Tag: Joshua

Posted in Advent devotions

A spy, a witness, and salvation

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I like watching movies and reading books about spies. I’m fascinated by the way they blend into a community or corporation, earn the trust of many, and gain access to information that benefits their country.

When Joshua sends spies into Jericho, they find their way to the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She hides them and helps them escape after receiving the promise that she would survive the Israelite conquest of the city. When the walls come down and Israel wins it’s first contest in the promised land, she and her family are preserved.

According to Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, Rahab is mentioned in the family tree of Jesus the Messiah. Unknown to everyone, including her, she became a part of God’s plan of salvation.

I like to spy on people. What I mean is, I like to sit and eavesdrop on conversations at Starbucks or Panera. I admit to glancing at people’s phones to see who they are texting. I’ve watched a few people tap out their PIN when they checkout. I’m not much of a spy. But I enjoy watching and listening to people.

I believe that if we just watch and listen closely, we’ll see or hear an opportunity to communicate God’s love in some way. We’ll help, we’ll listen, or we’ll be able to share a story about our faith and our God.

I love to think of myself as a spy from God, infiltrating a world in which many don’t know him. It makes everyday an adventure or a mission. I’m sneaking behind enemy lines with mercy, love, or hope that some have never experienced. Isn’t that cool?

Anyway, Rahab is a great example of how anyone can be grafted into God’s people. The scarlet thread hanging from her window was her subtle confession of faith in the God whose power and love was greater than anything she had witnessed before. “The Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (Joshua 2:11).

Rahab gets an ornament on the Jesse Tree for her willingness to help the spies from Israel and her confession of faith in the one true God.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

You have to make a choice

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 24.

I used to hear these words all the time: “We know there are many airlines to choose from, so thank you for choosing [our airline].” Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. Or maybe there was commotion from passengers wrestling carry on bags from the overhead compartment. Most of the time, I can’t even understand what the flight attendant is saying over the intercom. It just seems like I don’t hear that any more.

It’s crazy how many choices are available to us. How many makes of automobiles can we choose from? One source I checked reported over a hundred. My grocery store has a whole aisle devoted to nothing but different kinds of cereal. Running shoes? There are endless manufacturers and models. Milk? Why buy it from a cow when you can buy milk made from soy, almonds, oats, cashews, peas, coconut, flax, or rice?

So, life is filled with choices. Every day we have to choose whether we will fear, love, and trust the one true God or some other god we have manufactured. Joshua put it this way:

“Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

What’s it going to be, folks? Those Egyptian gods you left when God brought you out of bondage? The local Canaanite gods worshiped in the land God brought you to? Or will it be the One who delivered you, provided for you, protected you, and led you to this time and place?

This choice is not just an intellectual exercise. Your choice will guide your actions. If you choose the one true God (and I’m thinking that most of my readers will be in that camp), you choose to do what he commands and avoid what he forbids. It means you’ll be kind, generous, forgiving, and merciful. It means you’ll tell the truth, obey civil law, and love your neighbor. It means you’ll keep your word, take care of your health, and clean up your language.

Don’t answer too quickly. Who will you choose to serve, obey, and worship? Are you sure? Final answer?

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

The day the sun stood still

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Patrick on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 10.

Ever have a day that seemed to go on forever?

Maybe it was a travel day, when you had delays, cancelled flights, and endless lines. It took you a whole day (or more) to get home.

Some of the days when hurricanes were coming through seemed to go on and on. The power was out and the storm was in no hurry to move along. The night seems even longer as the wind howls and you wonder what just hit the roof.

Or you’re sitting in the hospital waiting. You’re waiting for the surgeon to come out and tell you how the procedure went. Or you’re waiting for the baby to be born. Or you’re in the emergency room, waiting for lab results. The time seems to pass so slowly.

When I was growing up, the one-hour drive to my grandmother’s house on the other side of Philadelphia seemed so long. The 1-1/2 hour drive to the Jersey shore seemed to take a day and a half.

