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Joshua Prep

Joshua 23 & 24

December 11, 2024 • Joshua 23, Joshua 24

A few weeks ago, we took some time to reflect on the ways God has revealed Himself to us in the past, and this week’s focus is somewhat similar. In Joshua 23, much time has passed, and we find ourselves at a point where Joshua knows his time is nearing its end. He wants to solidify Israel’s faith and ensure that he finishes well in his role as their leader. In this chapter, Joshua reminds the people of who God is, emphasizes His promises to Israel, and ensures that they have an accurate understanding and representation of God. In chapter 24, Joshua delivers a long monologue recounting everything God has accomplished—from the exodus from Egypt to the present time. He does this not only to thank God for His works, as we did a few weeks ago, but also to clarify who he means when he refers to God. Joshua makes it clear that God is not defined by what we say about Him but by who He says He is. To add to or take away from God’s attributes or actions is to misrepresent Him. For example, one cannot claim to believe in the Jesus of the Bible while denying that He physically rose from the dead. After clearly defining who God is, Joshua challenges the people to make a choice: not only to believe and trust in God but also to make Him their Lord and serve Him alone. Similarly, we, like the people of Israel, must decide whether we will make Jesus not only our Savior but also our Lord—serving Him exclusively. Please take time to ask the students: Do they understand that being a Christian means more than simply believing the Bible as a set of facts? Encourage them to compare and contrast the difference between merely believing something and becoming a servant of it. Challenge them to go beyond belief and choose to be servants of Jesus Christ.

Joshua 13 & 14

November 13, 2024 • Joshua 13:8–33, Joshua 14

Over the past few weeks, we have been talking about the ways that God has kept his promises and how we can trust him to do so in the future. Here we see a continuation of that theme, and we see how we might have to wait a significant amount of time for God’s fulfilled word. Also, we see that God does not always bless people in the order of their obedience. If you were to go back to when the people of Israel were in the wilderness (Numbers Ch 13-14) Moses sent out twelve spies to spy out the land. Ten of the spies came back and told Moses that they were fearful of the people in the land and did not believe that they could take the land, but there were two spies that believed that they could. The two spies that believed were Caleb and Joshua, who trusted in God’s promise, and are now conversing in chapter 14. Caleb fully believed God and was going to see things through and be true to his word and despite this he ended up being one of the last people to receive the blessing of land. This is something that we might feel uncomfortable with because we normally believe that the people who are the most faithful should be the first to receive blessings. As unfair as we might believe this to be it is something comforting to us. The good things that happen to us are not indicators of our faithfulness to God, because if they were then God hated the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 11:21-29). Therefore, we should look to God’s word as the standard of our obedience to God. This week the main goal will be to encourage the students to continue devoting their lives to God despite seeing others receiving good that they might feel they deserve. God will honor their faithfulness in his way at his timing.

Joshua 12

November 6, 2024 • Joshua 12, Joshua 13:1–7

In C.S. Lewis book “Out of the Silent Planet” he writes about a man traveling to another world and meeting many different peoples and creatures. All the groups that he meets have very unique cultures that the main character finds very different from those of earth. One of these groups sets an age cut off for some of the enjoyable activities they do and the reason for that is very interesting. They say they stop because that is the only way that they could bring about a completion of the joy of doing the activity itself. They believe that it is necessary to look back on and remember good things for the joy of them to be competed. This in a way is what we see here in this chapter. Joshua is looking back at what God has done and the land that he has given the people over the past few years. Likewise, we ought to look back on the good things that God has done in our lives and the lives of others around us and remember them. It is very easy to get caught up in all of life’s troubles so we must have times of reflection where we take account of the victories God has wrought in our lives. Therefore, please set aside time to go through the word doc attached to this lesson.

