"There... he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses," and afterward read all its words, the blessing and the curse (a paraphrase of Joshua 8:32, 34).

What a way to celebrate a victory! They wrote out the Law of Moses on stones and then read it aloud to the entire community. Who does that?

Yet should we not also celebrate our great God this way when He gives us victories in our lives? We throw parties and celebrate one another's achievements — should we not celebrate the Lord? Is He not the reason for our victories?

So let us remember to celebrate the Lord in our victories. Let us acknowledge His faithfulness and goodness, and let us together raise our voices in praise of Him who gives us the victory.

We had two successful ministry launches over these past few weeks. Lord, help me to remember to lead our communities to praise You in these victories.

Have you experienced victories for which you can praise the Lord? Plan to celebrate the Lord, and do it!

AI-Expanded Reflection

The ceremony in Joshua 8:30–35 took place at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, exactly as Moses had commanded in Deuteronomy 11:29 and 27:1–8 — an altar of uncut stones, the law written out, and the blessings and curses read with half the tribes standing before each mountain. What makes the timing remarkable is that it came immediately after the defeat at Ai and the sin of Achan (Joshua 7). Rather than pressing the military advantage after the victory, Israel paused for a lengthy covenant renewal service. Joshua read "all the words of the law... before all the assembly of Israel," including the women, little ones, and sojourners (8:35). No one was excluded.

The comment's application — celebrating victories by returning to God's Word and God's praise — matches the pattern. Israel's great celebrations were tied to remembrance: the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, the reading of the law under Ezra (Nehemiah 8). Paul urges the same posture for ordinary life: "whatever you do, in word or deed," do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks (Colossians 3:17).

Their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way (Joshua 5:7).

There is no indication here that God told Israel not to circumcise their children in the wilderness. The suggestion here is that the previous generation of Israel either failed or refused to obey God in circumcising their children, as God prescribed. This is further vindication for God destroying all of them in the wilderness over the forty years. Even after the incident at Kadesh-Barnea, when they grumbled against God's command to take the Promised Land the first time, the people of Israel remained rebellious and disobedient.

Circumcision was very important because not only was it commanded in the Law of Moses, it was also commanded of Israel as the sign of God's covenant with Abraham. It served to identify Israel as the people of God. If you recall, God almost killed Moses for this failure with respect to his son (cf. Exodus 4:24–26). Consequently, writing of the generation of Israel that perished in the wilderness, we read in Hebrews:

Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. “Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they did not know My ways’; As I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest’ (Hebrews 3:7–11).

We learn from this that the generation, twenty-years-old and over, of Israel remained entrenched in their unbelief throughout the forty-years of wandering in the wilderness. Therefore, God destroyed them, not merely physically, but I believe spiritually as well. This is the meaning of the expression, "They shall not enter My rest." Again we read,

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard (Hebrews 4:1–2).

Friends, there is a theological doctrine called the "perseverance of saints." It is kind of a misnomer because perseverance usually has to do with effort, yet the doctrine teaches rather the "preservation" of saints by God's grace into eternity. It expresses the teaching, "once saved always saved." The basis for this unshakeable salvation, even an unshakeable faith, is the sovereign will and power of God. This is beautifully illustrated by our Lord:

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand (John 10:27–29).

This text pictures the Lord Jesus holding the believer in His hand. Then, as if this were not secure enough, God the Father then puts His hand over Jesus' hands to secure the believer in His hand as well. Thus, the believer's eternal destiny is secure, not on the strength of our faithfulness but on the strength of God's promises.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Joshua 5 interrupts the anticipated military advance with circumcision and Passover. The people have crossed the Jordan, but their identity before God must be attended to before the narrative moves to Jericho. Circumcision reaches back to the covenant with Abraham, while Passover remembers deliverance from Egypt. The new generation enters the land as the recipient of promises and redemption that began before its own achievements. The cessation of manna and the eating of the land's produce then mark another transition in God's provision.

The text states that males born during the wilderness journey had not been circumcised. It does not explain in detail why this had not occurred. The original's attribution to persistent parental rebellion is plausible as part of a broader reading of the wilderness, but it should remain an inference. Nor does the omission supply an independent account of every condemned person's eternal state. The narrative gives enough information to emphasize covenant renewal without allowing us to reconstruct every motive or individual destiny.

