HIGHLIGHT: Jonah 3:10-4:11
H
10Then
God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented
from the disaster He had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it.
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But Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. 2He prayed to the Lord:
“Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled
toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God,
slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.
3And now, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4The
Lord asked, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5Jonah
left the city and sat down east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its
shade to see what would happen to the city. 6Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it
grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort. Jonah was greatly
pleased with the plant. 7When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that
attacked the plant, and it withered.
8As
the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much
on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me
to die than to live.”
9Then God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It is right. I’m angry enough to die!”
10So
the Lord said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not
grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. 11Should I not care about the great
city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between
their right and their left, as well as many animals?”
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Kings and Kingdoms, Week of February 5, 2017
LEADER GUIDE
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EXPLAIN
Leaders: Feel free to use any of the “Explain” materials to guide discussion, as it
is needed or to expound on a certain area of the text as it comes up during your Life
Group time, but the purpose of this section is to deepen your own personal
understanding of the Word. Your members have access to all of this material as well.
Jonah is a short book, but a meaty one. It concerns a prophet of the Lord who was given a
Word to deliver to a particularly evil people, so that they might have the opportunity to
repent of their sins and be saved from oncoming destruction. Jonah eventually gets to
them, after taking a dramatic detour, and sees the Lord’s message accepted…and this
fills him with anger. Today we will see how Jonah represents each of us who seek
something other than God's heart, so that we may redirect our focus to Him.
3:10
Some translations have rendered the verb in this “changed His mind,” which
is not a theologically accurate way to understand what God does here. We
know from Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Numbers 22:19, etc. that God does not
change His mind. More accurately, God relents from what He was going to do
if they didn’t repent.
4:1
The word for “anger” here could mean “to be hot about.” Interestingly, God
is about to let him be pretty hot for the purpose of proving a point about Who
He is.
4:2
Because of 4:5, it is difficult to say that Jonah knows that the people in the
city have repented, so it is also difficult to exactly place his anger. One
commentator suggests of his mindset: “Jonah is angry that the whole process
is taking place. He will not be able to convert the Assyrians to a monotheistic
belief in the Lord and has not been instructed to do so. But why should they
be spared for such a superficial ritual, and for that matter, why should they
even be warned?”
Whatever the particulars, what Jonah is struggling with are his preconceived
notions of justice and his own belief of what he thinks God should be like.
How often we do the same! It is important to make the decision every day
between two options: our heart or God’s.
4:6
“Discomfort” here is the exact same word used in 3:10 for “disaster.” This
explicitly links Jonah with the city of Nineveh. The Ninevites have protected
themselves from destruction by their response of humility (even if it is not a
full, deep faith in Yahweh, they have shown repentance); Jonah protects
himself from his discomfort by building a hut. But both of their attempts are
not enough to fully protect them from their respective situations—God acts
with compassion to complete the job for both of them.
4:10,11 God’s rebuke of Jonah’s emotional reaction to the plant was an object lesson
for him and his disregard for the 120,000 spiritually immature people in the
city. Almost as a final blow, God asks Jonah if he could at least feel sorry for
the city’s animals that were hot, starving, and miserable (see 3:8).
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A
APPLY
This guide can be as strict a script or as general a resource as the leader needs it to
be.
1. What stuck out to you or challenged you in what you heard in the sermon or
read in the text?
2. Talk about Jonah’s motivation for running from the Lord. What have you always
believed his motivation to be? Do you sympathize with his reasoning?
Many grew up believing that Jonah was apprehensive about going to Nineveh
because he was unsure about his reception, fearful for his life, scared of looking like
a fool, etc. What Jonah was struggling with, however, is spelled out for us in v.2: he
knew God tended toward compassion. He knew that Nineveh wouldn’t get it totally
right the first time around, but he also understood that God is slow to anger and rich
in love. For any number of reasons, Jonah thought that God should’ve just destroyed
the city and was primarily fearful that God wouldn’t.
3. Read verses 2:8-9. Jonah’s repentance inside of the fish seemed legitimate,
but something seems different in Chapter 4. What idol does Jonah seem to be
clinging to? What idols do you find yourself being drawn back to?
One of the toughest idols to lay down is the idol of self. Jonah’s commitment to his
own ideas of what God should do overshadowed his attitude toward God’s heart. So
many times we have an agenda in mind or thoughts about what we think God should
do that we forget to put ourselves aside and just seek His desires first.
4. How is Jonah’s anger hypocritical, especially considering what all he’s just
been through? What attitudes do you have that may be hypocritical,
considering how much of God’s grace you’ve experienced?
Jonah has just been delivered from death in a pretty extraordinary manner. Chapter
2 is dedicated entirely to his song of praise in that situation. But even though he
received grace and mercy after literally running from God, he has a problem seeing
this city do the same thing.
5. What is a worthless idol that you’re clinging to that you can give up to the
Lord?
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R
RESPOND
Challenge your group to respond either privately or corporately to this question:
• In a few minutes of silence, take stock of the attitudes of your heart. Are they
you-focused or are they God-focused?
• Who is one person God is laying on your heart to reach out to in order to
demonstrate the grace you’ve been shown by Christ?
Encourage one another through email, text messages, or coffee dates throughout the
week to build up and encourage each other.
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