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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Hey, you are listening to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace. I'm Shelby and I'm here with Scott. And we begin a brand new book of the Bible today. We are in Joshua. So excited for this book. Before we get into today's chapters, the first three chapters, Scott, can you just give us a little bit of an overview? What do we need to know as we dive into Joshua?
- [00:25]
A
Sure. I love this book. I love all the books. But, you know, couple things to keep in mind as we get into it. It, you know, I beat this drum so many times. Remember God's promises to Abraham, you know, way back in Genesis 12, of giving his, making him into a great nation, blessing all the nations, but then giving his descendants the land of Canaan to dwell in. And those promises have been repeated so many times as we've seen so far in our journey through scripture. And Joshua is the book where at long last God brings his people into the land and they begin to settle into it. And secondly, we need to keep in mind the book of Deuteronomy, which we just wrapped up. Deuteronomy continually, continually stressed the need for Israel to remember God, to worship him in this land. And chapter 28 of that book, God laid out all the blessings they would experience in the land if they obeyed him, and then all the curses they would experience if they disobeyed. And obedience to God is a huge, huge theme for Israel in the book of Joshua, which we'll continue to see.
- [01:27]
B
Yeah, and really that's been a theme for several books now. And so just the continuity of Scripture amazes me as we read throughout the whole Bible in a year. Any other tips for reading the book of Joshua?
- [01:38]
A
I would say just be aware of the four kind of big movements of Joshua. So the first five or so chapters is all about just their entrance into the land. And then chapters six through 12 is the conquest, at least the partial conquest of the land. Chapters 13 through 21 is all about the distribution of the land among the various tribes of Israel. And then the last three, chapters 22 through 24, just a lot of strong emphasis once again on remaining faithful to God, moving forward. Forward as they live in the land.
- [02:09]
B
Yeah, that's great. Just have those handles on those big sections. Okay, let's get into Joshua 1 through 3. What's happening in these chapters that we read today?
- [02:18]
A
Well, right off the bat, you see this emphasis on faithfulness as Joshua succeeds Moses. So Moses has now passed away. I love this. You know, it's a very famous verse where God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous. And I love particularly this, the need to meditate daily on the law. And God promises Joshua he'll be with him. And something we're going to see in this book is that Israel's military victories really have nothing to do with the size of their army or, you know, battle tactics necessarily, but everything to do with God and their faithfulness to God. And so because the battles in this book are ultimately God's battles, not Israel's, which means their main priority should be obeying God. And then I got to mention Rahab. Love Rahab, Chapter two of Joshua. You know, way back in Exodus, God had talked about raising up Pharaoh to make his name known to the Israelites and to the Egyptians and then to the other nations as well. And Rahab is an example of how what God did in Egypt has kind of reverberated throughout this region, because she says that all of Jericho, where she lives, has heard about the rescue from Egypt, their early military victories, which we saw in the Book of Numbers. And she says that they know that God has given them this land. And Rahab wants in on this. Like, she hides Joshua's spy. She confesses that Israel's God is the God in heaven above and on earth below. And again, remember the promises to Abraham. God promised to bless the nations through Israel. Rahab is like a small scale fulfillment of that promise. This non Israelite joining themselves by faith to the people of Israel. She's like this ideal non Israelite who hears about Israel's God and chooses to trust him. And also, critically, she does this at a huge risk to herself too. Like, it was really dangerous for her to shelter these spies. But her faith pays off. She becomes part of the people of Israel as we see. And in Matthew 21, she's actually part of the genealogy of Jesus. And then she's honored in Hebrews 11 as a model of what it looks like to walk by faith.
- [04:23]
B
Yeah, man, I love Rahab's story so much. And I think my overall takeaway from these first couple chapters is just courage and bravery to be obedient to the Lord in the things that he has called me to. And that bravery isn't in my myself, it's in God who is going with me. God. And you see Rahab having courage because she is pretty confident of God's character. She's heard about him and she's like, I think that's someone that I can trust in. And so, man, there are times I feel afraid. You know, I just feel afraid to maybe walk out and live as a bold Christian, big and small ways. And so my takeaway today is courage as a result of my confidence in God and who he is. And it makes me really excited to get into the rest of Job. Although I know there's some difficult things that we'll walk through in this book and that we'll talk through, I am excited to get to the rest of this book.
- [05:17]
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Me too.
- [05:18]
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Okay, well, we'll be back with more tomorrow.