Hebrews 3–4 uses the wilderness generation as a serious warning to its hearers. The promise of entering God's rest remains, and unbelief can be expressed through a hardened refusal to hear. The writer's response is active mutual care: believers are to encourage one another so that sin does not deceive and harden them. The warning is not offered merely as historical information about people who have already died. It becomes a means by which the present community is called to persevere.

For that reason, “perseverance” and “preservation” should not be made opposites. In the classic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, God's preserving grace produces continuing faith; it does not make perseverance irrelevant. Christians differ about how the warnings relate to final salvation, but the warnings themselves still command attention. A slogan such as “once saved, always saved” can become misleading if it suggests that a past profession renders present unbelief and conduct spiritually meaningless.

John 10:27–29 grounds security in the Shepherd who knows and keeps his sheep. It also describes them hearing and following him. These responses are not competing sources of security alongside his power; they characterize the relationship he sustains. The image of the Father's hand physically enclosing Jesus' hand is a devotional illustration rather than a literal description supplied by the text. Its intended point, the strength of divine keeping, can be affirmed without requiring that imagined arrangement.

The practical result should be assurance joined to responsiveness. We can trust Christ's faithfulness, receive the warnings as part of his care, and seek help when our hearts become resistant. Covenant signs, religious memories, and doctrinal formulas are not substitutes for present reliance on him. Joshua's generation begins again under God's provision; the Christian likewise lives from grace already given and grace continually needed. Perseverance is not lonely self-rescue, but the lived response of people being kept by their faithful Savior.

Near Jericho, Joshua looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. He went up and demanded to know whether he was friend or foe. The reply: neither — I am the commander of the LORD's army. At this Joshua fell face down in reverence and asked what the commander wanted of His servant. The reply was to take off his sandals, for the place where he stood was holy. And Joshua did as he was told (a paraphrase of Joshua 5:13–15).

I find this exchange striking. Joshua sees a warrior with a drawn sword and needs to know whether to fight him or recruit him, so he asks whether he is friend or foe. The answer is neither. What Joshua needed to realize was that he was not the one calling the shots in the conquest. The question was not whether this figure was Joshua's ally, but whether Joshua and Israel would be His.

Today I reflect on our own response to God. Are we dictating terms to Him? Are we ordering His priorities around our own? Are we trying to enlist Him in our ambitions? Is His will merely one consideration among many in a busy life?

AI-Expanded Reflection

The reframing the comment identifies is exactly what the scene performs, and the instruction that follows confirms it. Take off your sandals, for the place is holy — the same words spoken to Moses at the bush, which signals to the reader that Joshua has arrived at the same kind of encounter rather than at a military consultation.

The figure's identity has been debated since the early church, some reading him as a created angel and others as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, partly because he accepts Joshua's worship without correction, unlike angels elsewhere who refuse it. This project has noted the same question at Genesis 18. What the passage settles regardless is the direction of the relationship: the commander does not join Joshua's army.

Circumcision and Passover at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2–12)

Circumcision was instituted in Genesis 17:10–14 — every male was to be circumcised as the sign of God's covenant, including those born in the household or bought from foreigners, with any uncircumcised male considered to have broken the covenant and cut off from his people (a paraphrase).

Circumcision was a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, which included the promise of descendants as numerous as the stars and the sand (Genesis 22:17) — fulfilled through Isaac, then Jacob, whose descendants grew from roughly seventy to over 600,000 fighting men alone by the Exodus. Another major component was the Promised Land of Canaan, which God was about to fulfill as well — but first required circumcision as a sign of that covenant promise.

In preparation for the first Passover, while still in Egypt, everyone was circumcised. Only boys born during the forty years of wilderness wandering hadn't yet been circumcised. Why they weren't isn't clearly explained — disobedience, or simply the constant movement of wilderness life?

All males were also required to be circumcised to celebrate the LORD's Passover — even a resident foreigner needed every male in his household circumcised first (a paraphrase of Exodus 12:48–49). We have record of Passover being observed in the second year after the Exodus, at God's specific instruction to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai (a paraphrase of Numbers 9:1–5) — but I wonder whether it was actually observed during the remaining thirty-nine years between that celebration and the one here at Gilgal. Perhaps it was observed, excluding whichever boys weren't yet circumcised — but as time passed, the uncircumcised population would have grown larger while the circumcised, older generation gradually died off in the wilderness.

