04: The Jonah Saga – Lesson Plan
Key Thought : Relying on our own wisdom and inclinations is a poor way to approach mission. Only through submission to God’s leading can we understand His plan and our role in it..
[Lesson plan for The Jonah Saga July 18-24, 2015]
1. Have a volunteer read 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah 1:1-3.
a. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
b. What do these verses tell us about Jonah – both good and bad?
c. Personal Application: Do we tend to look at the negative aspects of our church leaders too much, or do we excuse them because of the good work they do? Share your thoughts.
d. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “This is like sending a Seventh-day Adventist to a large Jihadist city in the Middle East and asking him to preach to the Muslim extremists to repent or they will be destroyed by Jesus Christ. Who would do such a thing?” How would you respond to your relative?
2. Have a volunteer read Jonah 1:9,14-17.
a. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
b. Jonah admits he is a Hebrew and fears the Creator God, but he is running from God’s call. How did his confession of faith and punishment influence or affect the sailors?
c. Personal Application: What steps can we take to overcome a sense of exclusiveness or self- centeredness in our spiritual lives? Share your thoughts.
d. Case Study: One of your friends states, “So Jonah had converts to the Lord while running away from his call to mission. Some would say it was the Lord’s will that he fled to bring more people into the faith. Just like some people say that the Lord intended for them to be out of the church for a season to be able to witness to people he wouldn’t have otherwise hung around with.” How would you respond to your neighbor?
3. Have a volunteer read Jonah 3:8-10, 4:1.
a. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
b. Why do you think the Ninevites believed the words of Jonah and repented in sackcloth and fasting?
c. Personal Application: Do we tend to be more interested in our own trivial personal interests than the lost souls whom Christ has shed His blood to save? Share your thoughts..
d. Case Study: One of your neighbors states, “How does it feel to know if you are in the right place, doing what God wants you to do? Are you living where God wants you? Are you doing what He has called you to do?” How would you respond to your friend?
4. Have a volunteer read Jonah 4:9-11.
a. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
b. Why did Jonah wish to die because the Ninevites repented and the gourd withered?
c. Personal Application: How can we develop the same love, compassion, and empathy on angry, rebellious, ignorant people that God has for them? Share your thoughts.
d. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.
(Note : “Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.” Ministry of Healing, p. 148)
(6)
i have a question,after Jonah had preached and the people had repented. The bible states that he was angry. Why was he angry instead of being happy that the people had repented?
Jonah was angry because God relented, and said that he would no longer destroy the city because they had heard his warning and repented.
Jonah now thought that he would look like a false prophet. Jonah was upset because he was looking at himself and his reputation as a prophet, because he had predicted the city's destruction and now it wasn't going to happen. Jonah valued his own reputation more than the lives of 120,000 people and the many domesticated animals in the city.
Read Deuteronomy 18:20-22 for some more background to Jonah's thinking.
Subject: Thoughts on Lesson "The Jonah Saga"
I find it interesting that the story of Jonah, one of the best known in the Bible, gets discussed without much critical thinking. It is presented by some Christians and Bible skeptics or non-believers as a simple fable, and the way it is usually told would support this. I was listening to two classes on this lesson and learned in greater detail what the Assyrians were like and the terrifying things they did to others and each other. I can better understanding Jonah’s decision to sail west. What I found interesting were the comments in both classes about the nature of the fish/whale prepared by God to save Jonah, with references to the acid stomach juices and the effect these must have had on Jonah and his appearance once vomited onto the beach. One physician (a pathologist, perhaps) mentioned the change in the hair texture and color that might have occurred [as a result of the low pH]. But we know very little about the “great fish” or whale (mammal) including its esophageal diameter or gastric physiology. We do know that it was special, which raises the question if it was specially created for this mission. There is also no mention of the smell of a man after three days in a marine belly. We know that he prayed, suggesting he was not actually dead or in suspended animation, which also suggests he had adequate ventilation.
But what is usually missed in the story is the geography and time for events to take place. More than one person in the discussions offered suggestions about how Jonah’s appearance must have drawn much attention to him as he entered the great city of Nineveh, his hair almost white (chemically decolorized), etc. A man, arriving on a beach after a God-commanded emesis, what a sight! And he had an amazing story to draw attention to his message. While it was mentioned in class that Nineveh was located in what is now northern Iraq, as the above speculation continued, no one mentioned that Nineveh was nowhere near the Mediterranean Sea. It was about 600 miles inland, on an important commercial crossroads and was huge for its day – 120,000 people and a three-day trek to cross it. The transition between Jonah chapters 2 and 3 fails to provide any details on how Jonah got from the site of his sudden and unusual arrival on dry land. For Jonah to stand up on the beach and then enter the city to start his evangelistic work, it would have required a massive event of projectile vomiting landing him 600 miles away from the great fish. I laughed out loud as I imagined a scene of him flying through the air, yelling all of the way, like a scene from a Monty Python movie.
There are many interesting things to learn from the story, and the distance travelled is not critical. It could have taken Jonah at least a month to travel from the sea coast inland to Nineveh, which is time enough to recover, get cleaned up and lose the emesis smell – if there was any.
Sometimes Christians almost ask for the sneers of non-Christians when we tell Bible stories and events in ways that sound like fables worthy of a children’s audience. We can do better.