Joshua 11

October 30, 2024 • Joshua 11

There are places in scripture that don’t seem as significant to us as it would to have been those it was initially written for. For example, if you were to read through the book of Exodus you will see that there are a few chapters where God is instructing them how to build the tabernacle and make their priestly gowns, then later in the book we see a few chapters where they followed through, and it is almost copy and paste of what we previously read. For a modern and casual reader this might seem redundant and arduous, but there is great significance to those passages being there. They show that the people did follow the exact commands of God and therefore the tabernacle is a legitimate place of worship for all who came their even hundreds of years later. It is very much the same here, except the distance between proclamation and fulfillment is much longer. What we should see is that God always been faithful to his word. Here in the book of Joshua we have seen that God is faithful to the people of Israel and fulfilling promises made in the past. When we went through Genisis last year we saw that there was a promise given to Abraham that his descendants would come into the land of Canaan and make it their home. Now almost 500 years later he is doing exactly what he had promised he would do. The people living out the manifested promise of God is what makes these war stories important to read about. These stories are about God being faithful to his promise and making sure that the people of Israel did come into the land that they were promised. Something to have the students do is to reflect on ways that God might have brought to fruition promises or prayers in their lives.

Joshua 10

October 16, 2024 • Joshua 10

In this chapter we see a gruesome battle and slaughter of the people who went against the people allied with the people of God. The fact that they did not directly attack Israel is a great witness to what we have talked about through this book, that God is willing to provide salvation to all who put their faith in Him. The people of Gibeon were a people group were a people dedicated to destruction but they believed in the one true God and out of their desperation they tricked the people of Israel into sparing them. But now it looks like God has a chance to wipe them out with a people and for them to be destroyed just as they were supposed to be in the beginning but that is not what happens. God honors the little faith that they showed and spares them once again, and the same goes for us. No matter how our lives turn out to be if we devote ourselves to God then we can be assured salvation. One of the biggest and most memorable events that takes place is the sun staying in place for about a whole day. Although the fact that it even happened was very impressive what makes it an even bigger deal is at the time there was somewhat trinity of Gods that the Canaanites had, Baal (god of weather and war), Agibol (the God of the moon), and Yarhibol (the God of the sun). God showed himself to be the lord over all the things that the Canaanite gods claimed to be, and he used the sun, moon, and weather to bring judgment to the Canaanites. We should see God stopping sun and moon and using hail to kill them as a very large declarative statement that the God of Israel is the one true god. Things we want the students to see - God has a long track record of saving those who are putting their faith in him. - That God was, is and will be the not just the lord of our lives but also of the physical world around us.

Joshua 9

October 9, 2024 • Joshua 9

Here we have a very interesting story that should springboard into a good amount of application form the students. - We would always seek guidance from God even on the decision that seem to be small or super obvious. The elders of the people did not seek the lord’s guidance when they made the call to make a peace agreement with the Gibeonites and they ended up making the wrong decision. What is very interesting is that the elders made the decision in the process of following God while not seeking is guidance. We too can be like the elders of Israel and genuinely be trying to do the good work that God has put before us but still are not seeking his guidance is how to do that. It is not enough to find out that God has told us where to go, we also need to find out how to get there. For example, if someone is truly led to go to college and become a doctor that doesn’t mean that you stop listening to God and get to make all the decisions from now till you get your MD. - Another one is that there is always hope for salvation, even if you are devoted to destruction. The people of Israel were to wipe all the people who were in the land of Canaan and that is where the Gibeonites were. But these people ended up in a similar position as Rahab, they were set for destruction but because they had faith in who God is, as misguided as it may have been, that little faith saved them from destruction. Likewise, for us it only requires a moment of faith for us to be saved, no matter how sinful or bad we might have been in the past.

Joshua 8

October 2, 2024 • Joshua 8

There are two takeaways here. The first one is that for us here in the peaceful modern world it is somewhat difficult for us to read about what is happening here. Joshua is just going through and taking out cities of people and it's all within the will of God, but we have some sort of compassion (at least I hope you do) for those who died in the cities. This compassion is a good thing, but it is a convenient and somewhat useless compassion because there we are so far removed from it. I want us to redirect this compassion that we might have for these people who were devoted to destruction in the city of Ai 3000 years ago to those who are living without the Gospel walking around our communities today. We have an opportunity to reach them and change their fate today. If there is a place for useful compassion that is the place. The second takeaway is that Joshua renews his covenant to the Lord. Throughout the book of Joshua, he often is renewing his covenant with the lord. He has already done basically the same thing here as he did after they passed though the river Jordan and I think it is something that we can use in our lives as well. As we go through life, we ought to have times of reorientation or else we might end up in a completely different place than we had sought out to be. Therefore, we want to ask the students to take an evaluation of not just who and where they are but more importantly who God is and how has he been loving, kind, and faithful to them.

