Jos-Lesson 1

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JOSHUA
Lesson #01
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

• The importance of the book of Joshua cannot be underestimated.
• It is a book of transition between the wilderness experience of the Israelites under the leadership of Moses and the beginning of a new nation.
• It parallels the Christian life in so many ways that we can learn many lessons from this book. In fact the book of Ephesians in the New Testament is comparable to the book of Joshua.
• The book of Ephesians tells us what are our riches in Jesus Christ.
• The book of Joshua tells us how to possess our riches.

• The Author and the Date:

• Joshua was a man who served God in faith all his life.
• Joshua was from the tribe of Ephraim.
• When he was young, he served God in the tabernacle. (Exo 33:11)
• He and Caleb were the 2 spies among the 12 who gave a good report upon seeing the Promised Land (Num 13).
• These two men were ready to move by faith to enter the Promised Land.
• However, the people rejected God’s plan to take the land, so God’s plan was put on hold.
• God prepared Joshua for leadership during the 40 years of desert life.
• God led Moses to appoint Joshua as his successor at about the age of 80 years.
• Therefore, Joshua was the man who led the Israelites into the Promised Land after the death of Moses.
• Moses, the father of the Law, did not enter the Promised Land.
• Joshua represents faith in that a believer cannot possess anything in the kingdom of God by keeping the Law, only by faith.
• Joshua wrote this book after the Israelites entered the Promised Land in 1451 BC.
• The name Joshua means = God is Salvation.
• It is the same name in Hebrew as Jesus in the New Testament.
• Joshua is therefore a type or prefigure of Jesus Christ as the Captain of our Salvation (Heb 2:10). In this respect, Joshua is a prefigure of Jesus Christ.

JOSHUA, THE PREFIGURE OF JESUS CHRIST

JOSHUA	JESUS CHRIST	SCRIPTURES
Joshua arrives after Moses and the law	Jesus arrives after a period of Law	Joh 1:17
Joshua brings the Israelites into a new life in the Promised Land	Jesus Christ brings people into a new life with God	Joh 3
Joshua led the Israelites to victory over the Canaanite enemies	Jesus Christ leads believers to victory over Satan and his demons (the enemy)	Rom 8:37 2Cor 2:14
Joshua was an advocate to the people suffering a temporary defeat	Jesus Christ is our advocate when we suffer a temporary defeat	Jos 7:5-9 1Joh 2:1-2
Joshua distributed the inheritance of the land to the 12 tribes	Jesus Christ distributes the inheritance of God’s promises to believers	Eph 1:11, 14
Joshua’s sword pronounced judgment on the heathen as the kingdom was manifested on earth.	The sword of Jesus Christ pronounces judgment on the non-believers as the Kingdom of Christ is manifested on earth in the millennium	Rev 19:11-16

• It is interesting that in several instances in the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments that people’s names were changed when they come to have faith in the Lord. Some examples are:
• Abram to Abraham
• Sarai to Sarah
• Jacob to Israel
• Saul to Paul, the Apostle.
• Joshua’s name was also changed, though it is not often mentioned. His name was changed from Oshea to Joshua. (Num 13:8)
• We do not know the specific point in time or the experience in his life that prompted the name change.
• The name Oshea also means = salvation.

• Spiritual Background

:

