Esse Quam Videri
Jonah 1:7-10
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Casting lots was like an ancient game of chance in which the participants believed that the deity would direct the outcome. So, names or stones or figures or whatever might be placed in a bowl and then shaken out, and whatever came out would be the answer. In this case, the lot falls on Jonah.
What’s interesting to me is the way Jonah describes himself, when questioned by the terrified sailors:
“I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
Esse Quam Videri
Esse quam videri is a Latin phrase that means “to be, rather than to seem.” It is about how what really matters is not what we pretend to be, but who we really are, and that our goal should be to be not merely to seem.
Jonah says one thing, but his actions indicate otherwise. In fact, in Jonah 1 it is the sailors who are the God-fearers, not Jonah.
It turns out that Jonah, despite what he says, is very far from being a God-fearing prophet.
Reading through the book of Jonah will cause us to examine our own lives.
“Where is the gap between who I really am and who I pretend to be?”
Where do you need to close the gap between being and seeming today?
P.S. I preached on this topic this past Sunday at Asbury.