Joshua 7

August 28, 2024 • Joshua 7

Joshua chapter 7 is a very hard passage for those born and raised in a western postmodern individualistic society to stomach. The reason for this is that in this passage everything is done collectively, and people are collectively held responsible for sin. As much as it may be something that we do not like it is a reality of life, that our sins do damage far beyond ourselves. We have all been impacted by someone else’s sins and had to pay a price for them even when we have not committed any sins as egregious as the ones we may be impacted by. This is what is taking place with the Hebrew people, they are being impacted by the sins of one man and now have faced loss of life because of it. Although this is somewhat difficult for us it is the latter half of the chapter that is the harder portion. Here we see Achan commit a sin against God and take gold and silver that was devoted to God and took a cloak that was to be destroyed. For the sins he committed not just him but his whole family and even his livestock were put to death, which seem quite rash. When we see perplexing and difficult passages such as this one, we ought to lean into them because they are there for a reason and the reason ought to cause us and our students to do some spiritual self-reflection. The reason that Achan faced the fate that he did was because with the sin that he committed he revealed where his heart belonged. Last week we talked about Rahab being saved from the attack on Jerrico because despite her being from and living with people who are opposed to God, she was not like them and put her trust in the Lord. Here we see the opposite of what happened to Rahab. Achan is someone who lived among Gods people, but his heart was not like theirs but was like that of those of Jerrico. Therefore, because his heart was the same as theirs, he was to suffer the same fate as they did. Even in the imagery of his death visibly looked similar to the death of those who were in Jerrico. Therefore, the story of Achan is the antipode of the story of Rahab. If you are born into a great Christian family and go to a good church such as ours and never miss a Sunday or Wednesday, then you still have no guarantee of Salvation. It is the location of our hearts that determine our salvation and if our hearts are found with Christ. So, we should do some self-reflection and ask where our hearts are because if our hearts are not found in him then our fate will not be very different from the fate to Achan. There is a link in the chapter 7 study page to a short but solid Gospel given by Voddie Baucham. The reason that I am placing that here is because this week in your groups it may be necessary for you to go over what the gospel is and clarify that salvation is not something that we can earn but is given though the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Joshua 5 & 6

September 18, 2024

There are two different stories that are here that are connected here in the book of Joshua that we will be tackling this week. Chapter 5 The first one is the account of the second circumcision of the people Hebrew people. The two places in scripture that would be used to further reveal the spiritual and even physical significance of this are Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and Genesis 17:1-14. In Genesis 17 we have the Abrahamic covenant. Here we see God making a covenant with Abraham that has three distinct places or relevance to this story. -God promises Abraham, he will greatly multiply him and make nations out of him -His offspring will take the land of Cannan -They ought to keep circumcision as a sign of the promise of God When we get to Joshua 5, we see that Joshua is recognizing that God has kept his end of the Abrahamic Covenant, the number of descendants has become great, and the people are beginning to take the land of Canaan. Therefore, Joshua upholds the righteousness of the people and commands them to fulfill their part by bearing the sign of the covenant given to Abraham. This is why it is important that this passage is here because it shows that the people are aware that their taking of the land of Canaan is fully the works and acts of God alone. Deuteronomy 10 is also helpful because it shows us the end goal of circumcision being that of the heart and not just a physical event. We see this being further supported in Joshua 5:9 where the end result of the mass circumcision is the removal of reproach of the people. Take aways form chapter 5 -Are there places where we have seen God be faithful to us despite our disobedience? -What are step we can take or ways we can live lives that honor the works God has done in our lives? Chapter 6 As for chapter 6 it is much more straight forward and for the most part can be completely understood within the book of Joshua. There are two things that are taking place; God is giving the people the city of Jericho, but they have to take it in a way that is very unconventional way, and that God is honoring the promise the spies made to Rahab. Take aways from chapters six would be -Obedience often results in lives that do not look normal by the worldly standards -No matter our background or origins we all stand just one commitment away from salvation. God can overcome all sins and situations we might be stuck in no matter how daunting they may be to us. Just as Rahab was saved from destruction, so can we be saved.

