Jonah was too proud to be taught, so God gives him a task that brings the issue to the surface and then he slowly skims away the dirt. God loves us too deeply to leave us without correction. I am grateful for brothers and sisters who love me enough to speak up when I do something stupid. They are a wonderful gift from God. Treasure the people in your life who love you enough to have tough conversations.

Dishing Out and Taking in Correction
Correction hurts. Even when we speak truthfully, we can go too far, cut too deep, and end up being harmful, not helpful. When we are careless, our words become weapons (Js 3:1-9). On the flip side, misunderstanding the motive when a friend corrects us can sever a decades-long friendship. Pride can stick its fingers in our ears and blocks any noise of rebuke. Giving and receiving correction is dangerous, but needed.
A wise person learns how to deliver and digest correction. Proverbs 9:8 says, “rebuke the wise, and he will love you,” and Proverbs 12:18 says, “the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Watching God correct Jonah is one place to see the wisdom of these proverbs in action.
Watching God Correct
As God corrects Jonah, he uses different tactics. He does not always bring a belt. He uses a variety of strategies. When you expect God to send a different, more obedient prophet, instead, he doubles down on Jonah (Jonah 3:1-4). When you assume God will send another storm, he sits for a conversation (4:1-11). God shows skill and sensitivity with Jonah. God humbles him when he is proud (1-2), exhorts him when he wavers (3:1-4), gently exposes his idols (4:5-11), teaches him when he doubts (4:10-11), and when Jonah despairs God carries him forward (4:9).
His timing, his tone, and his motive are always perfect. His words are a scalpel in the hand of the perfect surgeon. God never cuts in the wrong place or cuts too deep. Every place he cuts, he heals.
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This is just one reason why the church is so precious. As the word of the gospel goes out and gathers believers to Jesus (John 10:16), these new believers form gatherings called churches. In the book Word-Centered Church, Jonathan Leeman says, “A Christian’s new DNA, which he’s received from the Word and Spirit, knows that it now belongs to something larger . . . his new being longs to be gathered to other believers now—on earth” (87). Jesus sets your story in a local church because faith flourishes in fellowship. It would be tragic for us to write ourselves out of the story, watching the flame of our faith slowly fade because we distanced ourselves from fellowship.
Two passages in Hebrews show four reasons fellowship helps us run the race of the Christian life.
Protection Against Hardened Hearts
Soldiers stand guard not only for themselves, but also for their fellow soldiers. Fellow believers likewise guard each other through a word of exhortation. “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb. 3:13–14).
The Saturday night before in-person Sunday services were shut down for us, our youth group was away for our annual retreat. I asked our students to gather in small circles around each youth leader and pray for them. We may assume teenagers today are indifferent towards God and so self-absorbed they don’t think about others. However, these teenagers went without hesitation and covered their leaders in prayer. Seeing a fifteen-year-old put their hand on the shoulder of their fifty-year-old leader, with tears in their eyes, and pray for them is a moment Zoom cannot re-create. I missed moments like this.
Like an army locking shields to protect everyone from enemy arrows, we surround each other with shields of exhortation and prayer. We guard our hearts for Christ in the fellowship of believers.