Bible Reading Challenge Week 11

I am currently writing this from sunny San Diego. Olive Tree is attending the Evangelical Theological Society meetings this week. This week’s readings finished out Joshua and Acts and covered the first half of Judges.

Week 11 Readings

Joshua 19-24

In the closing chapters of Joshua, there isn’t nearly as much action as there is in earlier chapters. Apart from the apportioning out of the land inheritance to each tribe and the setting up of sanctuary cities, we get the tribes who inheritance was on the Eastern side of Jordan going home – and some drama that happens there, and Joshua’s well-known “Choose this day whom you will serve,” speech to the Israelites.

In reading back through this section, as I mentioned last week, I am again struck by the relative faithfulness of this generation of Israelites. While it is true, as we read in the first few chapters in Judges, they did not complete the task of conquering the peoples they were supposed to conquer. But they do mostly follow the Lord. One of the places where I see this is in the events following the return of the Eastern tribes to their side of the Jordan.

The Eastern tribes (Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh) erected a monument of remembrance right on their side of the Jordan River. Their intention was to have it bear witness long into the future that they are truly a part of God’s chosen people even though they dwell on the other side of the river. However, their monument did purposefully look like an altar, but was not meant to be used for sacrifices. Their motives are actually upright.

Those on the other side see it and are so concerned that those tribes might be setting up an altar to worship inappropriately (it’s not clear if the fear is that they would worship another god or just try to worship the Lord wrongly) that they come out against the Eastern tribes ready to go to war. They saw the results of what sin the camp can do, and they want no part of it, lest they be cursed by God. They burn with righteous anger and come to act in swift justice. Their motives are also upright.

Fortunately the whole situation resolves easily as the misunderstanding is cleared up. What I found noteworthy is that if you look at the motives of both sides in this, the desire for faithfulness and remaining upright before the Lord far outstrips what we saw in the previous generation in Exodus through Deuteronomy as well as what we will begin reading happened just two generations later in Judges.

Judges 1-10

As we read the first half of Judges, we see the cycle begin that will become normative for the rest of the book: the people sin and worship other gods, God allows an enemy nation (usually one that they failed to drive out) to come in and oppress them, the people cry out to God for help, God raises a judge to deliver them and usher in time of peace, and then the cycle repeats.

One of the things I like in the story of Gideon is how God makes sure that there can be no doubt who got the victory. It is reminiscent of God’s defeat of the Egyptians in the Red Sea in that way. Gideon’s army of tens of thousands is pared down to 300 men by God. Those 300 men have to stand up to an army of over 100,000. They do so faithfully and God gets the victory by turning the enemy’s swords on each other. This is a picture of the Deuteronomic blessing, also repeated in Joshua, that 1 man will put 1,000 to flight if the Lord is fighting for them.

Acts 19-28

Last week we looked at how the book of Acts shows the church, through the Spirit, fulfilling the work of the great commission, starting in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth. In these last chapters, we continue to see the expansion of the geography of Christ’s kingdom as Paul goes on another missionary journey and is ultimately taken, albeit in chains, to Rome itself, hoping to preach the gospel to the emperor himself.

Again, just as we saw in the first half of the book, this continues to happen in ways that an outside observer would rightly be shocked to see working. The church grows massively in a relatively short period of time, and it does so not by means of celebrity endorsements, government leaders converting and paving a clear path, or large scale revival meetings. Rather it comes in the midst of heavy persecution – beatings, stonings, imprisonments, and assassination attempts. There are too many of these to really go into, but needless to say the sovereign will of God is clearly on display when we read these chapters. There is no way else to explain it. The way forward, the way to success, is by truly laying ones life down again and again in service of Christ, the One who knows the way out of the grave.

May God richly bless your time in the Word this week!