David R. Helm
RESOURCES
Commentaries and Other Reading [pdf, 367kb]
Suggested Preaching Series Schedules [pdf, 65kb]
Structure [pdf, 58kb]
Instances of “Land” [pdf, 69kb]
Instances of “Law and Word” [pdf, 72kb]
Instances of “Devote to Destruction” [pdf, 77kb]
Joshua is really a hinge book—it stands between two worlds.
On the front end, you have Moses and the completion of the Pentateuch. Whenever you’re reading a historical book, it’s always wise to see how the preceding book finishes. In that light, let’s look at Deuteronomy 32:44–47:
Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”
Two quick observations:
Promise. As the Pentateuch closes, it ends on a note of promise. The emphasis here is on the land—an echo of the early promises to Abraham reverberating forward through the Pentateuch.
Word. As Moses goes off the stage, he stresses the importance of God’s word. A love for God will be evidenced by loyalty to his word.
On the back end, after Joshua, we enter the period of the Judges. This season moves the reader far beyond promises fulfilled. Instead, we meet a people who are not living under God’s word. Again and again, we hear the refrain: “In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
In between these two stands Joshua—with its majestic high points of promises fulfilled, a people genuinely concerned to live in loyalty to God’s word, and yet an unmistakable element of incompleteness.
It’s very much like our own situation in Christ: promises fulfilled in the gospel, God’s word given to us as a way of life, but still a sense of incompleteness as we wait for the final future.
Joshua is a narrative, and its structure is fairly simple. Think of it in two halves:
Chapters 1–12: The conquest. Here the emphasis is on Joshua, who is completing the words God had given to Moses.
Chs. 1–5: Preparation for conquest
Chs. 6–12: Execution of conquest
Chapters 13–24: The distribution of the land. Here the emphasis is on God, who has fulfilled all his promises.
Chs. 13–21: Distribution of land among the people
Chs. 22–24: Three powerful closing scenes where God’s people are charged to remain loyal and undivided in their devotion to him
The book begins and ends with the theme of land.
Opening: “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them” (1:2).
Closing: “Not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you” (23:14–16).
The theme of land runs through the whole book—chapters 6, 8, 10, 11, and 21 especially.
But how should we handle land today? Some still see fulfillment in a physical territory. Yet the New Testament points us further:
Hebrews 4 interprets the land in terms of God’s final rest.
The word inheritance—used throughout Joshua—is picked up in Ephesians 1 as our spiritual inheritance in Christ.
So the land theme ultimately points beyond geography to our eternal rest in Christ.
If land is the theme, loyalty to God’s law is the aim—the effect the book desires in its readers.
Opening: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (1:8).
Closing: Joshua writes words into the “Book of the Law of God” (24:26).
Throughout, the people are called to demonstrate their love for God through loyalty to his word:
Ch. 5: Circumcision and Passover reinstituted
Ch. 8: Covenant renewal
Ch. 24: Final covenant scene at Shechem
Preaching warning: The danger here is moralism. If you preach Joshua as “try harder, obey better, then God will accept you,” you rob people of both God and the gospel. Preach Joshua through the lens of Christ—the one who fulfills the law and enables us to live faithfully.
Finally, Joshua confronts us with a fuller picture of God’s love—one that modern ears may find difficult.
Today many assume “God is love” means unconditional acceptance of all behavior. But Joshua presents us with a God who commands judgment (e.g., the ḥerem, where whole cities were devoted to destruction).
This raises questions of just war, divine judgment, and God’s holiness. Preaching Joshua requires helping people see God’s love not as sentimental permissiveness but as holy, faithful, and just.
How do we get to the gospel from Joshua? Two ways:
Joshua himself. His name is the Hebrew form of “Jesus.” He is the savior-leader who secures rest for God’s people. Yet even he bows before the Commander of the Lord’s army (ch. 5), showing that another Joshua must come.
The Jordan River. The great boundary—crossing it means entering God’s promises. It is the ark of the covenant, God’s presence, that makes a way through. Likewise, Christ secures our entry into God’s promises.
The altar. In ch. 8, blessings and curses are declared over the altar. Sacrifice mediates between wrath and mercy—pointing forward to the cross of Christ.
Outsiders brought in. Rahab the prostitute (ch. 2) becomes part of God’s people. The Gibeonites (ch. 9–10), though outsiders, are spared through covenant. Caleb, possibly from outsider stock (a Kenizzite), is given an inheritance first.
This pattern shows the heart of the gospel: God takes outsiders and makes them insiders through his covenant mercy.
The book of Joshua is about promises fulfilled and a call to loyalty—yet it also points forward in incompleteness, anticipating Christ. It raises hard questions about God’s character, but also gives us beautiful pictures and patterns of redemption.
As you preach Joshua, highlight land, loyalty, and love, but always in light of the gospel. And remember: in Christ we find the true Joshua, the one who secures our inheritance and brings us safely into God’s eternal rest.