Tag: Joshua

Links for today’s readings:

 Read: Joshua 12-13 Listen: (8:18) Read: Ephesians 4 Listen: (3:58)

Scripture Focus: Joshua 13.1

1 When Joshua had grown old, the Lord said to him, “You are now very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over.

Reflection: Set Up For Success

By John Tillman

Nearing the end of his life, Joshua recognized the next generation would have to complete what he started. He would not live long enough to finish what he set out to do.

From one perspective this may seem a human failure or tragedy. But from another perspective it is natural—even good.

Joshua’s mentor, Moses, fell short. Moses could not lead the people into the land and he himself only glimpsed it from a distance. (Deuteronomy 3.27) Joshua took up the mantle to complete Moses’ dream for Israel.

Joshua fell short. He could not take all of the territory and remove all of the sinful idolatry. The people would have to complete the work themselves. The tribes’ leaders would work together to take the remaining land. Then, when future troubles arose, God would raise up leaders to save the people.

As your mentors, teachers, and role models come to the end of careers or their lives, they will fall short. There will be failed projects and dreams that never came to completion. Perhaps you, if God calls you, will take up their mantle to continue the work.

Previous generations always leave behind undone work, unfinished tasks, and unattainted goals. No generation closes their book with every box ticked “complete.” When we pick up the mantle of those who have gone before us, there will always be messes to clean up and unfinished business.

Like Joshua, when we reach the end of our sojourn, we will also fall short. Our hopes for this world’s work must be passed on to those who follow us. Rather than being a tragedy, this may be how God intends his work to pass from generation to generation.

Jesus left work behind for his disciples. He left people to heal, sermons to preach, Centurions to baptize, and dying girls to bring back to life. (Acts 2.14-17; 3.6; 9.39-42; 10.47-48) He left Jerusalem, Samaria, and the rest of the world to be evangelized—a task still passed down to us. (Matthew 28.19-20; Act 1.8)

Jesus left his followers plenty to do and yet, he was able to say, “It is finished” because he completed his Father’s work. (John 17.4) He also empowered his followers with the Holy Spirit to complete their work.

Have you thought about what you are leaving undone that you pray the next generation can finish? How are you preparing them to take over? Are your actions today setting them up for success in the future?

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

You are the  Lord; do not withhold your compassion from me; let your love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever. — Psalm 40.12

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Time to Go

Are we viewing the younger generations…as future leaders? Are we humble enough to step down when God calls us?

Read more: Glimpsing the Promise

Yet, all is not lost…God will be faithful to his purposes for the next generation. God’s grace to us is being able to glimpse it.

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Joshua 11 Listen: (3:52) Read: Ephesians 3 Listen: (2:41)

Scripture Focus: Joshua 11:7-9

7 So Joshua and his whole army came against them suddenly at the Waters of Merom and attacked them, 8 and the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel. … 9 Joshua did to them as the Lord had directed: He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots.

Reflection: Hamstrung Power

By Erin Newton

When we read stories of warfare and violence in the Bible, especially in narratives that depict the events as God-ordained, we should not take the stories too lightly. In fact, I suggest we not read them while gloating or with a sense of prowess. They are troubling; they jolt our senses.

The narratives in Joshua describe the journey of God’s people into an occupied land by means of war. The text says that God commanded them to kill everyone. Scholars have long felt the uneasiness of such a brutal request. Some have downplayed the language as hyperbole.

Others say the conquered locations are military outposts rather than civilized towns. Others focus on the details and compare Israel’s God with the foreign gods.

In a pursuit to understand why the violent texts are preserved as God’s word, William Webb and Gordon Oeste looked at various texts and discovered not a God who delights in death but “a highly reluctant war God who is not exactly eager to participate with Israel in its wars” (Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? Wrestling with Troubling War Texts).

In Joshua 11, God tells Joshua to hamstring the horses and burn the chariots. Webb and Oeste point out, “We might immediately cringe at the maiming of these animals.” I do. My love of nature includes my compassion on all created beings—from the beetles who burrow in my yard to the elusive tigers of Malaysia. Why would God call for harming his creatures?

Ancient Near Eastern cultures increased power and pride through the accumulation of chariots. With these new victories, Israel might try to increase its weaponry. Therefore, the horses are reduced to domestic labor.

Webb and Oeste see a God who “wanted his people to be owners of cattle in a land flowing with milk and honey, not a people whose land was full of war horses and chariots—the instruments of human oppression and domination.” It is God who hamstrings his people’s pride by asking them to debilitate the enemy’s horses and burn their chariots.

Webb and Oeste’s perspective offers another way of balancing the “leave-none-alive” Old Testament texts with the “turn-the-other-cheek” character of God.

We still wrestle with these violent texts and not all questions may ever be answered. But we see a God who disarms his people, stunts their might, and hinders their pride.

