March 15, 2022: Day 57 – Joshua 22-24 and Acts 22-24

We find ourselves at the end of the life and the story of Joshua and the end of the conquering of the lands which the Israelites had claimed.  As we had seen earlier there were two and a half tribes who were promised land on the other side of the Jordan, that would have been on the east side of the Jordan, but they had to send troops to fight in order to take over the entire land that the God had promised for the rest of the families.  Now that those battles are over those tribes were able to head home and claim the land and settle in the homes that were theirs.

On the way home they built an altar to the Lord for a remembrance.  But that was a problem and a misunderstanding broke out.  The rest of the Israelites saw the altar and thought that it was for idols and so they got ready for war against these two and a half tribes.  It was cleared up, no, no, no, it isn’t for other gods, it is to remind you that we worship the same God for if you ever try to come against us you will see this altar and remember that we worship the same God.  Joshua dies and the times of the patriarchs come to an end.

In Acts, Paul remains in prison as he will through the end of the book.  But it is kind of soft prison.  He is given permission to speak to the people of Jerusalem and he tells them his witness, this is how I came to know and love the Lord.  But the crowd turns on him when he says that he was sent to preach the good news to the gentiles.  Everything was fine until loving your neighbor and consider your neighbor to be worthy of being loved by God was brought into the picture. 

He is about to be whipped by the Roman guard when he tells him that he himself is a Roman citizen which provides protection until there is a trial against him.  There had been no trial, so he is protected.  Paul is brought before the high priest and things are going poorly until he throws in a theological conundrum which had separated the two camps of priests: Pharisees and Sadducees.  They almost get into a riot among themselves.  

The Jewish leaders plot to kill Paul, his nephew warns him, and he is taken to Felix and then Felix introduces his wife to Paul, his wife is Jewish and so the assumption is that she would be more sympathetic to Paul’s testimony about Jesus.