Emmaus Chapter 8 – Mike Baran
Grasping God’s Word – Chapter 8

Assignment 8-1
Acts 1:7-8 Surrounding Context
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples at different times over a period of forty days telling them about the soon-coming kingdom of God. He instructed them to wait in Jerusalem for
the day of Pentecost when they would be “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Of course, given what the Jews erroneously understood about the coming of the Messiah (the return of the theocratic rule of God), the disciples continued to think that this coming kingdom would be associated with the restoration of Israel’s national kingdom rule such that they would be freed from Roman rule. When they asked Jesus if the time had come for the restoration of “the kingdom to Israel,” Jesus deftly sidestepped that question and, rather, left them with a commission to be his witnesses in the world; witnesses not just in Israel and neighbouring Samaria, but also throughout the world.

1 Corinthians 11:27-32 Surrounding Context
On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus sat down with his disciples for what was his last supper with them and explained to them why he was washing their feet and what the bread and wine symbolized, namely, his soon to be sacrificially broken body and shed blood. The Corinthian Christians were observing this Eucharistic ordinance of bread and wine, which was left by Jesus for all Christians to observe into the future. It was being done as an introduction to a communal agape meal in order to periodically remember Christ’s broken body and shed blood that redeemed humanity from bondage to sin and ratified the New Covenant promises of salvation and eternal life to all of God’s people. However, the Corinthians were apparently not observing these occasions with due respect for each other and for the emblems of Christ’s broken body and shed blood. Paul therefore wrote to the Corinthians criticising them for their lack of respect and decorum when
coming together as a church community to take these emblems of bread and wine during their agape meals and instructed them in how they should behave during these community observances. Jesus himself had instructed Paul as to what these emblems of bread and wine represented, and so Paul was in a position to also accurately instruct the Corinthians about them and how they should go about observing these sacred occasions – “in a worthy manner.”



Assignment 8-2
The Book of Jonah
1.  The story in the book of Jonah is chronologically progressive and straightforward. In a general way the book can be divided into the following major sections or themes:
1) Jonah’s commission and disobedience (1:1-3).
2) The storm at sea (1:4-9).
3) Jonah thrown into the sea (1:10-17).
4) Jonah’s prayer and deliverance (2:1-10).
5) Jonah preaches at Nineveh (3:1-4).
6) The people of Nineveh believe (3:5-10).
7) Jonah’s anger and God’s kindness (4:1-11).


2.  Jonah 1:1-3. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh with a message for the people from God but
Jonah declined and decided to escape elsewhere.
2


Johan 1:4-9. The ship carrying Johan experienced a great storm and there was a fear of the ship foundering. The superstitious sailors cast lots to determine on whose account the ship was in peril. The lot fell to Jonah who admitted his sin and that he was trying to flee from God.
Jonah 1:10-17. In order to save the ship and its crew, Jonah had the crew throw him overboard where he was swallowed by a great fish in whose belly he survived three days and three nights.
Jonah 2:1-10. Jonah offered a prayer of repentance while in the fish’s belly and the fish
vomited out Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah 3:1-4. God recommissioned Jonah to go and preach the original warning message to the people of Nineveh and this time Jonah did as he was asked.
Jonah 3:5-10. The king and the people of Nineveh repented of their evil ways. They prayed
to God for forgiveness and put on sackcloth as a sign of their repentance. God heard the nation’s prayers and repented from the punishment that he had planned to send on Nineveh. Jonah 4:1-11. Jonah was angry that God had not carried out his intended punishment on the people of Nineveh, suggesting that God had not been truthful about what he intended to do
to Nineveh. Jonah became rather despondent and demoralised by God’s change of mind and wanted to die. Even so, he went out of the city and sat moping in a booth waiting to see what, if anything, would become of the city. God caused a plant to grow and provide Jonah with shade from the hot sun. Jonah was glad to have the plant giving him shade but during the night a worm attacked the plant and by morning it had withered. With the plant gone, Jonah suffered from the hot sun and the hot and humid wind that had sprung up, to the point where he again wanted to die. However, this gave God an opportunity to provide Jonah with a valuable lesson: Jonah was concerned for the plant and missed having it for shade, a plant which grew quickly and just as quickly disappeared. This in itself was not wrong on Jonah’s part, but Jonah was reminded that his concern should include the people of Nineveh who were of greater value in God’s sight than a plant because even cattle, which were more like the plant than humans, were also covered with sackcloth as a sign of the nation’s repentance
and so were spared the suffering which would otherwise have fallen on them and upon all of unrepentant Nineveh.

3. “13Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” 15So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.” (Jonah 1:13-16).
Jonah 1:13-16 relates to the surrounding context in the following way: Jonah thought that he could run away from God and avoid fulfilling the commission given to him by God. Once his fellow sailors realised that the storm was God ordained, they too thought they
could oppose God’s will and avoid the effects of the storm by rowing the boat to the nearest land rather than tossing Jonah overboard. It is only when both Jonah and the sailors realised that they could not succeed in their endeavours, and so oppose the will of God, that they humbly submitted to the will of God and so survived their individual ordeals.

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