March 11, 2022: Day 54 – Joshua 13-15 and Acts 13-15

These chapters may seem a bit dry but they are important in finalizing the promise of the Lord to the people of Israel.  It states that Joshua was getting old and the promise of the Lord had not yet been fulfilled and so you have a listing of the lands that God was going to give to the 12 tribes.  Notice, and this is important, that Joseph’s family actually had two tribes come out of it.  Look at Joshua 14:4 where we see the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.  But the tribe of Levi, who became the priests of Israel, did not have any land allotted to them.  They had to reside in each town and carry out their functions in that town.

In Acts you see the dynamic duo of Barnabas and Paul working together and bringing a whole bunch of people to faith.  It is interesting that later on this chapter you will see the two of them in a disagreement and they separate, that you will find in our reading for today 15:36-41.  We often think of the first century church as perfect in every way, but here we see that they had a dispute which caused them to separate.  Now, we know that they later reconcile, but at least here the dispute was sharp enough that they had to separate.

Paul comes very close to dying in 14:19-20, but he continue to preach and proclaim God’s word to those who would listen.  Chapter 15 is one of the most important chapters in Acts.  We find the council of Jerusalem where the leaders of the church had to gather and had to decide if they would require gentiles who had come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ to be burdened with the same Jewish laws and requirements that none of them were able to fulfill.  The primary example of that would be circumcision, and as you can imagine that would be a deal breaker for some people if the only way that they could become a Christian would be if they would be circumcised.  

At the end of the day the decision is made that gentiles coming to know Jesus did not have to take on the same Jewish requirements, and could in fact love Jesus period.  It was a time when the Gospel message was then allowed to flourish as a result of this decision.  It reminds us that Jesus is enough.