{"id":40103,"date":"2015-12-08T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=40103"},"modified":"2017-10-24T14:11:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T21:11:33","slug":"which-joshua-do-you-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/which-joshua-do-you-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Joshua do you follow?"},"content":{"rendered":"
There are two famous men in the Bible named Joshua.<\/p>\n
One, of course, is the Joshua with a book named after him. This is Joshua, the son of Nun, the successor to Moses. This is the Joshua who led the people of Israel to embark upon the military campaign of defeating the Canaanites so that Israel might enter into the Promised Land.<\/p>\n
The other Joshua is actually more well known, but we call Him something different. We call Him Jesus. The Hebrew pronunciation of His name, however, is Yeshua, which in English, is pronounced “Joshua.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, despite their name similarities, these two Joshuas could not be more different. Yet far too often, Christians who claim to follow the second Joshua, often end up following the first.<\/p>\n
Check out a few of the differences between Joshua of the Canaanite Conquest and Yeshua of the Gospel of Grace:<\/p>\n
Joshua and Jericho<\/h2>\n
In Joshua 6, Joshua leads the people of Israel in their first campaign against the Canaanites. This is the battle of Jericho. After the walls of Jericho fell down, Joshua instructs the people to go into the city and kill everything, including the women, children, and animals, and then burn everything (Joshua 6:17-24). The only people who were spared were those who accepted and helped the Israelite people, which in this case, consisted of a prostitute named Rahab and her family.<\/p>\n
The second Joshua, however, handled the rejection of cities quite differently. In Luke 9:51-56, as Jesus and His disciples headed toward Jerusalem, Jesus sent messengers before Him to invite the people of a Samaritan city to prepare for His coming. This is very similar to Joshua sending the spies into Jericho to prepare that city for his coming. But the people of this Samaritan city did not want to have anything to do with Jesus. So when Jesus arrived at the city, James and John asked if they could call down fire from heaven to burn the city and all its inhabitants.<\/p>\n
Clearly, James and John were taking a play out of Joshua’s playbook.<\/p>\n
But Jesus is not using the same playbook. Rather than follow in the footsteps of the first Joshua, Jesus rebukes His disciples for wanting to kill, destroy, and burn those cities that reject Him, and tells James and John that they do not know what manner of spirit they are of (Luke 9:55). Apparently, the first Joshua did not know either…<\/p>\n
Joshua and Achan<\/h2>\n
After the battle of Jericho, Joshua leads the people of Israel to attack the city of Ai. But Israel is defeated (Joshua 7:1-10). So Israel looks for a scapegoat to explain why they were defeated. To find this scapegoat, they draw lots, and eventually, a man by the name of Achan is chosen (Joshua 7:14-18).<\/p>\n
I would not be at all surprised to learn that there were thousands upon thousands of “guilty” men in Israel that day. Knowing what we know of the rules of war and the behavior of men, does it seem likely that of all Israelite warriors that took part in the destruction of Jericho, only one man took a bit of plunder for himself? I find it beyond belief.<\/p>\n
So as the lots are cast to choose the guilty tribe, clan, and family, you can imagine thousands of nervous men breathing a sigh of relief as they get passed over by the casting of the lots. In this case, Achan ends up being the unlucky one. After he confesses his crime, Joshua takes Achan, along with his gold, silver, clothes, sons, daughters, oxen, donkeys, sheep, and tent, and stones everything and then burns everything (Joshua 7:24-25). It is especially touching how the sons and daughters of Achan get mentioned right alongside the clothes and the tent.<\/p>\n
Anyway, if anyone who is reading this can ever imagine the second Joshua, Jesus, doing anything like this to “sinners” who are brought before Him for judgment, let me suggest that you know nothing about Jesus.<\/p>\n