Well taught.
Jonah 1:11-16 (NKJV)
Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous.
And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.”
Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore they cried out to the LORD and said, “We pray, O LORD, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O LORD, have done as it pleased You.” So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the LORD and took vows.
Why did the other men have to throw Jonah into the sea? Why didn’t he just jump overboard?
Because that would have erased a perfectly teachable moment.
Notice that Jonah’s shipmates end up totally converted. “Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the LORD and took vows.” The vows are especially impressive. Think about how this came about.
For starters, Jonah had been totally real with his sailing buddies. Though we don’t know the whole backstory, verse 10 gives us the essence. For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. There was no phoniness with Jonah.
Then he gets the sailors involved in a way that rivets their attention. Making them throw him into the sea, instead of jumping in himself, seems silly, but it’s clever psychology. The fear and stress of this process freezes the event in their memories. They won’t just remember what happened; they’ll remember how they felt. And then the sea ceased from its raging.
The genius of Jonah’s method is that it’s designed to stick. The sailors have had a conversion experience they’ll never shake. Normally, it’s not all that hard to explain away the end of a storm as a coincidence, even if the timing was perfect. After a few years, doubts are bound to creep in.
But not this time.
It’s easy to think we can’t evangelize the way Jonah did because we can’t plan on having a spectacular miracle back us up.
But every conversion involves a miracle. No one can come to Christ on their own. To convert someone, you don’t need some big miracle to get their attention.
You need a big miracle to open their hearts.
All the weekly study guides, which include all five devotionals plus related questions for discussion or meditation, are available for download here:
https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies
The Job book is on Amazon and is eligible for Amazon Prime. The Kindle edition will be out soon.
https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Purposes-Lesson-God-Job/dp/1684719534
