My niece told me that when she traveled to France with her family on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, she was shocked to discover that she could not even order off the menu in French restaurants.
That was after studying French in high school for three years. She knew most of the words, but she had never practiced speaking French in a real-life restaurant.
Unfortunately, this experience is all too common as high school language education programs are often lacking in the actual response that includes real-life conversation to apply what has been learned!
Nothing teaches the idea of “response” more clearly than language learning.
Foreign language acquisition is all about response—the putting into practice what has been learned, bringing about the transformation from one language to another.
The best language learning programs are very informal and often short on formal elements, but they are long on response.
We experienced that when our three-year-old daughter gained Polish language fluency in about eighteen months and progressed to native speaker status without a single class, lecture, book, or formal teaching.
She was three years old when she started learning Polish and by the time she was five, she spoke like a native Polish child. Meanwhile, Marla and I spent thousands of dollars on school tuition, books, tutoring, and other formal language experiences—all important, but short on response activities.
When we finally enrolled in a program called LAMP (Language Acquisition Made Practical), the focus was on application and responding by actually speaking Polish in our community in various settings.
All the head knowledge in the world regarding Polish didn’t matter if you couldn’t speak the language with others.
Response is the key! Response is the final element we will examine in the Jonah narrative.
Response
As noted, the book begins with God calling Jonah to travel to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and deliver a message of imminent judgment.
Jonah, in fear, responds to that calling in disobedience and attempts to flee by ship to Tarshish, in the opposite direction from Nineveh. This is the wrong response and sets up the drama of chapters one and two.
For our purposes, we need not review the details of the two chapters but can note the emphasis that God places on the “response.”
We can identify two aspects of God’s concern regarding the “response” of his servant Jonah:
- There was a right and wrong way to respond to God and Jonah chooses the wrong response. Jonah had the opportunity to choose the response of obedient faith but instead, he chose to flee.
- God creates two opportunities for Jonah to reconsider and choose the right response. The first is the great storm that overcomes the failing ship and the second is the great fish that swallows Jonah. Although both are cataclysmic, particularly being swallowed and inside a fish, neither is fatal. In both cases, Jonah has the opportunity to reconsider and choose the right response. Fortunately for Jonah, he does just that and chapter three begins with Jonah obeying God’s initial calling. He proceeds to Nineveh with the message of doom.
Clearly, God is not simply satisfied with Jonah having some head knowledge but is rather focused on Jonah's responding.
If we see this story as a kind of teaching lesson led by God for Jonah, there is a strong emphasis on Jonah’s response. This continues as the story reaches its climax.
When Jonah preaches the message in Nineveh, it leads to a spiritual revival expressed in their repentance and God’s mercy and forgiveness.
This causes Jonah endless distress and leads to a discussion between God and Jonah. This discussion theme was examined in last week’s blog.
The discussion is not for the purpose of getting Jonah’s thinking aligned with God’s. The dialogue is not about Jonah acquiring some new head knowledge to supplant his bad doctrine.
The goal of the discussion and in fact, the goal of the entire four chapters, is to move Jonah to respond as God would. The key to this understanding is the question posed in Jonah 4:11….” Should I not be concerned?”
Again, we can make two observations:
- This is the only book in the Bible to end with a question. This stands out as a unique and purposeful literary feature that invites not only Jonah’s response but the reader’s as well.
- The question is rhetorical and rather than inviting an answer, it invites a response. It is obvious that we should be concerned, and that concern should be expressed in action. God acted as a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (4:2). God is not simply asking Jonah to agree with Him, He is asking Jonah to respond as God would.
God is concerned about all who are lost from Him. Our response is to join Him in expressing that concern in grace, compassion, and patient love.
This is the point of the entire book of Jonah. It is not about thinking correctly and agreeing with God, it is about that and responding by joining God.
This is the final and crucial element of a life-changing children’s ministry. As we have examined over the last few weeks, God teaches Jonah using relationship, experience, truth, and discussion.
God’s ultimate goal is that there be a response. So, it should be in our children’s ministry. We build relationships, teach the truth of God’s word using experiential methods, and then discuss that Word and the real-life application with children—all moving towards the goal of children responding to God and His Word.
Like Jonah, they may choose a poor response or even no response at all. However, like God, we will not stop giving children the opportunity to respond in a manner that leads to life transformation and living as God intends.
Children’s workers should not be satisfied with head knowledge or even saying the “right” things. We are creating opportunities for children to respond to God and His Word and experience more of the life He intends for them.
This coming weekend, make sure that your teaching includes a practical response activity that gives boys and girls the opportunity to act on what they have learned and to experience the life transformation that God intends for us all.