Reading Joshua

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Commonly, the focus when discussing Joshua is to look at the principles of a "Just War". The topic remains a huge discussion point amongst Christian circles, and a huge apologetical issue. It is extremely hard for many to understand why the Israelites would completely wipe out entire nations in this book under the premise of a "holy war" when the Bible does state that we are to turn our cheek. Ultimately, there is answers for such questions, but I will be addressing this "Just War" one in a later post.

For this book review, I want to focus on the person of Joshua. To me, he remains one of the best Old Testament biblical men to model your life after, due to multiple reasons.

First, Joshua had the perfect start to his career in leadership. He found someone who had immense knowledge, a wealth of opportunities, and a strong relationship with God. Moses was the perfect mentor for Joshua. Much of his success comes from the fact that he spent so much time learning and developing under Moses, and then modelling himself after that figure.

After that, Joshua remained wholly committed to his task. He knew what God had called him to do, and he never wavered from that purpose. Everything he did was to achieve his task of settling the Israelites in the Promised Land. His whole life was dedicated to that purpose, and Joshua threw himself passionately into that work throughout the book. There's a huge lesson there that we need to apply to our own lives.

Joshua was also a commanding leader. The people respected him, and followed him whole heartedly wherever he went. They listened to what he said, and obeyed immediately. That kind of leadership doesn't just happen.

In Joshua's case, I'm going to bet the people saw God's hand in his life, just as it had been in Moses', and because of that, they were willing to crown him their leader. When success dominates your life, people are willing to follow you until failure creeps in. However, when you deal successfully with failure, you will never lose your following. They will respect you and hold you in high regard, doing whatever you ask of them. Joshua possessed that character, mainly because he remained wholly focussed on God.

While commonly Joshua is idolized because of his warrior escapades, a trait that is coveted by men of every age, I think we should start respecting him because of his character instead. While there is no question that he was a warrior by nature, he was also a leader, and a servant of God. Everything he did was to glorify God. Men of every age need to start coveting that trait instead.