Bible Studies
Mission Bible Study 4: God's Love for All CulturesIsaac Canales
Read Psalms
67.
1. Identify the blessings the Lord wants to bring the nations.
2. Discuss what these blessings would look like if they came to your culture.
3. Consider how these blessings would affect some other nation in the world (say, the former Soviet Union or South Africa).
4. Explain how the psalmist sees the relationship between the blessings on Israel (the "us" of verse 1) and the nations' blessing. In Chapter 1 of Jonah we learn of God's command to Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach. Jonah ran from the Lord, taking a ship in the opposite direction. God brought a storm, and Jonah was thrown overboard to save the ship from God's wrath. To continue the story, read Jonah 1:17-2:10.
5. Some cultures are so reprehensible to us that we would rather see God's judgment upon them than his blessing. This was the problem Jonah had with the Ninevites. They were so corrupt and bloodthirsty that towers of human skulls formed the gateways to their city. In your mind what culture or group would compare to that today? How would you feel if God asked you to go into that culture and tell the people about him?
6. How does Jonah express his sense of God's grace (2:2,6,9)?
Read Jonah 3.
7. How do the Ninevites respond to Jonah's message (vv. 5-9)?
8. How does God respond to their repentance (v. 10)?
Read Jonah 4.
9. Why is Jonah "displeased" and "angry" (vv. 1-3)?
10. Normally to call God "gracious and compassionate" means that we want to praise him. Why does Jonah seem to resent God's compassion in verse 2?
11. How does God respond to Jonah's anger (w.9)?
12. What is God's lesson through the vine (vv. 6-11)?
13. Response: Write a sentence thanking God for his compassion for the nations. Close by praying through these sentences as a group.
Mission Bible Study 1: An Affair of the Heart
Mission Bible Study 2: Wholesome Care
Mission Bible Study 3: The Creation of Culture
Mission Bible Study 5: Competent to Minister
Mission Bible Study 6: Spiritual Armor
Taken from Multi-Ethnicity by Isaac Canales. © 1990 by Isaac Canales. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515.
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