Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Michael Lund for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Scripture Reading - Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 (NRSVUE)
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. 3 Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many.
14 “Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. 15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed, 18 and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
19 But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” 22 Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” 23 He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.” 25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.
Devotional Thought:
“You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.”
I never came across a sign like this in anyone’s house growing up, even if I came across many variations of “choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Are certain verses plucked out of context better for our living room walls than others? Should we use this verse before baptisms, or in church membership classes? It might scare people off. Do we not think God is holy? Do we not want to attribute our understanding of jealousy to God?
Perhaps a little context will help. Joshua is on his deathbed, and has gathered the leaders of Israel to Shechem — the same Shechem where God promised the land to Abraham, where Abraham built an altar (Gen 12:6-7), and where Jacob built an altar, purified his family and re-dedicated them to God (Gen. 33.18-20, 35:1-5, see Lennox, NBBC: Joshua, 294). At this sacred place, Joshua tells an abridged 600+ year history of God’s great salvation and provision in fulfilling his promise to Abraham. The story of the LORD who protected Israel, took them up out of Egypt across a river and through the wilderness, and now brought them safely across another river into the promised land.
So Joshua challenges them, saying “choose this day whom you will serve.” No longer can they rely on the faithfulness of their ancestors or elders past; those hearing Joshua are now Israel’s leaders. “Now is the time to choose personally, this day, the God of the present. Each generation must make this choice.” (Harris, NIBC: Joshua, 116). The leaders make the right choice, “we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” Knowing this context, Joshua’s response is still rather weird. But he wants to drive home the severity of the covenant they are making. Israel can’t continue to worship Yahweh, but also dabble worshipping other gods on the side. As Joshua says, “he is a holy God. He is a jealous God.” Jealousy in this sense illustrates God’s “sensitive regard for the true faith of his people” (Unger, Bible Dictionary, 654) — zeal in the New Testament — namely the warmth of love towards those who are faithful which outweighs (but is coupled with) the anger towards those who worship idols/false gods. As Stephen Lennox writes, “God remains as holy and jealous as he was on this occasion at Shechem, but since then we have come to see these qualities more clearly… His jealousy has never been more clearly seen than at Bethlehem, with Jesus’ birth. There we saw a God so jealous for his people he became incarnate to win them back” (Lennox, NBBC: Joshua, 303).
Prayer:
Lord, help us choose today to worship you, to revere you, to serve you in integrity, sincerity, and faithfulness. Amen.