Because in our weakness, he is made strong.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse

The Lord is my shepherd and nothing is wanting to me. In green pastures he has settled me. — The Short Breviary

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Horses of Flesh or Spirit

Crises expose what we truly rely on. Comfort dulls our hold on principles and the strength of our convictions.

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Joshua 10 Listen: (7:23)  Read:  Ephesians 2 Listen: (3:04)

Scripture Focus: Joshua 10.22-26

22 Joshua said, “Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me.” 23 So they brought the five kings out of the cave—the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon. 24 When they had brought these kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, “Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks. 25 Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.” 26 Then Joshua put the kings to death and exposed their bodies on five poles, and they were left hanging on the poles until evening.

Reflection: Dethroning Kings and Powers

By John Tillman

In 2003, Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground in Iraq, humiliatingly illustrating his fall from power. Three years later, Iraqis convicted Hussein of one of many mass killings from decades of unaccountable brutality, and executed him by hanging.

Across Iraq and the world, people celebrated sang, danced, and cried tears of relief. Victims and families felt a measure of justice. Few mourned Hussein or his brutal regime, even as we mourned the devastation of Iraq required to bring him down.

Like Hussein, five Amorite kings were dragged from a cave where they were hiding from Israel’s army. We aren’t given details of their crimes. We only know that during Abraham’s time, their sin had not “reached its full measure,” but in Joshua’s day, the time of judgment had arrived. (Genesis 15.16)

Joshua had Israelite leaders place their feet on the kings’ necks before he killed them. Kings who spent their lifetimes with their feet on the necks of their subjects and enemies, were treated as they had treated others. For the proud, humiliation is worse than violence and dishonor worse than death.

Knowing these kings were wicked doesn’t make Canaan’s conquest easy reading. Wars and deaths, even when we know the criminality of leaders, peoples, or countries are still tragic. People, wicked or not, suffer, and death is our enemy, not our ally.

From one perspective, Joshua is the story of a king-killer and a god-killer. Just like the plagues of Egypt made theological statements, disarming the gods of Pharaoh, the destruction of Canaanite city states made theological statements, disarming the gods of Canaan’s kings. Joshua was defeating the spiritual powers over the land. Joshua threw down kings but did not take their place. God was the only king or power Israel needed.

We usually don’t mind killing kings when they are wicked. The problem is we want their thrones for ourselves. Like Israel, we want a king “like other nations” (1 Samuel 8.4-7) and we want it to be us. We dethrone sinful despots, then become them. Whether or not there are wicked kings and their gods over us, there are often wicked kings and their idols within us.

The regime change we need is to dethrone the sinful powers in our hearts. We need to drag them out of hiding, where Jesus the seed of Eve will crush their heads under his feet.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.” — Matthew 28.16-20

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Forces and Powers

We don’t resist the world’s powers with worldly weapons or resist demonic powers by attacking humans.

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Joshua 4 Listen: (3:31) Read: Colossians 1 Listen: (4:18)

Scripture Focus: Joshua 4:10, 18

10 Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua…

18 And the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before.

Reflection: Holding Chaos at Bay

By Erin Newton

Standing in the middle of the muddy riverbed, the priests hold the ark of the covenant—the symbolic presence of God—keeping the waters at bay. They are doing none of the withholding. They hold poles; God withholds the raging waters.

I love how the text presents the image of the river crossing. I imagine the waters receding, making a path for God’s people. The priests stand motionless in front of this invisible dam. They are not shouting some magical phrase. Their arms are not outstretched as if to bend the waters to their will. They are not even doing the work of a beaver, piling and weaving limbs and branches to keep the waters back. They stand. They stand next to the presence of God.

When they settle in one place long enough, the priests will busy themselves with other things. They will cleanse and burn and offer and worship and intercede and sacrifice. They will live  in the presence of God. God will keep doing the work of barring chaos from drowning his people. But here, in this place, they just stand.

Doing something feels a lot more productive than standing. We’re told that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” So we, in turn, translate that to “keep busy.” Busyness is godliness, right? Not always.

In the riverbed, these image bearers of God are holding the presence of God. He silently commands the waters, “This far you may come and no farther” (Job 38.11). As priests, they are called to do this specific job. Stand.

And so are we. When God granted all his people to be a priesthood (1 Pet 2.9), he intended for us also to stand in the gap—between humanity and chaos—holding the presence of God. We present the law of love and truth and justice and righteousness to the forces that would bring death and destruction. We stand firm and watch God work.

In Claire Keegan’s novella, Small Things Like These, the main character is abruptly confronted with the suffering of others. His mind is torn between complacency and action. The story ends with a poignant question: “Was there any point in being alive without helping one another?”

In the case of Joshua 4, can we ask ourselves, Is there any point in being alive without standing in the gap, holding space for people to find safety without chaos consuming us all?

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, for in his holy Name we put our trust.
Let your loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, as we have put your trust in you. — Psalm 33.20-22

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Spiritual Markers

Their lives were literally and figuratively rootless. They had never known cultivation or agriculture. They had never known any other life than that of a migrant.

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