Our perception of time doesn’t actually change a time period. Only God can do that. He only does it a couple of times in scripture. One of those times is when Joshua fights an alliance of kings who have attacked Gibeon. In the account, Joshua asks the Lord to slow down time so Israel can avenge their enemies. God does just that. In fact,

“The sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies…The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hurry to go down for about a whole day” (Joshua 10:13).

The Day the Sun Stood Still by Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, and Robert Silverberg is a collection of three science fiction novellas that explore that day. How would the world react if that actually happened? What would be the effect on religious, political, and personal life?

I read this book a long time ago. Having remembered the title, I need to go back and read this again! When I do, I promise to update this post.

There are moments when we wish time would speed up. Like when you’re hungry and it’t still hours till supper. There are others times when we wish we could slow time down and enjoy the moment a little longer. Like those times when our children grow up so quickly.

Are you someone who has plenty of time? Or not enough time? Ironically, we’ve all got the same amount of time, twenty-four hours, every day.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

The walls came down

Posted on by William Douthwaite

People are screaming, “Why didn’t you write about Jericho?” Relax. Here’s a “through the bible” devotion from Jericho 6.

There are lots of walls in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As we drove from the airport to our guest house, every home that could be lived in was enclosed in an eight-foot tall wall topped by shards of broken glass. Heavy iron doors were the only way in and out, and you had to call ahead of time so someone on the inside would open them.

Safe? Secure? Not really. All it took was a moment, a 7.0 earthquake, and many of those walls, gates, and homes fell into piles of rubble.

Jericho looked secure from the inside and the outside (Joshua 6:1). Safe? Secure? Not really. Not after seven laps around the city, when the priests blew the trumpets, the armed men shouted, and “the wall fell down flat” (6:20). A well-timed earthquake? A sonic-wave of destructive proportions? Who knows? The earth shook at Mount Sinai and at Jesus’s temporary tomb. The sound of many waters and loud thunder accompanies God’s presence. If the Lord can raise the dead with a cry of command and the sound of a trumpet (1 Thessalonians 4:16), then a few city walls are a cinch.

The fall of Jericho is Israel’s first victory in the promised land. They marched. They blew ram’s horn trumpets. They shouted. But God did the heavy lifting. He brought down the walls. Is there a lesson there for us? We go (to all nations), we lift up our voices and play our instruments in worship, and God “gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Fake ID

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Lydia Matzal on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 9.

How does the world know you are who your are? Much of the time, a driver’s license is adequate ID. Sometimes you need a second form, like a passport. My phone and computer need my fingerprint. Some phones take a look at your face. Some websites make me answer security questions.

Apparently, fake IDs are still a thing. I read that one third of college students have used a fake ID to get into a bar. But that’s not new. Joshua encounters people with fake IDs as Israel fights to take possession of Canaan.

It was so obvious. These poor people have been on the road forever. All of their supplies are used up and worn out. They aren’t a threat. They aren’t on God’s most wanted list. They aren’t Hittites, Perizzites, or any of the other enemy “-ites” God told you to be wary of.

“The men of Israel…did not ask for the counsel of the Lord” (Joshua 9:14). Instead, they made a covenant with the people of Gibeon, who deceived them by dressing up like worn and weary travelers from far away. It was their form of a fake ID.

This account implies that Joshua should have asked God for advice. As hard as it is to accept, there’s really only one person (I know, God’s not a person, but you know what I mean) you can trust. He is faithful and true, and in fact, he embodies the truth. You better do a deeper dive with everyone else.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

One bad apple

Posted on by William Douthwaite
I wonder how the neighbors feel living next to this?

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 7.

My wife and I drove down many streets in various neighborhoods looking for a lot on which to build a house twenty-eight year ago. We liked a few lots on one street but decided not to build there because of one house on the corner.

