Unlikely Heroes Jonah

By Justin Allison

7/19/13

Read 1:1-3 Now what is the problem here? Surely none of us have ever ran from something God

asked us to do?

Read 1:12-17 What affect did this have on the sailors? Did Jonah intend it? Was God using him?

Read Chapter 3 When God spoke what did he say? Did he give details? Did God change his mind or his

mission for Jonah?

Was Jonah effective in his mission?

Did he use a long eloquent speech? Do we have to?

Who really did the work in this story?

Read Chapter 4 Jonah had a model attitude right?

In verse 10 and 11 God speaks. What do we learn about God from this?

Looking ahead to Acts 10:23-24, 34 – What happened again at Joppa? Who is God’s

good news for?

In this story we can see events work together to get Jonah to Nineveh, and we know that

God’s plan was to get him to Nineveh. What if Jonah ran away, and never followed

God’s command – would that change God’s will or plan?

When storms come our way, how can we look at them from a divine perspective? What

should we ask from God in them?

The ship with its pagan sailors can be compared to the world as it struggles for survival

with its conflicting ideas. What does this say to us if we consider Jonah to be a picture of

a sleeping church?

Thinking of Chapter 3, In today’s western society it is considered a good thing to have a

private faith so long as it is kept under wraps. It is looked upon with suspicion if it

ventures out into the world all around us. What does this passage say about such an

approach?1

1 Paul Mackrell, Opening up Jonah, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One

Publications, 2007), 42. also p34 for the previous 2 questions.

Look at Mark 4:35–41 and compare the reaction of the disciples after the Lord had

calmed the storm to the reaction of the sailors in Jonah 1:16. Why do you think there was

this reaction when you might expect the serenity of a still evening’s sunset to descend

upon them?2

In many ways Jonah was the most successful prophet of the Old Testament. He preached

and people were saved. He was also an exception to the general rule Stephen referred to

in Acts 7:52. The irony is that he would have preferred to be like most of the other

prophets whose call to repent and turn to the Lord was rejected and whose prophecies of

impending judgement were fulfilled. What does this say about measuring God’s servants

by the success or failure they encounter?3

Consider the poor and compromised example of obedience and service that Jonah set

before the sailors. Yet they were still drawn to the God Jonah purported to serve.4 – think

of Shane Hipps idea that the church is the medium and the message.

Area of our lives where we run from God, and ignore his call to repentence?

2 Paul Mackrell, Opening up Jonah, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One

Publications, 2007), 50. 3 Paul Mackrell, Opening up Jonah, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One

Publications, 2007), 50. 4 Paul Mackrell, Opening up Jonah, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One

Publications, 2007), 50.