Promise and Provision | Week 12 (HP)

Promise and Provision | Week 13 (HP)

Often when we study scripture it is easy to fall into the temptation of wanting to quickly “skip or skim over” the chapters that are made up of lists. These lists could be a list of covenant commandments, a list of family members or as we see in our passage this week, a summarized list of conquered kings. But if we humble ourselves to the study of God’s word, we will come to realize the depth and magnitude that these lists can speak to us regarding the character of God our Father.

Promise and Provision | Week 12 (HP)

The question before us centers on why we should care about these narratives in Joshua. Aren’t they just bedtime stories we read to our children? 1 Corinthians 10:11 tells us why the historical books in both the Old Testament and New Testament are so important. “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction.” The narratives that we read are all lessons that we are to learn from those who went before us. As we read about the victories of God’s people, our faith is increased knowing that God will do the same for us. He will give us victory over our enemies.

Promise and Provision | Week 11 (HP)

While Israel lived like He had commanded, God took the Israelites' meager force, listened to Joshua and the Israelites, and worked a mighty victory with them. God likes to work with us, even though he does not need us. He holds victory in his hands, but, like a good father, he likes to act with his children. The Lord of the sun and all of creation even bends nature’s laws that he put into place at the beginning of the universe’s natural processes. He is not limited by the time set for a day, but he can, if he wishes, lengthen or shorten them. The Lord lengthened the day to punish the kings of Canaan’s evils, but he shortened the time of the sun’s shining when he punished his son in our place. Adoni-Zedek and his coalition could be defeated by spears and hail, but human sin needed a more personal touch to plunge sin’s darkness into the sea of Christ’s light.

Promise and Provision | Week 10 (HP)

One thing to keep in mind as we read through Joshua is that the Lord is carrying out his judgment on the people in the land. Sometimes God uses man as his sword, but he is more than capable of carrying out his offensives without us. The focus of this passage is not on the martial might of Israel calling in the heavenly artillery by summoning a deity to fight for them. The Lord himself throws hailstones down on the Amorites, and most of the fallen were from his hand, not Israel’s. Whatever the Amorites did, it must have been pretty bad for God to make fresh stones just for their stoning. His ways are higher, and his knowledge is greater than ours. We must trust His righteousness in that time, also the text itself says that “there has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.” This makes it clear that ascribing something this clear-cut of God’s “smiting” of a people is something that we can’t do in our modern context.

Promise and Provision | Week 9 (HP)

In Joshua 9 the Nation of Israel continues its conquest of the land of Canaan. They are fresh off victories in Jericho and Ai so the Canaanites know that they have a target on their backs. Therefore they decide to band together as one to fight Joshua and Israel. Enter the Gibeonites (the Hivites). Gibeon was a town about 6 miles northwest of Jerusalem, in modern-day El-Jib. The Gibeonites knew that the Israelites had defeated Jericho and Ai and decided to act cunningly to see if they could get Israel to make a peace treaty (covenant) with them. The Gibeonites became actors in their own play and pretended to come from a foreign land. They had all the right props…moldy bread, worn-out wineskins, patched sandals, and tattered clothing.