Joshua, The Cast - Laura

The book of Joshua is a crazy read, from the ubiquitous story of the destruction of Jericho to the more mysterious tale of the day the sun stood still, Joshua takes the Israelites from wandering in the desert, to possessing the land that God gave them to inherit.  What I love the most about the book of Joshua is the cast of characters.  The book of Joshua is populated with a crazy bunch of people.  I’d like to introduce you to them:

Joshua: The eponymous aide to Moses who takes command when the Moses dies.  He leads the Israelites on a rampage through the land of Canaan, which God told them to conquer and possess for their inheritance.

The Israelites:  The people of God; at their best in the book of Joshua.  For the most part, they obey God and, by God’s power, defeat all their enemies.  By the end of the book, they are so impressed by God’s provision and power that they swear to follow him and be his people forever, even though Joshua warned them that God would hold them to their promise, should they cease to be faithful to him.

Spies: Two nameless Israelite men who sneak into Jericho to spy out the land and the city’s defenses.  They end up staying with a prostitute, of all places, hiding on her roof when the king of Jericho comes looking for them.

Rahab: Prostitute of Jericho; she and her family are the only inhabitants of Jericho left alive after the Israelites destroyed the city.  She goes on to become the many-times-great-grandmother of Jesus (See Matthew chapter 1)

The Commander of the Armies of the Lord: An angel who, when asked by Joshua, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” answered, “Neither.”  He appears to tell Joshua to take off his shoes because the place where he is standing is holy.  One word for this interaction...WOW!!!

Achan: The man from the tribe of Judah who took plunder from Jericho and hid it in his tent.  All the plunder from Jericho had been devoted to the Lord.  The Israelite army couldn’t be victorious in their battles until Achan was stoned to death along with his entire family.

The Gibeonites: An indigenous people who made a treaty with Israel so that they wouldn’t be destroyed by them.  Their ploy involved dressing up in worn out clothes, packing their bags with old, moldy bread and pretending like they had come from a long way off.  Points for cleverness but they ended up getting cursed by the Israelites.

Adoni-Zedek: King of Jerusalem when the Israelites arrived.  He gangs up with several other local kings and they decide to attack the Gibeonites because they had made a treaty with Israel.  Joshua and his army come to the rescue, marching all night and pursuing their enemies, cutting them down with the sword.  Many more of the bad guys died when God sent large hailstones to rain down upon them.  Also, the sun stood still for an entire day while the Israelites demolished the armies of Adoni-Zedek and friends.  Adoni-Zedek hid in a cave with the other kings but Joshua found them and used them as an example of what God would do to all their enemies.

Caleb: A brave warrior of Israel who inherited the land that Moses had sworn to him when he went to spy on the land of Canaan.

The Daughters of Zelophehad:  A particular clan of the tribe of Menassah had no sons, only daughters.  Their names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah.  They reminded Joshua that the Lord had promised them an inheritance among their brothers—and they got it!

Great book with great lessons, namely, (1)God does what he wants, (2)when he wants to, (3)and we better be along for the ride.  Next up...Song of Solomon.

Peace,
Laura

Moving forward to Joshua - Lee

Well, we've started our second book. We're reading the book of Joshua now. This is where the whole project gets interesting. I want to move forward with reading, but I don't want to just walk away from the powerful Word that is present and speaking through Galatians.

Joshua is definitely different than Galatians. I'm excited to read about some Old-Testament butt-kicking. Seriously, under Joshua, Israel absolutely massacred people as God led them into the promised land. I've really just started, so I'm gonna keep this one short. In chapter 4 God leads Israel across the Jordan river on dry ground. To remember, they stacked 12 stones.

This is me stacking stones; I want to remember.

Curses - Laura

God said some hard words to his first children, Adam and Eve, he said, "Cursed are you..." (Gen. 2:14) Then God gave the law to Moses, adding additional curses, including, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." (Gal. 3:10, Deut. 27:26). Oh, good, more curses, as if I wasn't already feeling cursed enough! I don't think about this much, it's heavy. I don't know how I feel about being cursed by God! Because of this curse, God promises that I will live a cursed life and then I will die. Anyone who has ever stubbed his toe on the corner of the sofa knows, as he hops on one foot cursing everything in sight, knows that life is messed up, painful, frustrating...cursed!

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." (Gal. 3:13)

Or, read the same verse from The Message:

"Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself...He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse."

