Joshua 17:1-18:27
I love the way even Joshua gets a bit bored of this distribution of land thing and delegates the task off to various underlings. But, while the detailed description of arguments over the sizes of inheritances and the falling of the borders may be a little dull, the big picture remains fascinating. God has led his people to the promised land and now, in these very chapters, Joshua and his people are working out what exactly they have got. It feels a bit like a family wandering around a huge house that they have just inherited from an unknown great aunt. We get the points of contention emphasised in the re-telling but the bulk of the news is really really good. Israel have a home thanks to the incredible generosity of their God. And there is the parallel to us today. There is more to be done, there are Canaanites with iron chariots in our lives that need to be driven out, but we stand in land we do not deserve. We rejoice with trembling and at the same time, press on towards the goal.
John 1:29-51
In Matthew, Jesus was shown to fulfill the whole old Testament; in Mark, to be the powerful, but confusing inaugurator of the Kingdom; in Luke, to be the Son of Man who brings the favour of God to the last, the least and the lost. In John we crash straight into immensely bold statements about Jesus’ identity. Even after yesterday’s prologue we immediately see Jesus as “Son of God”, “Lamb of God”, “Messiah” and the Son of Man on whom the angels of God ascending and descending. These are huge claims clearly pointing to Jesus’ divinity. It is possible to be so overwhelmed by these that we detach Jesus from his humanity, that we believe that he was “super-spiritual” and so cut off from the everyday life that we inhabit. I’ve met many people who seem to have gone this way and feel that becoming more like Jesus is becoming increasingly isolated in a “spiritual” world, full of prayer but empty of real relationships with people. But this is a serious underselling of the gospel. The angels of God descended to earth as well as ascended. Jesus didn’t just pass by John’s two disciples but asked them to “Come and see”. Jesus didn’t just leave for Galilee but he found Philip and asked him if he wanted to turn it into a road trip. In short, as you dig through the veneer of super-spirituality you realise that the Son of God was completely obsessed with spending time with people, with drawing into intimacy with his creation. Vineyard’s first in the list of priorities is worship, and quite rightly so. But second is relationships and, if we want to really become like Jesus, then it is one that we would do well to embody.
Proverbs 10:31-11:8
“Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath but righteousness delivers from death”
