We left Israel having discovered Achan and his sin, and it doesn’t end well for Achan:

Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? GOD will now trouble you. Today!” And all Israel stoned him—burned him with fire and stoned him with stones. They piled a huge pile of stones over him. It’s still there. (Joshua 7.25 – 26, MSG)

“It’s still there.” A memorial. In this case, a negative memorial – don’t be like Achan! God is into memorials. Look at this specific instruction after they crossed the Jordan River:

When the whole nation was finally across, GOD spoke to Joshua: “Select twelve men from the people, a man from each tribe, and tell them, ‘From right here, the middle of the Jordan where the feet of the priests are standing firm, take twelve stones. Carry them across with you and set them down in the place where you camp tonight.’ ” Joshua called out the twelve men whom he selected from the People of Israel, one man from each tribe. Joshua directed them, “Cross to the middle of the Jordan and take your place in front of the Chest of GOD, your God. Each of you heft a stone to your shoulder, a stone for each of the tribes of the People of Israel, so you’ll have something later to mark the occasion. When your children ask you, ‘What are these stones to you?’ you’ll say, ‘The flow of the Jordan was stopped in front of the Chest of the Covenant of GOD as it crossed the Jordan—stopped in its tracks. These stones are a permanent memorial for the People of Israel.’ ” (Joshua 4.1 – 7, MSG)

We see it again after the destruction of Ai (see Joshua 8 for the whole story):

Joshua didn’t lower his outstretched javelin until the sacred destruction of Ai and all its people was completed. Israel did get to take the livestock and loot left in the city; GOD’s instructions to Joshua allowed for that. Joshua burned Ai to the ground. A “heap” of nothing forever, a “no-place”—go see for yourself. He hanged the king of Ai from a tree. At evening, with the sun going down, Joshua ordered the corpse cut down. They dumped it at the entrance to the city and piled it high with stones—you can go see that also. (Joshua 8.26 – 29, MSG)

“Go see for yourself…you can go see that also.”

We could do a better job with memorials, remembering and communicating what God has done, not just remembering, for example, what Jesus taught.

I have an idea how we could do that…stay tuned.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11.23 – 25, ESV, emphasis mine)

As is often the case, right after a huge win, there’s a devastating loss. It sometimes happens when teams take their opponent too lightly as Israel did with the city of Ai:

Then the People of Israel violated the holy curse. Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of the cursed things. GOD became angry with the People of Israel. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai (The Ruin), which is near Beth Aven just east of Bethel. He instructed them, “Go up and spy out the land.” The men went up and spied out Ai. They returned to Joshua and reported, “Don’t bother sending a lot of people—two or three thousand men are enough to defeat Ai. Don’t wear out the whole army; there aren’t that many people there.” So three thousand men went up—and then fled in defeat before the men of Ai! (Joshua 7.1 – 4, MSG)

There were really two problems here. One is that Achan had taken things during the battle of Jericho. The other is that Joshua and his spies apparently thought that the Jericho victory was a result of their great prowess in battle. Hence, “two or three thousand men are enough.”

They hadn’t yet learned the lesson that if God wasn’t fighting with and for them, a million men wouldn’t be enough, and if God were with them, the warrior count would be irrelevant (see, for example, the story of Gideon.).

AFTER the defeat, Joshua prays, and God responds:

Get up. Why are you groveling? Israel has sinned: They’ve broken the covenant I commanded them; they’ve taken forbidden plunder—stolen and then covered up the theft, squirreling it away with their own stuff. The People of Israel can no longer look their enemies in the eye—they themselves are plunder. I can’t continue with you if you don’t rid yourselves of the cursed things. (Joshua 7.10 – 12, MSG)

And, of course, Achan is discovered, and he offers this timeless recipe for sin:

Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath. (Joshua 7.20, 21, ESV)

That will preach:

• I saw
• I coveted
• I took
• I hid

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1.14, 15, ESV)

Do you know who gets more press in the Jericho story than anyone? Remember Rahab the prostitute from Joshua 2?

The spies promised to protect her:

“Now promise me by GOD. I showed you mercy; now show my family mercy. And give me some tangible proof, a guarantee of life for my father and mother, my brothers and sisters—everyone connected with my family. Save our souls from death!” “Our lives for yours!” said the men. “But don’t tell anyone our business. When GOD turns this land over to us, we’ll do right by you in loyal mercy.” She lowered them down out a window with a rope because her house was on the city wall to the outside. (Joshua 2.12 – 15, MSG)

And the “tangible proof” turned out to be the rope (a red rope, it says in verse 17). Rahab was to gather her family into her house and hang the red rope outside. Safety in the house with the red rope. Death outside the house. It makes for a nice picture of salvation through the blood of Jesus.

