Joshua: God Keeps His Promises and Provides for His People
Dec 31, 2022 · Courtney Jacob
God’s timing is not our timing. We can feel frustrated and confused while waiting for God’s promises to come to fruition in our lives. Sometimes we just need assurance that we're not waiting in vain. We can find that assurance in the stories in Joshua. In our Groundwork series, “Joshua: God Keeps His Promises and Provides for His People,” we’ll study the book of Joshua to learn from history how God works and to remind ourselves that God keeps his promises and actively provides for his people.
Joshua in the Bible
The book of Joshua is the sixth book of the Bible. The Lord delivered the Israelites out of Egypt under Moses in the book of Exodus (the second book of the Bible). In the book of Numbers (the fourth book), the Israelites sent twelve spies ahead of them into Canaan, the land the Lord had promised to give them. Ten of the spies returned afraid and spread their fear among the people. Only two spies, Joshua and Caleb, trusted that the Lord would deliver the land of Canaan to the Israelites as he promised despite the challenges they would encounter (Numbers 13). As a consequence of their rebellion, the Lord made the Israelites wander the desert for forty years. When they tried to enter the Promised Land without his help, they were not successful (Numbers 14). As a result, the book of Deuteronomy (the fifth book) records the remainder of their wandering, a repeating of God’s law, and the death of Moses. The Israelites waited for generations to receive the land God had promised them and in Joshua, we see God finally fulfill the promises he made to Abraham back in Genesis (the first book). In our study of Joshua, we’ll trace the promises God made and see how he kept each one of them.
Understanding Joshua Today
Reading and studying the book of Joshua today can be complicated. Christian history is littered with the harm caused by misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the conquest described in this book. So we’ll have important discussions about what we read in Joshua, what we know about God, and how the broader understanding of scripture informs how we understand the book of Joshua. We’ll explore how Joshua foreshadows how Jesus Christ ultimately conquered sin. Studying this book also allows us to think about God’s work and God’s timing in today’s world.
Joshua and Our Faith
If you’re anything like me, you long to faithfully serve God as we await Christ’s promised return. I invite you to examine what it looks like to do that confidently through our Groundwork series, “Joshua: God Keeps His Promises and Provides for His People”:
- God Keeps His Promises and Offers Us Rest - Joshua 1
- God is Still Working - Joshua 2
- Look at What God Has Done - Joshua 3-4
- God's Unconventional Ways - Joshua 6-7
- God is in Control - Joshua 10-11
- Stay Faithful to God, Serve the Lord - Joshua 23-24
...and together we’ll bolster and strengthen our faith by letting the evidence of history inform and encourage our faithful actions today.
Posted in: #Joshua, #Godkeepshispromises, #Waiting, #God'stiming, #ServeGod