Jonah and the Great Fish
You cannot run from God, and God gives second chances.
obediencemercysecond chances Ages 4-6, 6-9, 9-12
The video for this story is in production. The passage below is the whole basis for it.
What happens in Jonah and the Great Fish?
- God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh
- Jonah runs the other way and boards a ship to Tarshish
- A great storm comes and the sailors cast lots
- Jonah is thrown into the sea and the storm stops
- The LORD prepares a great fish that swallows Jonah
- Jonah is in the fish three days and three nights
- Jonah prays and the fish releases him onto dry land
Jonah 1:17
17And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Read Jonah 1:17 free on Streams of Scripture →
Talking about it together
- What happened in Jonah and the Great Fish?
- How do you think the people in this story felt?
- What does this story show us about God?
- When is a time you needed to remember: You cannot run from God, and God gives second chances.
What this story never invents
So the retelling stays honest to the passage, these are ruled out before writing begins:
- depicting Jonah drowning or in distress that reads as death
- inventing what God said beyond the text
- making the fish a comic character that undercuts the story