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We are continuing a 6-week sermon series on The Book of Jonah by Eric Mason on RightNow Media. Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets. The book is small in size but it is power-packed to impact your life.

Read Jonah 4: 1-4.

1. Why is Jonah so bitter and angry in today\\u2019s passage? Is his bitterness and anger legitimate?

2. Have you ever been bitter and angry when you thought someone didn\\u2019t receive the punishment they deserved? Why did that make you feel that way?

3. Eric Mason says, \\u201cBitterness corrodes our theology.\\u201d Pastor Mick took it one step further and said, \\u201cBitterness corrodes our souls.\\u201d Do you agree with these quotes? Why/why not? What is it about bitterness that is so corrosive?

4. Jonah reveals in verse 2 the real reason he initially ran and hid from God. What is the reason? Does Jonah\\u2019s reason make sense? Why/why not?

5. How does Jonah describe God in today\\u2019s passage? How has Jonah benefited from these attributes of God? How did the Ninevites benefit? How have you benefited?

6. Are there situations in which anger is an acceptable response? If so, give some examples. How should such anger be expressed?

7. Pastor Mick picks up on how the original Hebrew describes God\\u2019s initial anger toward Nineveh and Jonah\\u2019s anger toward God as \\u201cburning.\\u201d What does it mean for anger to \\u201cburn\\u201d inside of you? What is the impact of that kind of \\u201cburning\\u201d?

8. Read Ephesians 4: 26-27. What does this tell us about anger and how we need to handle it? How can you put this advice into practice in your own life?

Prayer For the Week:
Gracious and loving God, thank you for the grace, mercy and forgiveness you offer to each of us, in spite of all of our sin. Help us, Lord, to be gracious, merciful and forgiving to those who wrong us and harm us. Help us to have appropriate responses to things that anger us. Help us to fight for justice without becoming bitter when things don\\u2019t go the way we desire. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, cleanse our hearts of corrosive bitterness and don\\u2019t allow anger to burn within us. Help us lay the things that threaten to burn within us at the foot of the cross, so that we never give the devil a foothold. We confess that we cannot do any of this on our own. We need you, O Lord. So we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.