Christ became a curse, absorbing and dissolving the curse. Christ, who walked around, drank wine with his friends, had conversations, laughed, joked...became a curse. Only God is big enough to absorb his own curse. And, thanks be to God, he is willing. God has done it already. On a cross. Once for all!

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Gal. 6:14)

Peace,

Laura

Image: The Yellow Christ, Paul Gauguin 1889

Vanilla - Lee

From the Message: Galatians 6:4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

This is really really hard for me right now. I am constantly comparing myself to others. I compare myself to total strangers, and I compare myself to those closest to me. Sometimes I like to feel really impressed with myself and feed my own pride. Sometimes I compare myself and feel totally worthless. That's how I'm feeling today. I feel like God's Word should be freeing and joyful, but it doesn't feel that way for me right now. I feel like I don't read enough, but it's not always interesting. I feel like I should do this, should do that, should be this way, shouldn't be that way.

Galatians 6:14-16 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can't you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

Wow God, I want that new, free life. I want to walk like that. I want to talk like that, live like that, love like that: new and free. I am tired of being stuck the way I am. I feel so tangled up inside. I just want to rage and thrash against the brokenness in me. My behavior isn't bad; that's not what I'm talking about. I want to be epic and passionate. I don't want to be vanilla; I want my life to have some real flavor.

Lee

Galatians – some highlights for me - Lee

I guess I haven’t fully processed all of these ideas, but sometimes the Bible jumps out and grabs me. In this letter, Paul talks quite a bit about the concept of the Law. His basic point is this: the Law cannot save us; Christ sets us free from the Law.

2:16 – yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Wow.

5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Wow. Living under the Law is a yoke of slavery… that doesn’t sound too good to me. Even though this concept is roughly 1900 years old, I feel like nobody gets it. I get the feeling that everybody in the church is actually trying to keep the Law. “We gotta do the right thing, or we’ll be screwed! God’s gonna be pissed if we don’t behave!” Here in this letter, Paul makes it pretty clear that relationship with God doesn’t work that way. For one thing, nobody can keep the whole Law. Keeping most of the Law doesn’t mean jack, and nobody can be perfect. Not only that, but Christ has set us free from needing to strive and strive at the law. I don’t need to spend my life striving to keep the Law; I am free to be in relationship with God as his beloved son and heir. Here’s the problem: If I don’t spend my life striving with the law… what shall I do with myself? How shall I choose my behaviors? I think this is why most Christians actually submit themselves again to Legalism (the Law). It’s because we don’t have any idea what to do with Freedom. It’s because God never intended to give us a formula for exactly how to live and behave with our Freedom. He says you are my son, I love you, you are completely free, and have fun exploring; I’ll be with you. That’s dangerous! What am I now going to do?

That's all for now,

Lee

The Beginning - Laura

Welcome to The Word Incarnate blog.

We (Lee & Laura) are a young married couple (no kids, no dogs…) who are committing ourselves to read. The Bible. And blog about it. Sound boring? Well, it was Lee’s idea…but we don’t think it’s going to be boring! In fact, we are expecting it to be epic! We are expecting things to happen, like when you dip a tea bag into boiling water—something changes, a transformation occurs, a cup of tea ensues. Subtle but refreshing!

We begin this journey through the Word of God at the beginning of 2010. I (Laura) am excited about new things for a new year. I don’t usually make resolutions because I find it virtually impossible to discipline myself to stick with anything. (I think it has something to do with my personality but I hesitate to diagnose…) But this is not a resolution, this is not a read-through-the-bible-in-fifteen-minutes plan. This is a journey and we will draw the map as we go along.

“Incarnate” is an adjective meaning embodied in human form, made flesh, personified.

God has been made flesh through Christ and we want God’s Word to be incarnate in us. Personified, given a body, a place to live and breathe, to walk and talk.

John 1:14 says “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Our first stop on the Bible journey is Galatians. We chose at random from a jar containing the names of each book. I’m going to be honest, I’m glad we have a short book to start with. It would have been pretty overwhelming to kick off with Isaiah—it’s good but it has 66 chapters! Our plan, as it currently stands, is to read, pay attention to the ways the scripture intersects with our lives, and write about it. We may read from a variety of different versions of the Bible (our favorites include ESV, NIV and The Message), we may take a long time or we may go through each book quickly. We hope to post regularly. We aren’t trying to explain the Bible, plenty of people do that better than we can. We are hoping to share thoughts, intersections, crumbs that God is leaving for us like clues to his personality.

Peace,

Laura