Engage

If you’ve heard the story of Jonah, you probably think about a huge fish before you think about someone facing their enemies. 

That big fish is the part of the story that shows up in all the pictures of Jonah. And it’s a really important part of Jonah’s story. But there is a lot more to Jonah’s story than this fish.

In fact, Jonah’s story invites us to think about God and our enemies in some ways that may be just as surprising as a fish swallowing a grown man to rescue him from the sea.

In this week’s video we’ll discover there are four parts to Jonah’s story – and they connect to the big story of the Bible in very interesting ways.

As we watch, listen for the following: 

• how the video describes the book of Jonah
• what is unique about the characters in Jonah
• the question Jonah wants us to ask

After watching the video, use the following questions to discuss the video with your family. Read the text aloud. Whenever you reach a bolded question, pause to let your family respond. Comprehensive responses are provided in brackets. You can use them to prompt members for responses or read them aloud. 

Conversation Guide

Give students the Jonah worksheet and read the following aloud. Questions and instructions are bolded.

Find the circle near the top of the page. This circle is our map of the Bible. Each slice of the circle is a scroll or book of the Bible. The scrolls and books are also grouped in sections. Each section has a special purpose. The pink slices are the Torah. The purple slices are the Prophets (Nevi’im). The small black line shows us where Jonah is on the map. It’s part of the last scroll of the Prophets.

On the inside of this circle, draw or write what you want to remember about Jonah. (If students are struggling to come up with ideas, you may suggest they copy the Big Idea of Jonah).

Next, notice where Jonah fits in our Storyline. It takes place after David was king and before the exiles to Assyria and Babylon. 

What does your worksheet say the big idea of Jonah is? [The subversive story of a rebellious prophet who hates God for loving his enemies.]

In Jonah, no one acts the way we think they would act, so it surprises us and makes us think about God is different ways.

We’ll see the words Yahweh, great, down, arise/arose, sea, and evil many times in the book of Jonah. These words are important to how we think about the story, so we want to start paying attention to them even before we begin reading it (in upcoming lessons). In this translation, you’ll see Yonah instead of Jonah. This is how we say Jonah in Hebrew.

Choose one color for each of these words and find and color them in each of the verses on your worksheet. 

Ask students to file this page in the Nevi’im section of their Bible Binder.