SESSION 1 Jonah - Judson Press

SESSION 1 • MARCH 7, 2010 Daily Bible
Readings
Jonah WEEK 1:
MISSION
Called to Serve TO THE
COMMUNITY
SCRIPTURE: Jonah 1:1-3; 3:1-9 March 1

KEY VERSE: The people of Nineveh believed God; they pro- (monday)
claimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on
sackcloth. (Jonah 3:5) Obedience to
God’s Call

Matthew
21:28-32

God Calls Jonah to Service March 2
† JONAH 1:1-3
1Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, (tuesday)
2“Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it;
for their wickedness has come up before me.” 3But Jonah set No Prophet
out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went among Us
down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid
his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away Psalm 74
from the presence of the Lord.
March 3
Jonah’s Difficult Mission
We know of the prophet Jonah only from one verse in 2 (wednesday)
Kings 14:25. He brought God’s word in counsel to King
Jeroboam II of the northern kingdom of Israel during a A Trustworthy
time of conflict with the neighboring kingdom of Syria Prophet
( Jeroboam II reigned from 793-753 b.c.). In the book
of Jonah, however, we find Jonah charged with a differ- 1 Samuel
ent task: to go to Nineveh to “cry out against” the great 3:10-21
city because of their wickedness. This was an unenviable
calling. March 4

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. The Assyrian (thursday)
empire dominated the ancient near east for more than
two hundred years. During that time Assyria was a threat A Prophet’s
Visions

Numbers
12:3-9

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to Israel, and at various points Israel fell under the direct control of the
Assyrians. Assyria was a ruthless and violent empire, and Nineveh, the
seat of power of the empire, came to represent the ruthlessness of this
enemy of the people of God. At the time of Jonah Nineveh was an ex-
pansive and populous city, by ancient standards.

So, here was Jonah’s charged mission: go to that enormous city, the
seat of power of Israel’s ruthless enemy, as a lone foreigner from a small
vassal state, and proclaim doom upon the city.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• How would you have felt, if you were in Jonah’s place, about this
assignment?

• How would you expect the people of Nineveh to react to Jonah’s
message?

• How do you feel about Jonah’s reluctance to embark on the task
God had assigned to him?

Jonah’s Response
God commanded Jonah to travel to Nineveh, which was approximate-
ly 500 miles northeast of Jonah’s home. Instead, Jonah went directly
southwest to the port city of Joppa, and then boarded a ship bound for
Tarshish (present-day Spain), which was nearly 2,000 miles due west.
How would you describe Jonah’s response to the command of God?

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• Is it possible to physically go to a place that is beyond God’s pres-
ence? Why or why not?

• In what way can we understand Jonah’s actions as “going away from
the presence of God?”

A Challenging Interpretation of the Book of Jonah
Speaking about the word of God that came to Jonah, theologian
Jacques Ellul says, “When the word intervenes in a situation, it changes
that situation. When it comes on a man, it changes that man even if he
refuses to listen. This goes beyond mere obedience. The word enlists a
man into an adventure.”1
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Ellul is saying that when God commissions a person to Daily Bible
be part of God’s action in the world, it is not something Readings
that just happens alongside of God’s relationship with WEEK 1:
that person—it is the heart of God’s relationship with that MISSION
person. It is not possible to ignore such a commission and TO THE
simply continue in relationship with God. When God COMMUNITY
calls an individual to mission it is a serious matter. To at- March 5
tempt to reject that calling is to try to sever one’s relation-
ship with God. (friday)

Does Jonah’s situation relate at all to yours? A Prophet’s
Words
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
Deuteronomy
• Do you feel that God has called you to be part of 18:15-22
God’s work in the world? If so, what has God called
you to do? March 6

• Have you ever responded in a way that resembles Jo- (saturday)
nah’s response? If so, how?
A Prophet’s
Good News in the Book of Jonah Prayer
† JONAH 3:1-9
1The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, Jonah 2:1-9
2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the
message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, March 7
according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceed-
ingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go (sunday)
into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days
more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5And the people of A Prophet’s
Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, Commission
great and small, put on sackcloth.
Jonah 1:1-3;
6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from 3:1-9
his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth,
and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or
animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not
feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals
shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily

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to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their
hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his
fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• Why do you think Jonah answered the commission from God the
second time around? Did the task become any easier, or any less chal-
lenging? Why or why not?