Joshua 2

September 4, 2024 • Joshua 2

One of the take aways we want the students is to notice how little information Rahab had and needed to have faith in God, but yet believes and later is mentioned in the book of Hebrews as a faithful believer and takes part in the lineage of Jesus. Therefore, we do not need to be intimidated by our concerns of not having enough biblical knowledge to share with others and bring them to Christ. The flip side of this is we ought to be thankful for the blessing of the biblical knowledge we have and have access to. Having the access we have to the word of God is not the stand throughout world history and there are even still groups of people in the world that do not have access to the entirety of scripture as we do. For example in the Philippines, where we have a new Acts 29 partnership, there are many peoples who have yet to get full access to scripture in their primary language. The Moro Joloano Tausug People (1.4 million) – New Testament completed in 2018 but entire bible has yet to be fully translated The Yakan People (207,000) – New testament was completed in 2019 but the entire bible is yet to be completed Iranun People (287,000) – Have portions of scripture but yet to have a complete the old or new testament. We truly are extremely blessed to have full access to the word of God. One of the discussions that might come up is if it was the right thing for Rahab to do to tell a lie. There are many people who have looked deeply into this and there is still differing opinion so it is very unlikely that we will come to the bottom of it in the hour or so of discussion that we will have this week. Therefore we want to challenge the students to further look it up on their time while giving them the following context and advice. It is fundamentally wrong to believe that the word and honor of God is protected by the works of man. Belief that God cannot accomplish his tasks without you or me is a very flawed and unbiblical position which leads one down dangerous roads of compromise. No matter what Rahab said to the servants of the king, God was going to accomplish what he set out to do lie or truth. Also the story of Rahab ought to be an encouragement to all of us because she is the ultimate example of making the choice to follow God overcoming all the failures and sins she had committed in the past. We might have made bad choices in the past or be stuck in current sins and moral failings but there is the ever-lingering question of whom will trust my life and faith and that question demands an answer. If we choose to put our lives in the hands of God, then he can overcome all the things that we have holding us back from following Gods will for our lives. Rahab did not have to jump through a ton of hoops before she was able to be a part of Gods plan, she just had to believe. We don’t need to practice self-deprecation, focusing on all the things that may be wrong with ourselves or lives, but we need to be living in the hope and promises that comes with being a follower of Christ.

Joshua 1

August 28, 2024 • Joshua 1

One of the interesting things about the life and story of Joshua is that he is someone who experienced the entire freedom narrative of the Hebrew people. He was born into slavery as a child in Egypt, then was present for all the events that took place in exodus story, and then took the people into the promised land. Despite him seeing God work in such great and mighty ways throughout his life he must still be reminded to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong. When God is talking to him in chapter 1, we will see him repeat this to him multiple time as he prepares him to take over for Moses. Therefore, the charge to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong is even more applicable to our lives as people who have not had the privilege to see such great miracles as he did. One of the most interesting phrases that we see in the chapter is found in verse 7. Here we see God paradoxically command Joshua to be on the straight and narrow and no to turn from the left or right then followed by, in the same sentence, “that you may have good success in whatever you do”. This paradox is something that is important for all believers, especially young believers who are about to embark on their own journeys to understand. It is very easy for us to over emphasize the importance of our life choices, such as what college or trade should we do after high school, while under emphasizing the importance of our spiritual growth and dependency on the word of God, which is truly most important. One thing to keep in mind though is that this does not mean that we have total free reign in whatever we want to do and as long as we do our morning devotional our life path doesn’t matter. Joshua was given parameters on the land that he could take and was allowed and permitted freedom within those parameters. Likewise, it is the same with us, God has given all of us parameters that we must still function in. Finally, something to think about this week and throughout this semester is the real consequences for every action or lack of action that takes place in the book of Joshua. When they take the land, they suffer losses of people on their side and there are great losses of the side of those who stand in their way. In the process of claiming the land people died and things that took many years to build are destroyed in a matter of days. We need to know that consequences like these are not outliers when it comes to following God. When we choose to follow God, we need to understand that there might be relationships in our lives that will die, and there will be areas of our lives we have invested in dismantled. This is why we too must look to God to take courage and to be brave just as we see Joshua do. Questions/Discussion targets Are we putting our own abilities to plan out our future lives over our relationship with God and devotion to his word? How can we better prepare ourselves to be brave and strong for when things get tough in our lives?