By the time Israel reaches Gilgal, the majority of fighting-age men would have been uncircumcised, making this mass circumcision genuinely remarkable — since having the entire army circumcised on the same day would have left them at their most physically vulnerable moment for enemy attack. Remember Dinah and the Shechemites in Genesis 34 — Simeon and Levi tricked the Shechemites into circumcising themselves, then attacked while every man in the city was still in pain, killing them all (a paraphrase of Genesis 34:24–25). The same vulnerability applied to Israel's own army after their circumcision at Gilgal. This speaks volumes about Joshua's faith — from a purely human, military perspective, ordering his entire army circumcised simultaneously wouldn't have been a "wise" decision at all. Joshua trusted God's hand to protect them regardless.

After their obedience, God tells Joshua He's rolled away the reproach of Egypt from them (Joshua 5:9). This moment at Gilgal is pivotal in Israel's history — the day God "rolled away" their entire past: their oppressive slavery in Egypt, their forty years of aimless wilderness wandering, simply surviving day to day. On this day, God prepares to finally give them the land flowing with milk and honey promised to Abraham. No longer would they eat manna — they'd eat the land's own produce. No longer would they wander aimlessly — they'd establish permanent homes. How wonderful that first taste of the land's produce must have been!

Praise be to God, who never forgets His promises.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The vulnerability this comment identifies — an entire army circumcised on the same day, unable to fight effectively for several days afterward — is worth confirming as a genuinely serious, historically-grounded risk rather than a modern medical speculation, since Genesis 34 already demonstrates within Scripture itself exactly how devastating an attack during that recovery window could be. Joshua choosing to accept that same vulnerability, at the exact moment his army was preparing to invade a fortified, hostile land, is one of Scripture's more understated demonstrations of faith — not a dramatic, single decisive act, but a quiet willingness to accept real physical risk simply because God had commanded it, trusting entirely in protection that had no visible military basis at all.

I always enjoy this wonderful story of victory when Israel conquered Jericho. It's famous partly because God literally tore down Jericho's wall after Israel walked around the city once daily for six days, and seven times on the seventh, exactly as commanded. I'd like to discuss how this story can be twisted into a presumptuous biblical basis for a misguided act by some zealous Korean Christians. Several months ago in Seoul, a group of students from a Christian school visited one of Korea's most historically significant Buddhist temples and began walking in and out of it repeatedly, praying and praising God, calling it "treading the land" — modeled explicitly on Joshua 6. This drew significant criticism from Korean society, and the school's principal had to apologize publicly to the temple's head.

Why wasn't this actually biblical? Since Jericho's wall fell after Israel circled it a specific number of times, should we do the same to bring down Buddhist temples or mosques? In Jericho's case, God gave Israel a specific instruction for a specific purpose — handing that particular city into their hands. The act of circling wasn't itself the cause of the miraculous victory — their obedience to the LORD is what brought the wall down. We see something similar in 1 Samuel 4, where Israel brings the Ark of the Covenant into battle against the Philistines, treating it like a lucky charm guaranteeing victory — yet they lose the battle, and the Ark is captured. Was the Ark itself powerful? Not at all — God was. Obedience moves God's heart, resulting in genuine victory. Let's examine our own lives for the same kind of superficial imitation, and remove it completely, to remain holy before the Lord.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The distinction this comment draws — between the specific act commanded and the obedience the act was actually testing — is worth applying as a general principle beyond just this one incident. Jericho's fall didn't come from a repeatable ritual formula; it came from a unique, one-time instruction given for a specific historical purpose. Treating any biblical account of God's action as a transferable technique, rather than as a specific instance of God's own sovereign choice to act, is exactly the mistake both this modern incident and the Ark's capture in 1 Samuel 4 illustrate — mistaking the visible method for the actual, invisible source of the power involved.

