Jonah
Joshua 9 - Cities of Refuge
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Cities of Refuge audio (10MB)
You often hear people complaining about the violence we see in the Old Testament. We cringe at the thought of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It all sounds so barbaric.
Yet, how do people deal with something like murder in a world where there’s no police force, no criminal justice system, no penal code? One way people deal with it is by the vendetta, seeking vengeance equal to the injury done. But a vendetta, as you probably know, soon becomes a blood feud. It’s usually between two families or clans, begun because of an injury by one person to a member of the other family that needs to be avenged. But it easily escalates to the point where each injury is repaid by a greater injury. And the justice of the situation soon becomes irrelevant. You knock out my tooth and I’ll come back with my big brother and knock out two of yours. You kill my sheep and I’ll kill your cow. You kill my brother and I’ll kill your children. It’s like an episode from underbelly except there are no police watching to catch you out. The only law is the law of the jungle. The stronger or the more organised will always win.
But what if you want to have a people who’ll live justly among themselves? What if you were God setting up a civil law for your newly formed nation? How would you do it then?
Joshua 7 - The Gibeonites
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Joshua & The Gibeonites audio (10MB)
Common Sense isn’t Always
The Israelites have left Mt Ebal and Mt Gerizim behind and are now moving south to continue their conquest of the land. The whole population of Canaan has heard about them by now and the kings of the land below the hill country band together to prepare a defence. But not the leaders of Gibeon. They’ve seen what’s happened to Jericho and Ai and they figure the same fate awaits them if they resist. So they takes a different tack. They prepare a subterfuge.
Joshua 6 - Mt Ebal & Mt Gerizim
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Mt Ebal & Mt Gerizim audio (9MB)
Joshua 8:30-35
It’s interesting how some places take on a greater significance than others. For Australian sports fans the MCG is the sporting arena. For Elvis fans it’s Graceland in Memphis Tennessee. For car racing fans this weekend it’s Mt Panorama in Bathurst. Di & I have just been to some of the significant places of the New Testament: places like Laodicea, Philippi, Pisidian Antioch, Corinth and especially Ephesus. It was great to walk on streets where Paul and Silas, Timothy and Luke would have walked; to walk on the Roman Road that’s still lying there by the side of the modern highway; to think about the fact that these were places where the most significant growth of the early church took place. Well, today in the book of Joshua we come to just such a place.
Joshua and the people of Israel have destroyed Jericho and Ai, so they now control the main entry into Canaan and the northern end of the highway that passes through the mountains south to Jerusalem and Hebron. But they don’t go south; they move north, to a place where they can carry out one of the instructions that Moses left for Joshua before he died.
They march north and eventually come to a place where the road turns west and passes between two mountains, Mt Ebal on the right and Mt Gerizim on the left. This is one of those places. Here between the two mountains is the city of Shechem.
Joshua 5 - Achan & Ai
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- Written by: Heather Cetrangolo
Achan And Ai audio (10MB)
During the week I represented a man in a family law mediation. He had recently separated from his wife, and we were negotiating for him to have contact with his children. It’s hard to imagine, for those of us who haven’t been through it, what it would be like to be negotiating with total strangers, about how many hours a week you are allowed to spend with your own children … especially if you have been in a Christian marriage.
The couple in this case were both practicing Christians – active members of their church. There hadn’t been any violence or abuse or adultery in the marriage. The relationship had simply broken down irretrievably for no obvious or striking reason … although they were, as many couples are, under financial pressure and pressure from extended family … my client finds himself in a situation he never imagined he’d be in … sitting with me in the Legal Aid Dispute Resolution Centre, praying, that he will still be able to have a relationship with his kids.
As I sat in the mediation and listed to the mediator carry on about what children need after separation … and tolerated the discussion that canvassed everything but what God might have to say about it all … I wondered … why are we here? Why are two believers even subjecting themselves to this process? - arguing against each other before an unbeliever? (and Paul says this in 1 Cor)
This couple haven’t broken the law. Why has the church palmed them off to the civil authorities? Why can’t we help them internally? Or are we so ashamed when we fail, when our people divorce, that we’d rather not get involved?
I noticed that the woman who ran the mediation was watching us very intently. Watching us pray. Watching our behaviour … and the world does have its eyes on the church, and people watch intently to see exactly what we do when things go wrong.
And the world wants to know …
Proverbs 1. 1-7
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- Written by: John Altmann
What kind of teacher is God?
When you think about God and his words in the bible, do you think – boring, uninteresting, not really able to hold my attention and teach me anything?
There’s a lot of information in the world now isn’t there? And the rate at which information is being created is astonishing. [8am – How many of you have used the internet? Who feels a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information out there and how do you find your way around it?] [10am – While I’m preaching this sermon there’ll be around 12,000 hours of new video material uploaded onto YouTube! That’s a lot to keep up with. Do you ever think about the fact that if when you start a university course today by the time you finish it most of what you learnt will be out of date!]
Is God responsible for all that information? Does God want us to have to just learn more and more? Does he want to overwhelm us with information or does he have somewhat different priorities for what he wants us to learn from him?