But it’s not just a metaphor. It happened:

Joshua ordered the two men who had spied out the land, “Enter the house of the harlot and rescue the woman and everyone connected with her, just as you promised her.” So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father, mother, and brothers—everyone connected with her. They got the whole family out and gave them a place outside the camp of Israel. But they burned down the city and everything in it, except for the gold and silver and the bronze and iron vessels—all that they put in the treasury of GOD’s house. But Joshua let Rahab the harlot live—Rahab and her father’s household and everyone connected to her. She is still alive and well in Israel because she hid the agents whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. (Joshua 6.22 – 25, MSG)

“She is still alive and well in Israel…”

“Rahab the harlot” – isn’t it interesting that the Bible doesn’t gloss over her or her former profession? Rather than ignore her, she is highlighted in the New Testament three times, of which I had remembered only two.

• She’s in the genealogy of Jesus

Salmon had Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Boaz had Obed (Ruth was the mother), Obed had Jesse, Jesse had David, and David became king. (Matthew 1.5, 6, MSG)

• She’s cited in the Faith Hall of Fame chapter:

By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. (Hebrews 11.31, ESV)

• And, like Abraham, she’s held up as an example of faith AND works:

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (James 2.24 – 25, ESV)

I couldn’t have told you that Rahab was in James 2. I’ve read it hundreds of times without focusing on her. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon on James 2 that mentioned her. God delights in having all kinds of people in his great Story even if “we good Christian people” would rather ignore some of them.

Seth Godin wrote a compelling Martin Luther King Day blog back in 2020 talking about “trillions of tiny acts,” what we’ve been calling here: Holy Moments. Here’s some of what Seth said.

We’ve been sold on the idea that difficult tasks ought to be left to heroes, often from somewhere far away or from long ago. That it’s up to them, whoever ‘them’ is.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Theodore Parker: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” But it’s not bending itself. And it’s not waiting for someone from away to bend it either.

It’s on us…Even when it’s difficult. Even when it’s inconvenient. Our culture is the result of a trillion tiny acts, taken by billions of people, every day…

Sometimes it takes a hero like Dr. King to wake us up and remind us of how much power we actually have.

And now it’s our turn. It always has been. – Seth Godin, January 20, 2020, some emphasis mine

Dr. King, a pastor, understood that church attendance alone wouldn’t get it done, and he often quoted from Amos:

Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5.23, 24, ESV)

Jesus said:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5.13 – 16, ESV)

(Adapted from The Ewellogy, January 20, 2020)

Back to Joshua, we have the first conquest, Jericho in Joshua 6. And speaking of turn-by-turn directions that don’t make sense, how’s this?

GOD spoke to Joshua, “Look sharp now. I’ve already given Jericho to you, along with its king and its elite forces. Here’s what you are to do: March around the city, all your soldiers. Circle the city once. Repeat this for six days. Have seven priests carry seven ram’s horn trumpets in front of the Chest. On the seventh day march around the city seven times, the priests blowing away on the trumpets. And then, a long blast on the ram’s horn—when you hear that, all the people are to shout at the top of their lungs. The city wall will collapse at once. All the people are to enter, every man straight on in.” (Joshua 6.2 – 5, MSG)

And it happened. They marched around the wall for six days, and on the seventh day:

The priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the blast of the trumpets, they gave a thunderclap shout. The wall fell at once. The people rushed straight into the city and took it. (Joshua 6.20, MSG)

“Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, and the Walls Came Tumblin’ Down” Click to hear a short version by Acappella in rehearsal. Only one minute. I also recorded it with trumpet virtuoso Kyle Gregory. Click here and play the second track.

It’s a great story, opening the campaign to capture the promised land with a bang. But there’s more. Stay tuned.

Strength! Courage! You are going to lead this people to inherit the land that I promised to give their ancestors. (Joshua 1.6, MSG)

Last week June and I went to Pennsylvania for the memorial service of a friend, and we got an exercise in faith and following.

The plan was to land at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI), rent a car, and drive a short distance to meet some friends for dinner. No problem…until I couldn’t get my phone to bring up GPS. How can there be no signal at a major airport!? I pulled around and walked up to the Avis counter to ask for a map. Remember those? The agent practically laughed at me. I logged onto a network in the rental car facility, pulled up the directions, took some screenshots, and walked back to the car, where, inexplicably, the signal I picked up in the building remained and we made our dinner meeting. That was Adventure #1. No GPS = nothing to follow, not a good thing.

But following GPS isn’t always easy either. Adventure #2 was more interesting. It’s after dinner. It’s dark, of course, and we’re heading to the Hampton Inn between Mt Joy and Lancaster. Take I-83 to York, then start heading east on US 30. No problem…until GPS started us over the river and through the woods on back roads. Prospect Road, Eby Chiques Road, Maibach Lane, really? We are on a wild goose chase, until, magically, up pops the Hampton Inn.

A look at the map explains what happened. It’s as if the GPS lady said, “Do you want to stay on main roads, or do you want to get to your hotel? Then follow me!”

June, especially, likes maps. She likes to see the big picture. Following Jesus, however, is more like GPS, turn-by-turn directions.

