A lot of people refer to the Bible without looking at it in its entirety or at its historical and sociological context.
This Sunday I gave a lesson on Jonah to some tweenies. This book is very short, just four chapters, and it contains some fantastical elements like most stories that are passed on orally for a long time before being codified.
The long and the short of it is that Jonah receives instruction to leave home, travel to Ninevah in Assyria (modern day Iraq) and tell the people there that they have displeased the God of the Israelites. Given that the Assyrians were a mighty military power at the time and later conquered Israel, this was some ask.
So Noah, as we all would in the circumstances, takes off in the opposite direction, heading for Spain.
What happens next is of no consequence so I'll fast forward - big storm..., sailors panicking..., Jonah draws the short straw..., gets thrown overboard..., gets swallowed by a giant fish..., fish vomits him up three days later (hidden message here) and God tells him once again to preach to the people at Ninevah. So he does. He tells them their city will be destroyed in 40 days (another hidden message) because they are a disgusting bunch of sinners.
But the story has a twist in the tale. The sinners repent and stop doing bad things and after 40 days the city is still standing.
Is Jonah pleased? No way!! He is as mad as Hell. At God for not smiting the sinners.
He gets the sulks and stomps off into the desert where he challenges God to kill him if he's not going to kill the people of Ninevah.
He yells at God. And shakes his fist.
More fantastical happenings concerning a magic tree... and Jonah gets an object lesson from God who reserves the right to forgive whoever He/She wants to and lets Jonah know that it is not up to him to control his Maker.
Now I'm not a serious biblical scholar, nor an ancient historian, but I reckon that for this day and age this is a teaching that we should not assume to know the mind of God concerning the sins of others. As Jesus pointed out some people can't see the immensity of their own sinfulness but are quick to point out lesser sins in others (Matt 7:3)
People who throw verbal and legal stones at homosexuals had better be without sin themselves. (John 8:7)
For this reason I'll stay silent about the sex lives of others.