joshua 1-2

Read Joshua 1-2 at Bible Gateway.

Now we are out of Torah. The Hebrew Bible in English also contains paragraph divisions for the books of the Hebrew Bible that come after Torah. So we will continue to look for those teaching tools of Scripture. And also, I believe we will continue to find chiastic structures. We have found them already in Psalms, and also in the New Testament! Moses did not author Psalms or the New Testament, but the Holy Spirit did, and these teaching tools that we will continue to look for and find, are one of His thumbprints, that identifies Him as the author of the book!

We will continue to look for the teaching tools of repetition, and contrast. Notice today how many times the LORD (and even the leaders of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh) encourages Joshua to be strong and courageous! That repetition is a teaching tool, teaching us that we do need to strengthen ourselves in order to obey God’s voice and do what He is telling us to do! As Joshua, one way we do that is by remembering that we are not alone – God is with us and will not forsake us!

Also, notice the contrast of the strength and courage of Israel, compared to the faintheartedness of the Canaanites. Even though God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt was 40 years earlier, probably even before Rahab was born, the nations all around remembered it and still talked of it. The mighty power of God that He displayed over Egypt was mighty indeed, to strike fear in the hearts of the nations 40 years later!

I cannot be certain that we will be able to find Messiah in every page of the Hebrew Bible as we have found Him in Torah. Jesus said specifically of Moses, that he wrote about HIM! (Joh 5:46). But the first thing I noticed today, is Messiah leaping off the pages of Joshua!

First of all, three days is combined with either entering the Promise(d Land) or escape from death three times: see Jos 1:11, 2:16, and 2:22. Three is a sign of Messiah in Scripture!

Then, look at the beautiful presentation of the gospel of grace we find in Jos 2! Rahab, a Canaanite and a harlot (you cannot get much lower than that), has an encounter with God’s people, in which she realizes that the God of Israel is God in heaven above and on earth beneath (Jos 2:11), and not the gods that she has known her whole life. She escapes the death that is certainly coming upon all her people, by the means of a scarlet thread tied on to her window. That scarlet thread we have seen before in prophetic pictures of Messiah in Torah (Exo chapters 25-28, Lev 14, Num 19)! The scarlet thread is the blood of Jesus, to which Gentiles and harlots may cling and escape the certain death which is coming because of sins!

When Rahab meets the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and aligns herself with Him, by choosing Him as God and choosing to bless His people Israel, her past is forgotten and she is delivered from death by the scarlet thread, the blood of Messiah Yeshua! God is not looking for people with a perfect past. He is looking for people whose hearts will turn toward Him!