• Are you surprised at the way the people of Nineveh and the King of
Nineveh responded to Jonah’s message? What do you find surprising?

Jonah is Given a Second Chance
God’s series of actions to dramatically intervene against Jonah’s flight
led to a second chance for Jonah to accept his calling. In essence, God
reset the relationship, which Jonah tried so willfully to sever, and gave
Jonah another chance to choose to remain in relationship.

It is reasonable to wonder at this point what would have happened
had Jonah chosen to flee once again. Having no more patience, would
God have cast off Jonah once and for all? Or would God have per-
sisted in thwarting Jonah’s flight once again, returning the command
once again? Of course we cannot answer this question definitively, and
that is a good thing. The book of Jonah makes it clear that God’s com-
mand for people to join in God’s mission is serious, and it is not easily
brushed aside. If we ever stand before the command we stand before
the persistent and serious will of God.

Thank God that we are given opportunities to answer the commis-
sion God has given to us, to enter into the exciting work of God’s heal-
ing, reconciling, redeeming, and saving work in the world.

A New Way to Think about Evangelism
I spent five years of my ministry on the regional staff of the Philadel-
phia Baptist Association. One part of my ministry was to work with
churches to help them to create, revive, or strengthen their evangelism
ministries. This was a really challenging task because many people in
our churches today are intimidated by the thought of “doing evange-
lism.” People find it to be a frightening or daunting task.
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As I worked with churches I came to under- Many people
stand that the reason for this fear of evangelism in our
is that we live with some very limiting “mental- churches
models” for what evangelism is. We think of
evangelism in terms of Billy Graham Crusade
stadium-filling grand oratory, or the confronta- today are
tional street-evangelist, or the “cold-call” evange- intimidated
list who is willing to confront perfect strangers.
Perhaps the most damaging mental-model is by the
that evangelism is trying to convince someone thought
of “doing
of something he or she doesn’t want to hear— evangelism.”
evangelism as antagonism. No wonder we are
frightened by it! Most of us don’t have the per-
sonal charisma of Billy Graham, or the unflappable courage of the street
evangelist. So how are we to answer the calling of the Great Commis-
sion? Like Jonah, we may feel that this task is simply beyond us.
It is time we widened our understanding of what it means to “do
evangelism.” Brian McLaren writes, “What if one of the best ways for
God to get through to those of us who have lost our way is via the kind-
ness and influence of those others who have been brought back to a
good path? . . . And what if you and I, who begin as wandering and con-
fused people, could be so helped by our caring God-sent and love-filled
friends that we could join them as messengers of grace, carriers of good
news, secret-agent angels, case studies in God’s power to change, enrich,
fill, and rescue lives that were being wasted, ruined, self-sabotaged.”2
What a great new definition of what it means to be an evangelist!
Evangelists are:

God-Sent and Love-Filled Friends
• Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” We are to go

filled with love. Evangelism is about loving, not antagonizing.
• We go as friends—evangelism is rooted in relationship. We may not

know how to be Billy Graham, but we know how to be a friend.

Messengers of Grace
• We have been commanded to offer one thing—grace!

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Carriers of Good News
• We go to proclaim good news, not bad news!
• It is not difficult to make people feel bad about themselves. The trick

is to convince them that they are loved—really loved!
Secret Agent Angels
• We are sent out to be the flesh and blood touch of God’s salvation in

Jesus Christ. We get to be the hands, feet, tears, hugs, feeding, and
soothing that puts flesh onto God’s actions of salvation!
• We do this by “showing up” in the real moments of people’s lives,
with the quiet actions of grace, and we can trust the Spirit to do the
work in people’s hearts.
Case Studies in God’s Power
• You don’t have to be perfect to do evangelism! You just have to show
what God has done for you, and is doing for you.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• How do you feel about the challenge of doing evangelism when you
think of it in these terms? Does it sound more like something you
can think of doing, and for which you feel equipped? Explain.

• Can you think of times when you have related to people in ways
that are described above? Did you think of that as evangelism at the
time? Do you recognize it as evangelism now? Explain.

• If you think of evangelism in terms of Brian McLaren’s definition,
can you think of at least one way you can be involved in evangelism
in the next week?

NOTES
1. Jacques Ellul, The Judgment of Jonah, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), 22.
2. Brian D. McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 13.

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