Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Long Obedience in the Same Direction | Historical Books | Joshua 11

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Is your faith a long or short obedience? Are you following Jesus's direction? Do you have a tourist mindset? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Joshua 11 encourages us to see our faith as a long obedience in the same direction. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Joshua 11

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Long ago, a prominent thinker wrote this. The essential thing in heaven and in earth is apparently that there should be long obedience in the same direction. There thereby results and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living. I love that. Long obedience in the same direction that leads to something that makes life worth living. Now, those words didn't originally come from a Christian theologian. They were written by the famous critic of religion, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his work, Beyond Good and Evil. Ironically,

that quote from Nietzsche might sound familiar to a lot of us because that phrase, long obedience in the same direction, was taken up by the Christian pastor and author Eugene Peterson as the title of his book on discipleship, a long obedience in the same direction. I love how Peterson uses that phrase from Nietzsche for his work on the journey of faith. I mean, it cuts into the inclination of our moment, our default factory setting. We tend to want the way of Jesus to be a relatively short obedience in whatever direction we feel like taking. But if that's how we think about faith, then obedience will always be a kind of bad word that we don't like to think about very much. Kind of like how people have an aversion to specific words like mucus or pus. People have an

aversion to the word, an idea of obedience. Sorry, by the way, if those are triggering words for you to hear. Here's the point that Nietzsche and Peterson are trying to make. A short obedience into whatever direction we feel like taking, it wouldn't lead to something that makes life worth living. Obedience isn't meant to be an obstacle to a life worth living. Obedience is an opportunity to move into a bolder, more beautiful and meaningful life with Jesus. Jesus. And that creates a big question for us. How does obedience fit into our framework of faith? Is it a bad word? Or is it meant to be something more? Questions like this get addressed in the events of Joshua 11. As we get ready to explore the theme of obedience in that chapter of the Bible, let's pause and ask for God's

grace to move through our time together. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath. and thank you for your word. And this time we bring before you in prayer, all of our joys and our sorrows, the things causing us anxiety and giving us excitement. We bring before you our calendars and the things we have planned and also the contingencies,

the things that we worry about that are unplanned. God, would you meet us in this space in this time? Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time, in Joshua 11. And as we read these words together, let these words read us and restore us together.

In Jesus' name. Amen. The scene we encounter here in Joshua 11 is yet another battle scene in the historical books. So just a quick reminder to check out Patrick's episode on the first half of Joshua 8 to get some really helpful context on how we can think about violence in the historical books overall.

If you haven't checked out that episode yet, I really encourage you to give it a listen. Now, Joshua 11 specifically begins with a coalition of kings in the northern hill country of Canaan coming together to fight against Israel. After the first five verses describe the schemes of these kings, the voice of God cuts into the narrative in verse six, saying this to Joshua, do not be afraid of them. For tomorrow at this time, I will give over all of them slain to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire. This verse is key in Joshua 11. It describes God's command for Israel to obey by completely defeating the kings that are coming to wage war against them. But at the same time,

that commandment, that obedience of Israel is founded on God's faithful action first. So if you look closely at this, verse 6 indicates that the most of the most of the most of the most of the most of moments of obedience that are about to unfold here will be based on God's divine providence, period. He says, I will give over all of them. Now, this orienting verse protects us from the lie, the lie that our obedience is an outcome of our effort alone. When God calls his people, calls us to follow his commands, any victory this experience there happens, because of his promises through his presence. His omnipotence and omnipresence

fuel our obedience in any given moment. Now, as the narrative of this chapter in Joshua unfolds, we read about how God gives Israel victory over the warring kings that are coming to face them. And in verse 15, we get a helpful picture of the degree to which Israel obeyed the Lord as he provided for them. This is kind of a summary of their obedience.

Just as the Lord had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses. Now notice with me the degree to which Joshua and the people of God followed the commands of God. Nothing is left undone, the text says. We know for sure that Israel has not perfectly obeyed God up to this point. and they certainly won't continue with a varsity level of faithfulness after this. But we shouldn't gloss over the fact that the historical books right here

are trying to portray a bold picture of obedience to God. This obedience is presented as an essential part of the journey of faith. It's this kind of bold obedience. Nothing is left undone. That's so important to Joshua. But if this bold obedience is so important to the historical books to Joshua, why is it so often ignored in our lives? Well, Eugene Peterson gives a pretty compelling suggestion in his book that we were talking

about earlier, a long obedience in the same direction. He writes this, religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset, a tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure. I love that phrase. it's really convicting for me to think about in my own life. If you took an account of your posture toward God, toward his church, are the ways that you've developed a kind of tourist mindset of faith? Ways that you've made it less about God and more about your leisure? Frankly, every one of us can be prone to doing this, all of us. We prioritize personal convenience at the expense of God's commands.

That's exactly the reason why the idea of a long obedience gives us a ton, a ton of hope. It is not a quick fix overnight oats kind of obedience. It's one that grows over time by God's grace. In our church community where I live, we like to say that gospel transformation happens when you have grace plus truth over time in community. grace plus truth over time and community. You have to have that for gospel transformation to occur. Now, that sounds like a simple idea, but in reality, this is how that plays out in real life. We actually need more grace than we thought we needed. More truth than we cared to hear.

More time than we thought it would take. And we need a community that we might be tempted to give up on now and then. The life of faith is a long obedience. It is not a tourist attraction. It's a long obedience in the same direction together by God's grace. An important truth for us to see here in Joshua is that obedience isn't simply an endless striving on an aimless trajectory. Obedience is a striving founded in the steadfast love of God, a striving that leads in a particular. direction as well. That direction is emphasized here at the very end of chapter 11 in verse 23. Let's read that together. So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments,

and the land had rest from war. Rest. It's a key word here. If Joshua 11 begins by showing us how obedience is rooted in God's steadfast love, well, it ends by showing us how obedience leads to God's rest, God's peace, a peace that's not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of life as it should be. That's the direction of the long obedience that God is calling us to, into the direction of his perfect rest. So in this way, what verse 23 is telling us is that the obedience here for God's people. It's not just bold. It's beautiful. Now, this chapter begins with hostility against God's people, and it ends with rest for his people. But we know that that rest doesn't last forever, because the obedience of God's people won't last forever. The events here in Chapter 11 should

challenge us to rethink our view of obedience. But at the same time, it should challenge us and cause us to have a renewed reliance on the one who is perfectly obedient to the Father, on Jesus himself, who accomplished the ultimate rest that we long for. That's the argument made in Hebrews 4, verses 8 through 11, where the rest in Joshua is perfectly fulfilled in the rest we have in Jesus. We read this in Hebrews 4, for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest has

also rested from his works as God did from His let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience this rest that Hebrews is talking about it's not contingent on a perfect track record of faith that we manage to pull off on our own it is guaranteed by the perfect, finished work of Jesus on our behalf. So obedience is far from a dirty word in the life of faith. It's a beautiful word, a beautiful concept that gives life to our faith. As you reflect on this scene, this moment in Joshua 11 with the theme of obedience, think about how you may need to embrace a bolder view of obedience.

How might you need to slowly exchange? a tourist mindset with a long obedience in the same direction. But at the same time, as this convicts us and challenges us, don't forget that embracing a bold obedience is empowered by the loving presence of God. Verse 6. It's oriented into the direction of his rest. Verse 23. Strive to enter that rest as you head into whatever lies before you.

In this given moment, in this given day and this week. God, we confess the ways that we sacrifice bold obedience for bland tourist religion. May your steadfast love spur us on to a long obedience in the direction of Jesus and his beautiful rest. In his name we pray. Amen.