The New Smoking

Guilty! Who's with me?

Show Me the Money!

Here is a helpful article on how to think biblically about money.

9 Ways to Pray for Your Soul

In his sermon this morning, Pastor Bryan Host mentioned this article by John Piper. If you did not pick up a copy at church, I encourage you to print it out and use it as a resource to refer to from time to time when praying.

The High Calling of Motherhood

Moms, had a bad day? Maybe one of those weeks?

Read this for a word of encouragement and a reminder of your high calling.

Big God Thought

God works for you.

That's right. God works for you.

Have you ever thought about that? Does it sound strange or even blasphemous?

When you think about your relationship with God do you think more about you working hard for God or God working hard for you?

John Piper provides 11 texts that teach this truth and explains what that means here.

Read it. Think about it and worship the God that "works for those who wait for him".

Wrecked by Grace

One of my latest favorite guys on the planet is Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham and Senior Pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He challenges me to think about the grace of God and the gospel like few people do. He has taught me much about the radical nature of God's love and the centrality of the gospel in the Christian's day to day life, particularly regarding sanctification and holiness. I highly recommend anything by him.


Here is a great example of his writing. Enjoy!

Joshua 6

Here are my notes (intermingled with material from the class handout) from this morning's lesson on Joshua 6. Also, scroll down for a video of John Piper answering a question we spent most of our time on this morning.

Joshua 6: The Fall of Jericho

BIG IDEA: God gives the victory as his people walk by faith.

SETTING: After five chapters of spiritual preparations, Israel is now ready to begin taking the land. Moving from their temporary base of operations at Gilgal, Joshua leads the people to Jericho. The fall of Jericho is a one sided affair in which God gave the city to Israel.

Verses 1 – 7: INSTRUCTIONS FOR TAKING JERICHO

Note the absence of any military instruction. Instead the instructions given point to more of a spiritual exercise.

One strong motif in this story is that even though God is giving the city, the people must take it by faith.

This was the failure that caused the 40 years of wandering the desert – at that time the Israelites did not exercise faith in God's promise of giving them the land.

Hebrews 11:30 – By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

[Q] What strongholds might God want to give you victory over as you walk by faith? Are there any areas of your life you should ‘Advance’ in?

Verses 8 – 21: THE BATTLE OF JERICHO

The LORD goes before the people into battle. After following God’s instructions to a tee, the people take the city.

The people are careful to destroy everything except that which is sacred to the LORD. (Except for a man named Achan, whom we will get to in chapter 7.)

[Q] What makes it okay for God to kill everyone here? Is this ethnic cleansing?

Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:13-16, ESV)

The Amorites were one of the main population groups in the land of Canaan, often listed alongside the other tribes of the land (such as in Joshua 3 - the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites). God effectively says that He will judge the Amorites for their accumulated sin & wickedness by driving them out of the Promised Land.

"Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, 'It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,' whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." (Deuteronomy 9:4-5, ESV)

Again, this points to the wickedness of the nations in the Promised Land being the reason for God using the Israelites to drive them out, as He makes good on His promise of giving them the land.

This kind of destruction of all life was commanded for the Promised Land only. Consider Deuteronomy 20:10-18:

"When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God."

God was concerned to protect the purity of His people by trying to keep them from the other nations' wickedness & idolatry.

All people sit under God's rightful judgment, as all are sinners. God uses means to execute justice. Just as God uses His chosen to people to execute justice while fulfilling His covenant promise to them, later He will use other nations to execute judgment on the nation of Israel for its sin & idolatry.



Verses 22 – 27: AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE

Rahab and her entire family are saved just as promised in chapter two. There the spies promised to spare Rahab because of her demonstration of faith.

Why is Rahab named? Why isn't she just called "a prostitute of Jericho"? The next time she's mentioned in Scripture is about 1400 years after the events at Jericho:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
(Matthew 1:1-16, ESV)

Rahab is the mother of Boaz, the great-great-grandmother of David, and an ancestor of Jesus Christ. She's an early example of God blessing "all nations" through His people, of how even in the Old Testament God showed His grace to Gentiles.

Joshua's oath of curse in verse 26 is fulfilled in 1 Kings 16:34:

In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

The last verse of the chapter, verse 27, is a further fulfillment of Joshua 3:7:

The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you."

[Q] Central to this chapter is the theme that Yahweh is a promise-keeping God. What are some specific promises you have seen God fulfill in your life?