Here’s a new (for me) observation from Joshua, read in the context of Jesus always seeming to defy Jewish tradition. This is from the famous Jericho story:

Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD. And the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD walked on, and they blew the trumpets continually. And the armed men were walking before them, and the rear guard was walking after the ark of the LORD, while the trumpets blew continually. And the second day they marched around the city once, and returned into the camp. So they did for six days. On the seventh day they rose early, at the dawn of day, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. Joshua 6.12 – 15, ESV, emphasis mine)

If they marched around the city for seven consecutive days, one of those days was a Sabbath! This confirms something I’ve always thought: when you’re on mission, you don’t always have to worry about the fine points of the law. Or as they say in the military, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” As described in the book of Numbers, when the people lost their mission to go into the promised land in chapters 13 and 14, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a large part of chapters 15 through 19 is given to laws. For example,

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.” (Numbers 15.37 – 39, ESV)

I guarantee that no one was concerned about tassels when they were conquering the land as described in Joshua. In fact there is no mention of tassels again…except by Jesus in criticizing the Pharisees:

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,… (Matthew 23.5, ESV)

It’s been said that when churches lose sight of the mission, they start arguing about the color of the carpet in the sanctuary.

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2.27, 28, ESV)

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, ESV)