Tag Archives: Israelites

God’s People, part 25: Joshua

Read Joshua 1

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come.” (Hebrews 4:8 NLT)

When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.

JoshuaPart 25: Joshua. Joshua is a very strong character in Bible, in fact, he may be one of the strongest. Sure, there is Samson; however, Joshua is displayed with little to no weaknesses, whereas Samson is filled with weaknesses a plenty. But we’ll discuss Samson at a later time. Joshua was the protégé of Moses. He was the son of Nun, born a slave in Egypt before the time of the Exodus.

Almost immediately following their escape from Egypt, selected Joshua to be the leader of a militia group and was put in charge of fighting and defeating the Amalekites in Rephidim (Exodus 17:8-16). Quickly, Joshua became Moses’ right-hand man. It was Joshua, and Joshua alone, who ascended Mount Sinai with Moses to accompany him as he communed with God “face to face” and received God’s vision for the Israelites in the land of Caanan, as well as received The Ten Commandments.

He ended up becoming the leader who took over for Moses, the one who led them to enter into Canaan and conquer the lands from the native peoples inhabiting it. He led with an iron fist, so to speak. He was a general, a warrior, and a conqueror and he had much blood on his hands.

While Joshua was most definitely a person of strong faith, and one who was faithful to God, he also was someone who saw things only in black and white. You were either for him or against him. You were either Hebrew or not Hebrew, which also translated to you were either allowed to live and flourish in the Promised Land, or you were slaughtered and killed. Even when one looks at the story of Rahab, she proved to be for Joshua and the Israelites and so she was spared.

Upon one’s theology and understanding of God rests how one interprets Joshua’s leadership. Joshua believed that he had been appointed by God to take over from Moses, and he was instructed by God to not turn to the right or to the left from Moses’ teachings (Joshua 1:7). What followed was a campaign to ethnically cleasnse all of Canaan and to build a Kingdom of Israel. This involved the raiding of cities, towns and the countryside and resulted the deaths of countless men, women and children.

I am not writing this to debate, one way or the other, as to the reason or the justification for what Joshua and his army did. We live in different times and, no doubt, the Israelites were not going to be able to just knock on the doors of Jericho, expecting a welcoming embrace and gracious hospitality. Joshua was made leader and, in his leadership, he turned his band of nomadic desert wanderers to a unified army that conquered the land it had in its sights. From that land rose judges, kings, queens, prophets and, ultimately, the Messiah.

What I also know is that Jesus is the english transliteration of the Greek word name for Yehoshua, which is the name Joshua in English. In other words, Jesus (which is Greek) really was named Joshua. That is why the author of Hebrews compares Jesus to Joshua…or rather, the two Joshuas. Joshua, son of Nun, brought them into the land of Canaan where they could rest from their wandering in the wilderness, Joshua (aka Jesus) the Christ, brings us into the Kingdom of God.

Unlike Joshua, Jesus didn’t do this by military conquest, but through unconditional love, compassionate grace, and merciful forgiveness. Rather than slaying his enemies, Christ sacrificed himself and was slain by his enemies. Rather than conquering by the sword, Christ conquered THE ENEMY, by loving those who persecuted them even to the point of forgiveness and he conquered death by resurrecting from the dead into true life. One Joshua led to the other, no matter how imperfectly.

To play upon Joshua’s own advice, we need to choose this day whom we serve. Will we serve a black and white mentality? Will we serve the imperfect Joshua who conquered by the sword? Or will we serve the Joshua who died because he loved instead of hated, who rose so that we might rise to life in him, and who calls us to conquer evil through unconditional love and divine grace? Choose this day whom you serve.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.” – William Blake

PRAYER
Lord, remind me daily that I am a servant of love. Let love be my ultimate campaign. Amen.

God’s People, part 23: Moses

Read Numbers 20:2-13

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
Then the LORD said to Moses, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have now allowed you to see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land.” (Deuteronomy 34:4 NLT)

When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.

charlton-heston-as-moses-in-the-ten-commandmentsPart 23: Moses. We all know Moses, right? Or, we all think we know Moses. He’s that guy who had a really tall stature, with a flowing white beard. He grew up a prince of Egypt until he murdered someone. Then, fearing for his life, Moses fled Egypt and settled out in Midian where he married Zipporah (if we even remember her name), the daughter of Jethro (aka Reuel), and tended to the sheep of his wife’s father.

It is there that he came “face to face” with God in a burning bush, went back to Egypt along with his brother Aaron, and demanded that Pharoah let God’s people go. After refusing to do so several times, God sent the angel of death to take all of the first born sons of Egypt, including Pharaoh’s son. Finally, the pharaoh relented and allowed the slaves to leave Egypt. But that only lasted so long, and Pharaoh ended up chasing the Hebrew slaves out to the red sea. Moses parted it and, as the Egyptians were giving them chase through the sea, Moses sent the waves crashing down on them when the Hebrews made it to the other side.

The rest is history right? The Hebrew slaves made it to Mount Sinai where Moses climbed up and received the two stone tablets carring the commandments of God. The Hebrews chose to make a golden calf as they were worried Moses had died up there, since he had been gone for so long. When Moses saw that, he threw the stone tablets at them and the earth swallowed the wicked people up. Then Moses went back up Mount Sinai to receive a new copy of the Ten Commandments, and all lived happily ever after or something to that effect.

While that summary probably feels very familiar to you, and probably feels very Biblical, it is only part of the story. Moses, as we all are, was a very flawed individual. Most of us think of his flaw being the fact that he murdered someone. The problem with that is that murder is the “unjust” killing of another human being, and Moses was very justified in killing the person he killed. He saw that individual crueling beating a Hebrew slave and he rushed in to stop that from happening. Of course, the Egyptians weren’t happy about that, but we’d be hard pressed to say that Moses was a cold-blooded murderer without just reasons for what he did.

Moses’ flaw was not murder, but was his being such a wish-washy partner in what God was doing. He was literally hot and cold. Some days he was glowing in the radiance of God, other days he was cursing God and complaining about having to take care of God’s people. What’s more, his ego seemingly new no ends. In fact, his sister Miriam and Aaron complained to God about Moses’ claim that he was the ONLY prophet of God. Miriam, herself, had the prophetic voice before Moses even was able to walk and yet her brother seemingly wrote her prophetic gift completely off (Numbers 12:1-15).

Between Moses’ hot and cold leadership, his fiery temper, and his ego we have someone who looks a lot like most of us. When he was on, he was really on; however, when he was off, he was really off. Moses certainly led the Hebrews to freedom and paved their way to the Promised Land. What he did, in that regard, was nothing short of heroic; yet, he also allowed the people to get to him and he allowed his own ego to possess him. In doing so, we find a prophet who sometimes forgot who he was speaking for and why he was called.

It is for that reason, that the Scripture says that Moses was only permitted to see the Promised Land but was not allowed to enter it. While I don’t believe that God literally kept Moses from entering the land that God was delivering them to, it’s clear that his flaws certainly had. I also believe that Moses, in his own self-reflection, understood that it was not his own doing that got them to where they were and that it would not be his own doing that brought them to their final destination. The challenge for us is to, like Moses, be self-reflective enough to see where we have fallen short and how God has provided and come through despite our kicking and screaming along the way. If we can do that, we can at least behold the glory of God before we depart from this life and leave our legacy to those who follow us.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something.

PRAYER
Lord, help me to silence my ego that I might see and allow you to be. Amen.