• After leaving slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief and disobedience against God. Therefore, the book of Joshua begins at a low point in Israel’s history.
• However, God had promised they would enter the Promised Land when the old generation had died in the wilderness and a new generation was ready to move forward with God (40 years later). You can imagine all the people watching and waiting the death of the last person from the wilderness generation.
• Therefore, the book opens with a great expectancy to see God fulfill a promise made to Abraham.
• That promise was to give the land promised to Abraham to his descendants, the Israelites.
• The book just preceding the book of Joshua is the book of Deuteronomy that precedes the entry into the Promised Land by two and a half months. (Jos 5:10)
• The book of Deuteronomy is a re-statement of the Law and God’s instruction to the people of His expectations for them when they entered the Promised Land.
• God’s purpose for giving the Promised Land to the Israelites:
• The land of Israel belongs to God. Out of all His creation, God specified this small piece of land to be solely and completely His land. God has claimed no other land on this planet or on any other planet to be His land. The Israelites were to be the stewards of God’s land as God’s chosen people.
• God’s purpose was to make the Israelites and the land of Israel His possession.
• That means this nation and these people were to be God’s example of what a people and a nation should be like blessed by God.
• If the Israelites followed God faithfully, they would have peace and prosperity in the land and in their society. They would have a style of government called a theocracy with God as their leader.
• Other nations in the world, plagued by wars and famine, would look at Israel and desire to be like blessed Israel.
• However, God could not bless the Israelites in the way He desired because they would not remain faithful to God.
• Instead of Gentile nations envying Israel’s position with God, Israel envied the worldly Gentile nations without God. They desired to be like all the other nations of the world.
• Like many people today, they want all the good things in life, but they do not want to work for them. They want their freedom to live according to their own determination, but they do not want the responsibility that freedom brings with it. In other words, the rebellious nature of man rules.
• In the book of Joshua, God attempts to bring under control man’s rebellious nature by teaching His people faith, faithfulness, and responsibility.
• Armed with God’s promise to Abraham and God’s Law to Moses, restated in Deuteronomy, Joshua was ready to go forward leading God’s people into the Promised Land. He knew the future would not be easy, but He also knew that the Living God was with him in the same way He had been with Moses. (Jos 1:9)

• The Theme of the Book:
• Possessing our possessions
• In the same way that God made promises to his people, the Israelites, God makes promises to us.
• However, like the Israelites, we must learn how to possess our possessions.
• The Israelites experienced many obstacles that crossed their path in the process of possessing the Promised Land.
• In the same way, Christians experience similar obstacles.
• We are going to see how to deal with these obstacles that prevent us from possessing what God has for us.
• We are going to see what the Israelites learned about God that helped them to possess their possessions.
• God expected the Israelites to take possession of the land he promised them. However, they had to fight for it. They had to have faith for the victory, because there was an enemy that would try to stop them.
• The same is true of the New Testament believer. God makes promises to you, but they do not come automatically. You must take possession of them. You must have faith for the victory. In other words, you must fight the battle of faith, because we also have an enemy that tries to defeat us.
• Therefore, we can learn much from the book of Joshua as to how to posses our possessions.

• The Inhabitants of the Promised Land

• When the Israelites entered the Promised Land they encountered a variety of different tribes of people. These people did not form one nation but lived in geographical tribal areas. They often fought each other.
• The spiritual and moral condition of these people is very important to understanding the book of Joshua.
• These tribal people did not know God. Instead they worshiped many different gods and idols.
• Morally they were a degenerate people. All types of base sexual sin were common among these tribal people. In fact, archaeology has discovered evidence that sexual diseases were at an epidemic level among these tribes.
• This helps us to understand why God told the Israelites not to intermarry with these tribes so as to maintain a pure blood lineage to Jesus Christ.
• This helps us to understand why God told the Israelites to kill all the inhabitants of the land, men, women, and children so as to eradicate the base immorality and to eliminate the sexual diseases.

• Basic sources for this study:

• The Living God is Among You

by Libby Jansson

• The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament

by John F. Walvoord and Roy Zuck

• When Critics Ask

by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe

• Chronology of the Old Testament

by Floyd Nolen Jones

• Joshua and the Flow of Biblical History

by Francis A. Schaeffer

• This Land is Your Land

by Paul E. Toms

• Misc. Notes

• Outline for the book:

• Preparation to enter the land (Jos 1-5)
• Conquering the land (Jos 6-12)
• Distribution of the land to the 12 tribes (Jos 13-22)
• Joshua’s message and death (Jos 23-24)

HOMEWORK
JOSHUA 1
This is a self-study. Please do not send homework answers to the teacher forcorrection.

• Preparation for Joshua 1
• Read Exo 17:9-13
• What do we learn about Joshua from this passage?
• Read Exo 24:12-13 Exo 32:15-20 Exo 33:10-11
• What do we learn about Joshua from these passages?
• Read Num 11:24-29 Num 13:16-21 Num 14:6-9
• What do we learn about Joshua from these passages?
• Read Num 27:18-23 Deu 31:2-8 Deu 34:7-8
• What do we learn about Joshua from these passages?
• Read Jos 1:1-18
• What does God promise Joshua?
• What conditional commands are given to Joshua?
• In Jos 1:8 he is told to meditate on the word of God. Is there a difference between meditating on the word of God and memorizing scripture? If there is, what is the difference?
• Memory verse: Jos 1:9