March 10, 2022: Day 53 – Joshua 10-12 and Acts 10-12

It is these types of chapters in the Bible that give God a bit of a bad name.  Granted, Joshua is carrying out the commands of God and fulfilling the promises that were given to him by God, but all of the slaughter and the killing and all of the countries that are overtaken without a single living soul remaining.  It is interesting that Joshua was able to stop the sun and he is described as someone who was in charge when: “there has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man.”  That pretty heavy praise.

At the end of the day we have 31 kings and their lands taken over and that translates to 31 groups of people, nation states, completely wiped off the face of the earth.  It is hard to swallow, but it is also something that we have to recognize as taking place in the old covenant which certainly was not a covenant of grace.  Thanks be to God that we now live under a covenant of grace and God would never call us to do something similar.

We then transition to Acts and Peter takes center stage once again.  Peter’s vision is crucial for two reasons.  One for its literal translation which allows us to eat all that God has created and we no longer have to follow the dietary laws which God had given to the Israelites.  While that is great news to us meat lovers, the greater news is how he explains his vision to Cornelius which is that God has chosen all of the humanity, including the gentiles, to be a part of his kingdom.  No longer is just a select nation God’s children, but rather God so loved the world…  Here’s an appropriate video that speaks to the love of God for all people.