Jonah

On camp this year we're going to have 4 dorm group Bible studies on the book of Jonah. One of our leaders came up with the following headings (from her own brain or from elsewhere, I know not):

Chapter 1 - Run away Jonah / All seeing God

Chapter 2 - Really sorry Jonah / All forgiving God

Chapter 3 - Get it right Jonah / All angry God

Chapter 4 - Really raging Jonah / All loving God

I rather liked them.

New Moses, Better Jonah

Tom Wright points out that John 6 is all about the Exodus. Jesus provides manna in the desert. He is the New Moses (v14; cf. Dt 18:15) leading his people across the river to the promised land in vv16-25 (John For Everyone).

The incident of Jesus walking on the water is also something of the opposite of Jonah story. They throw Jonah overboard and the storm ends; they take Jesus into the boat and the storm ends. Jesus is the Greater Jonah, God’s obedient messenger.

Homegroup Leaders' Notes on Jonah

Here are some notes for 4 studies on the book of Jonah I've prepared for the homegroup leaders at Holy Trinity, Eastbourne.

The studies basically follow the chapter divisions:

Ch. 1: The Disobedient Prophet Shown Up By The Pagan Sailors
Ch. 2: God’s Merciful Rescue of the Repentant Prophet
Ch. 3: God’s Merciful Rescue of the Repentant Ninevites
Ch. 4: The Angry Prophet Shown Up By The Compassionate LORD


And here are a few words of explanation and advice for the study leaders:

Please feel free to use the notes flexibly and adapt them to the needs of your group – missing things out or spending more time on one point as seems appropriate. It’s great if you can do some of your own preparation on the text too. I never find it easy to use other people’s questions! Obviously you’ll need to interact with what people say and not just go through the sheets. Remember that ideally we’re neither pooling our ignorance nor preaching a sermon: we’re aiming to ask questions so that people see the truths of God’s word for themselves and are able to apply them to our lives. I’ve tried to write the questions in blocks so that they build on one another and lead towards the points that the passage is making. Sometimes your group might hit on the point in one leap from just one question, in which case you’ll want to pass over some questions. In other cases you might need to break it down, re-word the questions or point at particular bits of the text. Some of my questions are different ways of getting at the same thing so it might be overkill to use them all. I hope there aren’t too many “guess-what’s-in-my-mind” questions!

Personally I would recommend encouraging your group members to read the text in advance but not giving them these notes before the study as the notes give away the points you’re hoping to discover together from the Bible in the studies.

With the notes in an electronic form you can play around with them, if that’s helpful. For example, perhaps one or two questions given out to group members in advance could work well.

Do remember to make time in the sessions to pray in the light of God’s word.

Please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to talk about any of the studies or anything from Jonah.

I’d appreciate your feedback on the notes and on how the groups go.

With my prayers,

Marc

Salvation Geography & Jonah

Understanding the geography of Jonah 1:1-3 highlights Jonah’s dramatic disobedience. He’s sent to Nineveh in Assyria, 500 miles east of Israel, in what is now northern Iraq. Instead he heads to Joppa, to sail for Tarshish. Joppa was then a Philistine city, the modern city of Tel Aviv on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Tarshish is probably Tartessos in south west Spain. Jonah heads 2000 miles west, virtually the length of the Mediterranean, the span of the known world. Jonah does the opposite of what he’s been told to do. He could hardly get more disobedient if he tried!

There’s a danger of parallelomania, of course, but given that Jonah is reluctantly shown God’s compassion for the gentile Ninevites, it is interesting that Jonah goes to get a ship in Joppa (Jonah 1:3) and Peter is in Joppa (which is named 10 times in Acts 9-11) by the sea when he has his vision and then begins to grasps that “God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:35).

Given the New Testament parallel between Jonah and Jesus (Mt 12:38-41; 16:1-4; Lk 11:29-32) it’s interesting to note that both Jonah and Jesus were prophets from Galillee. Jonah was from Gath-Hepher (Jonah 1:1), a city in the district of Zebulun, 3 miles north east of Nazareth.