The Book of Jonah - Sunday, March 27, 2022 - 11am Service

In one paragraph

Pastor Stan walked through the entire book of Jonah, four chapters in one sitting, because Jesus had pointed to "the sign of Jonah" the previous week in the Harmony of the Gospels series and the story deserved a fuller look. The sermon tracked Jonah's repeated refusals and God's patient, sometimes darkly comic, response. The central question the book presses on the reader is whether we are...

Read together

1. Jonah 1-4 primary text, walked through the entire book
2. Matthew 12:38-40 Pharisees and scribes demanding a sign, Jesus citing the sign of Jonah
3. Acts 1 disciples casting lots to choose between two candidates to replace Judas
4. Acts 2 Pentecost comes and lots are no longer used to discern God's will
5. Isaiah 6 Isaiah's prayer of repentance, 'I am a man of unclean lips'
6. Luke 5:8 Peter saying 'I am a thoroughly sinful man, get away from me'
7. Psalm 51 David's prayer, 'against you and you only have I sinned'
8. Psalm 139 David's prayer, 'search me, oh God, cleanse me'
9. Psalm 86 compared to Jonah's cry from the fish, 'on my day of trouble I will call out to you'
10. Numbers 6:24-26 Aaron's blessing, 'may the Lord bless and keep you and make his face to shine upon you'

Talk about it

1. The pastor pointed out that Jonah had previously delivered a favorable message to an evil king and turned out to be wrong, while Amos delivered a hard message and turned out to be right. What do you think makes a person willing to deliver a hard word from God rather than a comfortable one?
2. The sailors, who were praying to their own gods, ended up fearing the Lord and making vows to Him after Jonah reluctantly told them the truth about who he was running from. What does it say to you that God used Jonah's disobedience to bring those men to faith?
3. The pastor described Jonah's prayer from the belly of the fish as a pretty weak prayer of repentance, especially compared to prayers like David's in Psalm 51 or Isaiah's cry about unclean lips. Do you think Jonah was genuinely repentant at that point, or just desperate? What is the difference?
4. Jonah's entire message to Nineveh was eight words long, and he seems to have tried to say as little as possible. Yet the whole city, including the king, turned to God. What does that tell you about where the power in evangelism actually comes from?
5. At the end of the book, God asks Jonah whether he has any right to be angry, and Jonah says yes. The pastor suggested we might substitute our own version of Nineveh, whether a political group, a social group, or people we see as enemies of God. Who is your Nineveh, and what does Jonah's story say to you about how God views those people?