Joshua 8:35  There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them.

 

    Learning to play an instrument well is a challenging endeavor. Most people have heard the old bromide, “Practice makes perfect.” But, as I generally told my students, “Only perfect practice makes perfect.” To improve requires daily effort. Interestingly enough, even master musicians can be found practicing some of the same material that novices do. Scales, for example. They are the basics and good musicians really never leave them. But playing scales is not really exciting, and they take time. 

    Joshua had really hit the ground running with the Israelites. Since Moses had died, he had led them across the miraculously-parted Jordan river, defeated Jericho where the ‘walls came a-tumblin’ down’, and had a tremendous victory at Ai. (That last victory, though, came after an embarrassing and frightening defeat at Ai.) But Joshua could have easily become proud and claimed honor for himself. He could have begun building his resume’! But instead, he built an altar.

    Beyond that, he took one of the stones of the altar and wrote the Law on it. (Maybe just the Ten Commandments.) After this, the people were gathered and he read all of the Law to the people. You may recall that the book of Deuteronomy was a second reading of the law. Joshua was quickly doing this again. He was establishing a principle that the Israelites could not think that they were the people of God apart from a reliance on the word of God. They needed His daily guidance.

    Things haven’t changed in that regard. A Christian is one who follows Christ. But are we following? We cannot consider ourselves truly Christian apart from a reliance on God’s Word. Reading the Bible is how we stay connected to God. Reading the Bible is basic. No matter how ‘skillful’ we get at living the Christian life, we will never graduate beyond the Bible as our daily connection to God. One who begins to think they don’t need the Bible has not ‘progressed' at all! 

    It took time for Joshua to read the Law to the people. It will take time for us to read the Bible. If we are too busy to read the Bible, we are admitting that everything else we do is more important than hearing what God has to say to me. I believe that putting other things before God is called idolatry!

 

    Blessings,     

    Pastor Russ