Lord, lead me as you promised me you would…tell me clearly what to do, which way to turn. (Psalm 5.8, LB)

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

And after saying this [Jesus] said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21.19, ESV)

Yesterday’s blog was a lesson from the circumcision chapter, Joshua 5. I concluded that faith is greater than ceremony and closed with Paul’s startling declaration:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5.6, ESV)

I love to draw lessons from these Old Testament stories.

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10.11, ESV)

But we always have to be careful. I’m reminded of a fantastic novelized commentary on Philippians, A Distant Presence. (I strongly recommend this book, which unfortunately is difficult to find. It’s possible that The Messenger by the same author contains most of the original content.) One of the best chapters describes the fictitious “Simon the Legalist.” I say fictitious although someone like him was certainly in Philippi, prompting Paul to write:

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh…Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 3.2…19, ESV)

The novel has Simon preaching a sermon on Joshua 5, and his application was that all the Philippian Gentile believers should be circumcised! It would be a reasonable application except that question had already been dealt with.

Before Paul went to Philippi as recorded in Acts 16, there was a meeting in Jerusalem:

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and elders met to consider this question. (Acts 15.5, 6, NIV)

And what was the result of this meeting? James wraps it up:

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. (Acts 15.19 – 20, NIV)

“Not make it difficult.” No circumcision! Our fictitious Simon’s application of Joshua 5 would have been flat wrong. So would our reading the warfare stories coming up in Joshua and concluding that we need to violently do away with the enemies of Christianity today. Jesus was clear:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5.43 – 45, ESV)

And so was Paul: people are not the enemy.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6.12, ESV)

We’ve gotten the Israelites across the Jordan River, and all the nations are afraid of them. At this point, God directs Joshua to circumcise the men. This would be a real act of faith in God’s protection since it would be a few days before they’d be ready to fight! (See Genesis 34.24 – 26)

No mention is made of that problem, but there is this surprising explanation:

This is why Joshua conducted the circumcision. All the males who had left Egypt, the soldiers, had died in the wilderness on the journey out of Egypt. All the people who had come out of Egypt, of course, had been circumcised, but all those born in the wilderness along the way since leaving Egypt had not been. The fact is that the People of Israel had walked through that wilderness for forty years until the entire nation died out, all the men of military age who had come out of Egypt but had disobeyed the call of GOD. GOD vowed that these would never lay eyes on the land GOD had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. But their children had replaced them. These are the ones Joshua circumcised. They had never been circumcised; no one had circumcised them along the way. (Joshua 5.4 – 7, MSG)

This is one of those stories I’ve always breezed through, but going through slowly, I see something very instructive:

Faith is more important than circumcision! I know that most of us don’t practice circumcision as a religious rite, but we do pay a lot of attention to a related rite: baptism (see Colossians 2.11, 12). And we argue about whom we baptize, when we baptize, and how we baptize. I think today’s lesson on circumcision applies.

The ceremony of circumcision was important, important enough for God to direct it. However, let’s think about it:

• They had just crossed the Jordan, a miraculous crossing similar to the Red Sea at the Exodus (see Exodus 14).
• Who crossed the Jordan? The uncircumcised!
• Who did not cross the Jordan? The circumcised!
• What was wrong with the circumcised? Disobedience resulting from lack of faith. (Please see this account of the unbelief recorded in Numbers 13.)

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5.6, ESV)

We’re at the beginning of Joshua and thinking about Strength! Courage! as we go into the world on mission. Chapters 3 and 4 give us the order of operations.

Joshua instructed the priests, “Take up the Chest of the Covenant and step out before the people….When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of GOD, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan’s water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap.”

And that’s what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho. And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot. (Joshua 3.6, 13 – 17, MSG)

Did you see it? Step into the Jordan River and then the flow of water will stop. Not, “Wait until the flow stops and then step in.”

It’s a common mantra for successful salespeople making cold calls:

The fear goes away when you make the call. You don’t wait for the fear to go away before you make the call.

We see the same principle when Jesus healed the ten lepers:

When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. (Luke 17.14, ESV)

“As they went…”

Strength! Courage! You are going to lead this people to inherit the land that I promised to give their ancestors. (Joshua 1.6, MSG)

When I started writing yesterday’s story of the two sets of spies, contrasting one set’s physical report with the other two’s psychological report, I didn’t know it would end up as a call to share the good news with courage.

That message was reinforced by these paragraphs from the December 24 Advent series article from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC.ORG.UK, a ministry I wholeheartedly endorse!):

It’s tough to share our faith in a context where on the one hand, people think they know the bones of it from nativity plays and Christmas cards, and on the other, the highest value is placed on individual choice.

But imagine if no one had told us we could know the God who made us, that we could live forgiven and new lives, and that we could live forever in his loving presence.

Let’s be brave and make sure everyone we know has the chance to accept the gift of a new relationship with God. – Good News Worth Sharing, Jo Swinney, LICC, December 24, 2023, emphasis mine

A good word.

Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night… (Philippians 2.14, 15, MSG)

Strength! Courage! (Joshua 1.6, 9, MSG)