The beginnings of Joshua.
Tuesday, March 20 - Day 32 of Lent.
In the hope of getting something from a random Bible book selection today, I opened up to Joshua, by chance, and honestly regretted my selection when I saw how many chapters the book of Joshua has. It’s late, you see, and I was hoping to sleep soon.
Alas, I said I would read whatever page I happened to open. So here goes.
The book of Joshua starts with Moses having died, and God naming Joshua as his ‘successor’ of sorts. The Lord promises Joshua that as long as he follows the Word of God, and keeps it safe, He will give Joshua and the Israelites everything that He promised to Abraham all those years ago. He must cross the Jordan, which he does.
What catches my eye in the first paragraph is a verse that provides a nice segway between yesterday’s Titus and today’s Joshua (my blog posts). When God is initially talking to Joshua, and instructing him to lead His people, He says:
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.
The ‘Book of Law’ presumably refers to Gods laws made for mankind through His servant Moses (Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus). This was the indisputable Word of God for people living at that time, and they were required to study it “day and night” to know their faith and their Father. Well, I mean, Joshua was perhaps the only one directectly told to, but we can assume this is a worthy message for all of God’s children. Given that we see this same message so many times in the Bible (Study scripture! Know it by heart!), it simply cannot be overlooked. Studying God’s “laws” is not only what we should do, but it brings peace to the heart, and unity to Christians as a whole.
Moving on. Something that strikes me about the Old Testament every time that I read it, is how ruthless God was, and how easily people followed His ruthless commands, and how clear these commands were. God just came down and was like, “Hey, here’s exactly what I want you to do.” These days, we are lucky if we hear God speak to us once in our lives! I suppose it can’t be that easy for us, cause we have it a lot easier than the Old Testament folk in many ways. For example, we don’t have to cross barren desserts and ‘possess’ entire lands by slaughtering their populations.
In general, the difference between the two Testaments is stark. The factor, of course, is Jesus Christ. That is why the main message in the NT is LOVE; and why we didn’t feel much LOVE in the OT. The OT God is a much ‘scarier’ God. But he was the same God. He was just, I dunno, dealing with a different crowd. He was being harsh so that he could create his new Eden, and for land to be perfect, He had to eliminate the sin that already resided there.
I will love to get all the answers to this stuff one day, please God. I wonder if we will be able to look down on these events from Heaven after we die. How cool would it be to see events like the parting of the Red Sea, Noah’s ark, the Passover actually happening in its real time.
This is what happens when I attempt to write late at night. Hey, that rhymes!
Here’s a thought worth pondering: If God wanted such perfection for His new Eden that he asked Joshua to slaughter the previous inhabitants of the land who were living in sin, this should tell us the level of perfection that is required for man to dwell with God anywhere. Our loving father wants us to be with Him, but His justice will prevail. The thought of how easily God disposed of the sinners in this chapter sends shivers down my spine. We need to be perfect to dwell with Him. Otherwise, books such as Joshua give us reason to believe that we will suffer the same fate as the poor ol’ pre-inhabitants of the Promised Land!
The OT is effective always in whipping us back into shape, hey?