Irrigation left brown stains on the side of the house. The circular driveway was moldy. The lawn was more weeds than grass. We crossed that street off our list of possibilities because of that one poorly maintained house. In hindsight, we made a wise choice. Lots of people built houses on that street since then. But cars parked in the circular driveway haven’t moved in years. And the first thing you notice: irrigation stains on the walls and driveway.

One person can ruin it for everybody.

After routing and destroying the city of Jericho, Joshua is confident of victory against Ai. So everyone is puzzled when they lose. But one person, Aachan, took some plunder from Jericho and hid it in his tent (Joshua 7:20). But God had told them to destroy everything. Aachan’s personal sin ruins it for everyone. Israel has disobeyed God and violated the covenant.

One stupid driver gets in a wreck and now everyone is stuck in traffic. You went to work with a cold instead of staying home to rest. Now everyone in the office is coughing and sneezing. One person steals something from a store, and now a whole display is under lock and key.

Perhaps sin isn’t as private and personal as we like to think. If it affects a whole family, community, or even a nation, take it seriously and pursue God’s grace and forgiveness.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

The day the manna stopped

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 5.

A whole generation has grown up in a world with smart phones. Apple sold the first iPhone in 2007, so anyone born after that has never seen a world without the pocket technology we use every single day.

Manna kept a nation alive for forty years. God faithfully gave his people this daily bread, just as he promised. A whole generation grew up on manna. They never knew life without it.

Then one day, the manna stopped.

“The manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land” (Joshua 5:12)

They would never eat manna again.

I wonder if anyone would miss it. Before long, I am sure folks would be telling stories of the manna they ate when they were kids. Just like we talk about foods we ate growing up you can’t get anymore. Like Swanson’s TV dinners, Carnation breakfast bars, Hunt’s Snack Pack pudding cups, Jello pudding pops, and Bazooka bubble gum.

No more manna? The good news is that the produce of a land filled with milk and honey was amazing.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Who’s side are you on, anyway?

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 5.

I listen with interest as people try to get Jesus to take sides. Some of the faithful will slot Jesus as a liberal. Others label him conservative. Partisan politics plays tug-of-war with Jesus, trying to pull him over to their side. Capitalist or socialist? It depends on who you talk to. Protestant or Catholic? Since he was Jewish, I guess that doesn’t work.

It’s easy to take the words of Romans 8:31 “If God is for us, who can be against us?” to assume that God is on my side. That is, he’s behind me and supports my cause.

When Joshua encounters a man with a sword in Joshua 5:13, he naturally asks, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” Friend or foe? A threat or an ally? Are we fighting each other or fighting side-by-side?

The man answers, “No.” He goes on to explain, “I am the commander of the army of the Lord” (5:14). Suddenly, Joshua’s question is irrelevant. Falling to the ground, he worships. The commander says, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy” (v15). This is Joshua’s burning bush moment. He’s in the presence of the Lord.

The question becomes, “Who’s side are you on, Joshua?” Not long before this, in Deuteronomy, Moses laid outlined blessings and curses, encouraging the people to choose life, to love the Lord your God, obey his voice, and hold fast to him (Deuteronomy 30:19,20).

Jesus doesn’t take sides. He calls us to be on his side.

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Turning obstacles into opportunities

Posted on by William Douthwaite

A “through the bible” devotion from Joshua 3.

We thought it was cool in the 1960s. On the starship Enterprise, you just walked up to a door and it opened automatically.

Now we take it for granted. I walk up to the door of the supermarket and it opens automatically for me. I get a little miffed if I have to open the door for myself at a store that hasn’t stepped into the 21st century.

Turns out it’s not really a new idea at all. Poised on the banks of the Jordan, God told the priests to dip a toe in and the river would stop flowing. And it did.

“When the feet of the priests carrying the ark stepped down into the edge of the water… then the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap… and all Israel crossed on dry ground (Joshua 3:15-17).

God loves to do that. He loves to turn obstacles into opportunities. He feeds crowds, stills storms, rolls stones aside, and demonstrates his faithfulness and power over and over again.