We often assume we know ourselves, but then a moment comes—a choice, a challenge, a crisis—that uncovers how much remains hidden. Psychologists call these our “unknown unknowns,” the parts of us that stay buried until life pulls back the curtain.
Sometimes what we discover is encouraging: untapped strengths, passions, or capacities we didn’t know we had. I experienced this in my own career when unexpected assignments brought out gifts I hadn’t recognized before. Other times, the discoveries are harder to face: blind spots, distorted beliefs, or flaws of character that call for correction or even repentance. Life has a way of holding up a mirror, revealing dimensions of ourselves we didn’t know existed, whether welcome or unwelcome. That was Jonah’s story.
Jonah’s Unknown Unknowns
Jonah was a prophet, a man who served God faithfully and was well-versed in His Word. If anyone should have said “yes” to God, it was Jonah. But then came the assignment: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2).
This was not just another prophetic task. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, Israel’s enemy, known for its violence and unspeakable cruelty. To Jonah, Nineveh represented everything he feared and despised. It was unthinkable that God would give a nation like that a chance to experience His mercy.
Tim Keller, in his book “The Prodigal Prophet,” observes that Jonah’s resistance was not mere disobedience. It was rooted in love—misplaced love: “If love for your country’s interests leads you to exploit people, or in this case to root for an entire class of people to be spiritually lost, then your love for your nation is more than God. That is idolatry by any definition.” Jonah loved his nation more than he loved God’s mercy.
Jonah identified himself first as a Hebrew and then as a worshiper of the Lord. Keller notes this reversal is telling: “Since Jonah identifies himself first ethnically then religiously, we may infer that his ethnicity is foremost in his self-identity.” In other words, Jonah’s nationalism had quietly become his truest loyalty, even more than his relationship with God.
What’s striking is that Jonah didn’t realize this about himself until God’s call forced the issue. He thought he knew his own heart, but this moment uncovered loyalties he had never examined—those “unknown unknowns” that only a crisis can reveal.
So Jonah runs in a futile attempt to escape God’s assignment and presence. His hatred could not allow for the goodness of God. His self-righteousness obscured the extent of his sin. His theology could not reconcile the nature of God—how God could be merciful to evil people and still be just and faithful. In short, Jonah’s carefully constructed worldview collapsed when it collided with the reality of who he was and who God is.
Jonah runs and runs, but God won’t let him go. The storm at sea, the belly of the fish, the vine that withered in the sun: all of these were God’s ways of exposing Jonah’s heart. Jonah thought he was the faithful prophet, the defender of truth. But God revealed the truth: that Jonah would rather die than see his enemies receive mercy. As Keller puts it, Jonah wanted “a God of his own making, a God who simply smites bad [according to Jonah] people.” But the true God is “an enigma” to Jonah—merciful to those Jonah despises and uncompromisingly just at the same time.
When the Church Mirrors Jonah
Jonah’s story is uncomfortably familiar. Like Jonah, many of us assume our loyalty to God is unquestioned, until God’s Word or God’s call reveals how much our loyalties are actually tied to other things: to our nation, our culture, our tribe, or our politics.
Keller warns that Jonah’s “othering” of Nineveh—reducing them to their enemy status until they were dehumanized—is the same temptation we face today. We divide people into categories: insiders and outsiders, legal and illegal, safe and dangerous. In doing so, we forget what the Reformer John Calvin observed: even those “who in themselves deserve nothing but contempt should be treated as if they were the Lord himself, because His image is upon all of them.”
We don’t always see these misplaced loyalties until a situation forces them to the surface. For Jonah, it was God’s compassion for Nineveh. For the church today, it can be policies and practices that test where our loyalties really lie.
Take, for example, the decision to cut USAID funding and to adopt policies that demean or diminish refugees. On the surface, these may seem like mere political or budgetary decisions.
But Keller reminds us: “The biblical command to lift up the poor and to defend the rights of the accused is not an option for believers—it is a moral imperative.” When Christians defend refugee debasement or shrug at the loss of humanitarian aid, we echo Jonah’s objection to God’s ways. And just like Jonah, we risk finding ourselves at odds not with an ideology or policy, but with the heart of God himself.
Scripture is not ambiguous on this point:
- “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
- “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Keller adds, “When Christian believers care more for their own interests and security than for the good and salvation of other races and ethnicities, they are sinning like Jonah.”
The Pull of Political Tribalism
Political tribalism rarely announces itself openly. It seeps in quietly, often under the guise of faithfulness. Like Jonah, we may sincerely believe our indignation is righteous and our convictions biblically justified when, in reality, what we are defending is not God’s kingdom but a cultural or political identity that has taken center stage in our hearts. The more entwined our identity becomes with a party, nation, or ideology, the harder it is to see where loyalty to Christ ends and loyalty to tribe begins.
Keller reminds us that Jonah “had allowed himself to become too aligned politically and emotionally with the national security interests of Israel.” That same danger faces us. When Christians align too closely with any political tribe, we risk baptizing its policies—whether compassionate or cruel—as if they bore God’s signature.
And silence is not neutrality. Keller notes, “Those Christians who try to avoid all political discussions and engagement are essentially casting a vote for the status quo… Not to be political is political.” In the 19th century, churches that stayed silent on slavery thought they were avoiding politics, but they were in fact supporting the injustice of their day.
Learning Jonah’s Lesson
The beauty of Jonah’s story is that it doesn’t end with condemnation but with invitation. God does not abandon Jonah, even when Jonah sulks outside the city, angry that Nineveh has been spared. Instead, God poses a question: “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?”
That is the question God poses to us today. Notwithstanding the policies of our nation, what is God’s perspective? Wouldn’t he have great concern for the well-being of refugees, the illegal, the poor, and the vulnerable? Then, as His Ambassadors, shouldn’t we reflect that same concern in how we speak, vote, and act?
Jonah’s lesson is that our hidden loyalties will be exposed when God’s compassion presses against them. The question is not whether we have unknown unknowns—it’s what we do when God pulls back the curtain and shows them to us. Will we, like Jonah, cling to tribal loyalties, or will we realign our hearts with God’s expansive love, even when it unsettles our politics or disrupts our preferences?
A Call to Recenter
This is not about shaming the church or winning a political argument. It is about remembering who we are and whose we are. Our truest identity is not Republican or Democrat, conservative or progressive, nationalist or globalist. Our truest identity is in Christ, who commands us to love our neighbor, welcome the stranger, and care for the least of these.
Keller writes, “Compassion for the poor is a sign of a living relationship with God and an experience of God’s grace. While it does not initiate God’s favor and acceptance, it is a sure symptom of having experienced his love.”
When we defend policies that harm the vulnerable simply because they come from “our side,” we echo Jonah more than Jesus. But when we embrace God’s mercy even when it stretches us, we embody the kingdom of God.
The curtain will always be pulled back. Our unknown unknowns will always be revealed. The question is whether, when they are, we will allow God to reshape us into people whose loyalties are aligned not with tribe or nation, but with the heart of Christ.