We all know about the fish swallowing Jonah, but there is more in the book including the answers to these questions:
- What about people who haven’t heard the gospel if Jesus is the only way to God?
- What do we do about bad people, or when people treat us badly? What does God expect from us as His followers?
- How should we respond to continuing trials?
Answers to these questions and other related applications are what we will cover in our lesson on Jonah.
In addition, we’ll look at the importance of follow-up after someone becomes a Christian. This is inspired by Jonah because world history at that time could have been very different if Jonah hadn’t stomped off with a bad attitude and had stayed to teach the people of Nineveh after their great national repentance.
But we’ll never know because Jonah didn’t stay and do what he should have done. That is the last we hear of Jonah, but not the last of Nineveh. They return to their evil, aggressive ways and less than 40 years later conquer Israel, and the nation is destroyed.
New believers need follow-up—they need to learn about the God they have trusted for salvation. They need to know His Word and His ways.
The lesson then talks about the importance of follow-up and shares a chart of 5 Assurances of the Disciple of Jesus, a modification of a chart on follow-up that I learned from the Navigator ministry.
With this additional lesson, I’m introducing a series on Discipleship for Bible805, a series of blogs, videos, podcasts, and other materials in addition to going through the Bible in chronological order.
Please sign up for the Bible805 newsletter for notifications of new materials on this topic both for your personal spiritual growth and to use in helping others grow in their spiritual lives.
Following are copies of the chart that illustrates the 5 Assurances of a Disciple of Jesus, the handouts for the lesson, the podcast, and the video. ***ALSO, below is a stand-alone, downloadable PDF of the 5 Assurances for the Disciple of Jesus. A printable page with 2 copies per one-page PDF is part of the handouts PDF.
Are there people who are hopeless?
• Are there people so cruel, so mean there isn’t anything that can be done for them?
• Are there some people we shouldn’t pray for?
• Can we sin so much God gives up on us?
• We find answers to those questions and more in one of the oldest books of prophecy in our Bible in our lesson today……
When people think of the Old Testament prophets, most often two areas come to mind:
Why do you think God has you go through hard times?
What kind of religion pleases God?
In ancient Israel, as now, our calling is to be God’s people, to represent Him, to be His hands and feet in our world.