministry, not challenges; who wants to see his enemies crushed, not converted; who longs for God’s grace in his own life, but not in the lives of others; who knows how to speak God’s words with faithfulness, but who wants to see only the component of judgment worked out in reality; a preacher who is angry and who wants God to be angry too; a man who wallows in self-pity and hates it when God exposes that self-pity for the idolatrous arrogance it is. It is not difficult to see the relevance of such portraits in our own day. And what does it say of God, that he keeps working away at Jonah as he keeps working away at the Ninevites?”

– D. A. Carson

Clarus is a Regional Conference of The Gospel Coalition taking place March 9-11 with speakers D.A. Carson and Fred G. Zaspel. Visit the Clarus page for more information or to register for this year’s conference.