Joshua 1-10

Joshua 1-10

Taking over for Moses must have
been a daunting task for Joshua. Moses
had laid hands on Joshua and Joshua receives the Spirit which had guided
Moses. It is clear that Joshua receives
the ability to have direct conversations with God as Moses did. The passing on of the Spirit connection of
one prophet to another can be seen in Elijah and Elisha, where Elisha receives
the Spirit of Elijah.

God’s promises to Joshua are the
assurance of victory in battles to come and the assurance that God will never
leave or forsake Joshua. These same
promises are made by Jesus to all who would follow Him when He says “I will be
with you always even unto the end of the age.
While in Joshua’s time God limited this interaction to just one chosen
person, now God has opened this relationship to all who call upon the name of
Jesus. How often have we really looked
for this kind of relationship, not believing it possible, or just not taking
the time needed to have it? Moses,
Joshua, Elijah, and even Jesus spent many hours just focused on the presence of
God.

Joshua is
told to be strong and courageous because God will give him victory in all he
does. Yet in 1:7&8 Joshua is told
that his success and victory is connected with his careful keeping of the Book
of the Law, given to Moses. This would
require two things, first it requires that a Book of the Law exist, and second that
Joshua would have an in-depth knowledge of what the Book of the Law said. It is clear from Joshua 1 that the Pentateuch,
the first five books of the Bible must have been written before Moses died and
Joshua had possession of these books before he started to lead the people. Many people want to make the writing of much of
the Pentateuch to be added at a time after Joshua. Yet Joshua clearly had the writings of Moses
in his possession.

The promise
of success and victory being connected with the keeping of the Book of the Law
is very important to us today. All
through history God has connected obedience and success. God stressed to Moses the keeping to the Ten Commandments
and the Law. Now God stress the same
thing to Joshua. Later Jesus will stress
obedience to God as necessary for being loved by God and for answered prayer. Today we often find that we want the
assurance of success and victory while we live in a lazy fashion with regards
to obedience to God. Also many
Christians would like to leave out the hash judgement of God found in Joshua
1:18. To strike a balance between the
Grace of God and the Judgement of God seems difficult. Yet The God of love is also a God of justice,
the God of judgement is also a God of forgiveness and grace.

The spies
sent out to recon the promise land do not have to travel far for the
information they need. It seems the spies
only make it to Jericho which is some 10 miles into the promised land. There
they discover the fear the people have of them, this stands in contrast to 40
years erlier when the spies sent by Moses painted a grim picture for the
people. Rahab who helped them is told to
place the scarlet cord around her window to mark her home so no one would be
hurt withen it is reminesant of the blood on the door post the night of
Passover in Egypt.

Also
reminiscent of the Exodus is the parting of the Jordan river just as the Red
Sea was parted. The people have a
tangable sign that God is with their leader Joshua as He had been with Moses. The parting of the Jordan River also leaves
no doubt of where it is that God wants the people to go.

When the
people reach Gilgal they do two things the first is the taking on the sign of
Abraham’s people, circumcision. The
second is the celibration of Passover. The
people who left Egypt failed to keep their identity as God’s people by the sign
of obedience, circumcision, or the sign of grace, Passover. It is important for each generation to
embrace their own relationship with God and not leave it to the past or to the
future. Quite often people see faith as
something about their parents lives or something their children need. But a relationship with Jesus is something
which is to be about us today.
Circumcision is a painful process, yet God requires it of the men. I have to wonder if in our own lives today,
God places demands which get often passed off as to radical or fanatical. I think that today there may be actions of
obedience that are just as painful and radical as circumcision was for the men
of Israel.