Mission Faithwalk

            Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.   At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of military age—died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not.    The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt ...

                 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the  Lord  said to Joshua,   “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe,   and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”   So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,   and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the  Lord  your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,   to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant ...

                 And the  Lord  said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.   Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’”   Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,   the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.   The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the  Lord  stopped in the middle of the Jordan and ...

                 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. (Joshua 2:1) Really? Forty years earlier, God told Moses to send twelve spies into the Promised Land. Joshua was among them, and they came back with a report that led the people into rebellion. The result was forty years of wandering (seemingly) aimlessly while waiting for people to die. Now Joshua was repeating the exercise?  He only sent two, but I wonder whether he spent the whole time they were gone wondering what he would do if they came back with a bad report. Perhaps before they left, he told them that if they came back with that bad report – without sufficient evidence – that he’d have them executed. Did he consider not sending out scouts? The problem with that is that sending scouts was pr...

              “Moses my servant is dead. 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. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.    Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you...

                 And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria .  (Acts 8:1) This past Wednesday, our prayer meeting was dedicated to praying for the persecuted Church. I want to make this clear: I am completely in favor of praying for the persecuted Church. They need our prayers and it is our responsibility and privilege to pray for them. We should be praying for the persecuted Church. At the same time, however, I think we must be careful with this idea. We have a tendency to try to divide the needy into the “truly” needy and the whiners, and there are valid reasons for not responding to them in quite the same way. The problem is, we tend to compare the two, and if someone doesn’t measure up to the level of suffering we deem sufficient to be considered persecuted, we dismiss them. They don...