The Last of the Great Good-Byes

Today's reading includes Joshua 24:15, the well-known verse where Joshua states "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Up to this point, whenever a major character in the Bible passed away, he gets special mention. We've had:

Abraham (Genesis 25:7-11)

Isaac (Genesis 35:28-29)

Jacob (Genesis 49:33)

Moses (Deuteronomy 34:1-12)

Joshua (Joshua 24:29-30)

We'll have another prominent one on June 20th, but until then, this is about it for the great send-offs. As I mentioned in a post about a week or so ago, we're entering into parts of the Bible with which we may not be familiar, but it's precisely these people and events that will increase our learning.

Some of you may recall that a couple of years ago, we had an opportunity to participate in an event that created a handwritten version of the NIV Bible. One of the books we were assigned that day was Joshua, and I kept looking over to see how close we were getting to Joshua 24:15, because I was going to slide over and take that one for myself. I observed that we weren't going to make it that far, so I settled for some nondescript verse in Numbers. As well as we know Joshua's admonition to the people of Israel, look at just how adamantly the people responded that they would indeed follow the Lord--they re-affirmed THREE times they would do it. I don't want to ruin the plot, but we're about one CHAPTER away from the first time Israel will fail to follow what they promised.

I won't belabor the obvious, but the important thing for us today isn't that we do the same thing and fall away from the Lord in our own ways--we do, and will continue to do so until we get to chat with Abraham and Moses about it. No, what's more important is what we do when we recognize we have fallen and look to the Lord for forgiveness. In the next six months or so, we'll read over and over of instances where the people of Israel forgot the promise they so boldly made to Joshua and ultimately repent. We can view all these instances two ways--we can tut-tut the Israelites for their inability to keep their word, or we can be thankful we have a God who sent his only Son to be the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. I'll leave it to you to choose.

Scott