Joshua 2 - Rahab the prosititute

Two spies were sent into Jericho. Somehow or other the king of Jericho heard about it, and even knew where they had gone. So the king sent a message to Rahab telling her to give the men up.

However, Rahab did not do this. Hebrews tells us that this was an act of faith, she saw that God was with the Israelites. The tales of what God had done for the Israelites had spread far and wide, and had persisted through many years (for it was now about forty years since the Red Sea incident). When Jesus came miracles were a key part of His ministry, as they were for the apostles. Presenting the gospel is not just a matter of words, but of actions. And it is not just our actions, but the actions of God Himself.

Rahab made a deal with the Israelite spies and they promised her safety when the invasion came.,

The report the spies gave to Joshua is in marked contrast to the report of the spies on the infamous expedition under Moses. Here they report that the enemy is in fear and trembling, rather than the converse which Moses' spies reported (or at least ten of them did).

Joshua 1:10-18 - The word goes to the people

Having received the word from God Joshua tells the officers to instruct and prepare the people. Following the word there is practical action.

The two and a half tribes that elected to stay on the other side of the Jordan are yet again reminded of their commitment to play their full part in the battle for the land. 

"Until the Lord gives them rest". We tend to think of the word "rest" in terms of not doing something, in terms of taking a break. However, it also means a state where one is free to pursue your goals. So after the sixth day in Genesis 1 where it says God rested, it means that everything was now in order and God could fulfil His purposes. So there would come a time when they had conquered the land and were then able to build the society that God intended for them.

The people respond with absolute commitment, and say they will obey Joshua just as they obeyed Moses. Given their record of frequent rebellions against Moses this isn't much of a promise!

Why do we do this? As humans we have a habit of making promises and commitments, and at the time we usually genuinely mean them, yet later they prove to be worthless. This is a symptom of our fallen condition, and is one that Paul talks about in Romans 7.

Joshua 1:7-9 - Strong and Courageous

Again there is the command to be strong and very courageous. We are to be confident in who we are in Christ. We are not to live as defeated people, but are to live with boldness. We will encounter all sorts of opposition and difficulties, but we are to be courageous in the midst of these times. This does not mean that we will not feel fear, but that we choose to do God's will anyway.

This is not just a matter of attitude. The next command to Joshua is to obey the law. We are to live by God's ways. Living by faith is not a matter of believing anything and seeing it happen, it is a matter of obeying God and seeing it happen. We need to walk in step with the Holy Spirit at all times. Only then will we be successful. See the promise here that we will be successful wherever we go. The blessing of God applies everywhere. 

So Joshua was to keep the Law close to himself, meditating on it, reading it, doing it. We need to apply the same principle to the whole word of God. Read it, ponder it, do it.

Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. How can we do this? Knowing that the Lord will be with us always. Remember that this is part of what Jesus said right at the end of Matthew, I will be with you till the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

Joshua 1:1-6 - Moses is Dead

Joshua had been Moses' assistant for many years, now he was to take over and to lead the people into the Promised Land. "Moses my servant is dead". Joshua had served under Moses for forty years, now he had to act differently, for now he was the leader. Moses was dead, so there could be no waiting for Moses to make decisions. Sometimes we try to live in the present as if circumstances were the same as they were in the past. We need to recognise when circumstances have changed, and to adapt accordingly. 

"Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them - to the Israelites". This highlights some important points about leadership. First, a leader has to take people with him. Secondly the promise is for all the people. Leading is not about fulfilling your own ambitions, it is about God fulfilling His plans for many people through you.

God was giving them all the land, everywhere where they set their feet. In order to take land we need to set our feet in the land. If we do not go somewhere we will never see the fulfillment of God's plans.

God promised to be with Joshua, just as He had been with Moses. So Joshua had to be strong and courageous. So again we see that Joshua needed to do something in order to experience the reality of God's presence.

Joshua - Introduction

The book of Joshua describes the conquest of the land, following on from where Deuteronomy left off. The precise author and date is uncertain, but it is highly likely that whoever wrote it relied heavily on sources direct from Joshua, and it may even have been Joshua himself who wrote much of it.

This is a book of conquest. Godless nations had occupied the land, now they were being ejected. As I mentioned on several occasions when writing on Deuteronomy, we need to remember that these other nations did not follow nice quaint religions. Their religions involved child sacrifice, gross sexual immorality and other detestable practices.  Israel's occupation of the land was dependent upon her adherence to the law of God. 

It is worth remembering that Israel should have been at this point some forty years earlier, she was not because of her sin. Yet the promised occupation was still about to take place. We all do things wrong in life, miss opportunities. Now we should not take this lightly, but we need to be fully aware that our lives and our futures are determined by the grace of God. There is no past failure that blocks us off from God's grace.

3 John 4-14 - Dealing with opposition

John prays a blessing on Gaius. Now verse 2 is beloved of prosperity teachers. Let’s be honest here, mostly they are making far too much of this verse than is merited. Look, the truth is this. God does want the absolute best for us; we are sinners living in a fallen world; we are being redeemed and sanctified; we share together with Christ’s sufferings in the work of building the kingdom. Any teaching needs to take into account all of these. To focus on any one of them to the exclusion of others leads to error. To focus on the blessings at the expense of others will give us a false and distorted view of life. Equally, to focus on suffering and sin part without the blessings will give an equally distorted and wrong view.

Gaius is then thanked for helping John’s workers, and is encouraged to continue doing so. Quite often in the various letters people are encouraged to continue doing good. We need to recognise that it is easy to become weary of doing good, there are times when we get discouraged, so we need to be continually encouraged.

Diotrophes was the bad leader. It is not clear what his exact role was, maybe he assumed a higher status than he actually had. Whatever the case, he was causing trouble, and had rejected John’s letters. He also slandered John and his co-workers. He was also refusing to accept Christian brothers who passed by.  His behaviour was not good, and Gaius is urged to recognise what is good and what is not. He need have no fear that Diotrophes is doing God’s will, for his actions clearly demonstrated that he did not know God.

Conversely, Demetrius is commended for his good works and attitude. John again closes the letter with the desire to see Gaius personally, and then to say a lot more to him.

3 John 1-3 - Problems in Leadership

This was written by John to a church leader called Gaius, and is largely about how to deal with another leader called Diotrophes. So again we see that a New Testament church had real problems, this time with at least one of the leaders acting against Christ. These things should not happen in the church, but sadly from time to time they will happen. So we need love, wisdom and power to deal with them when they do occur.

Why did God put this book in the Bible? Well, partly for the reasons outlined above, namely to give us a reality check and to ensure we do not have any rose-tinted view of what the church is like. Secondly, as I have said before, John is the Apostle of love, his letters deal a lot with love, yet he also instructs Gaius to take firm action. The two need not be in conflict.  There are two extremes we can go to. One is to just focus on “love”, the other is just to deal decisively with all opposition. Neither is right, we need both. The church in Ephesus that received the first letter in Revelation dealt firmly with false teachings, but forgot her first love. In this letter we have the love message tempered with firmness in handling false teachings and bad leaders.