The Israelites thought victory over their enemies would be a foregone conclusion. Then they lose 36 men and feel discouraged — I'm not sure if it was discouragement over the loss of lives, or the loss itself. Either way, they ask God why, and find out someone disobeyed. God could have simply said, "Achan stole from me, and you need to stone him and his family." But no — the process was drawn out. The twelve tribes come forward one by one, then by clan, then by family. I can't imagine it being an efficient way of identifying the guilty party. It begs the question of why God would choose to do things this way instead of simply naming Achan directly. I can imagine the whole camp waiting to see who was — fill in the blank: stupid enough to defy God, audacious enough to disobey, greedy enough to take, responsible for the death of the 36 men. I can imagine the chatter, everyone dying to know, since clearly everyone would have known something was going on, because they all had to gather, or at least be ready to be gathered, to be judged.

So what's really interesting to me is that God punished the whole community for the individual decision of Achan. I can imagine being a family in the same clan as Achan — what if my husband was the one, and I just didn't know? There's a real psychological weight that comes with being brought up to be judged like that.

So, getting to my point: those 36 who died certainly didn't know what Achan had done, nor did nearly all of Israel. It seems to raise the question — to what extent are we held accountable for the individual actions of our neighbors, our city, our nation, our world?

Given the context of Derek's sermon this Sunday, we repent and humble ourselves for our sins and the sins of our forefathers. We should repent for actions connected to whatever identity we hold. Certainly, I understand Derek wasn't basing the reconciliation movement on Old Testament passages necessarily, since he quoted John. But this Joshua passage seems to reinforce the idea that we're accountable for the acts of our community — though God didn't have the community formally repent at the end of this account.

So all this to ask: how accountable are we for everything happening in our world right now? I could see someone arguing this Joshua passage doesn't apply this way, because it was different for Israel back then, and this is too literal an interpretation. I don't know that I buy that. We're called to repent when there are failures in our local church, our global church. We're called to repent for a whole range of things. If a pastor, elder, or any individual at church did something wrong, wouldn't we be called to repent? I remember hearing about a Philadelphia church where a member was murdered, and a Black church came to repent for the actions of a totally unrelated Black person who committed the murder. I see the power in that kind of redemption. But if it's really true that we should be repenting for our community, and that we're held accountable that broadly, we have major repenting to do everywhere. Do you think there's even a line anywhere? Derek draws the line at our identities. Israel's line was clear: Israel. Do I feel even remotely called to repent for a home invasion murder somewhere in Dallas? I am a Dallasite, after all.

Okay, this was kind of a ramble and not fully thought out. One of my flaws is that I'm verbose — I'm sure I'd edit this more tightly if it were more public. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Also somewhat related: I always feel a certain weight at confirmations, baptisms, infant dedications, or wedding ceremonies, because I believe that as attendees, we're affirming that as a community, we'll try to help uphold that union or that believer's spiritual growth. So in the context of community — if I'm at church and see a kid doing something not totally wrong, but somewhat wrong, do I correct them? I believe the general parental consensus would be: only if it's really serious, like physical harm — because people don't like strangers correcting their kids. Some react strongly. But given that it's a "community," shouldn't we feel some obligation to correct? Does that change if we're at our neighborhood park, our community? What if the person doing wrong is an adult?

Okay, I realize that last part wasn't fully connected, but it circles back to the same issue: do you let sin just happen in your community? I'm trying to work out where the boundaries actually are, and testing the question against different scenarios.

Yujin responded... Your question about Achan's guilt and the associated loss of life among others is an excellent one. Although our focus is naturally on those who lost their lives, I sense the biblical focus is really on God and the violation of His holy standards. Remember, at one point, God was intent on destroying all of Israel and building up a new people through Moses. Because of Moses' intercession, the punishment was reduced to a delayed judgment over forty years, applying only to adults — yet God had originally been intent on judging everyone. Again, when David sinned with Bathsheba, the first casualty was their firstborn child, taken as part of the consequence of David's sin. Consider Job — he was afflicted, and his family killed, even though he was an upright man. Oftentimes, any attempt to define God's justice that excludes His freedom to do with His own creation as He pleases will fall short of solid biblical support. Somehow we have to let go of the notion that we deserve to be blessed, or saved, or even simply alive. When people were amazed that a tower's collapse had killed a number of bystanders, Jesus told them not to be amazed that those people died, but rather that they themselves were still alive (a paraphrase of Luke 13:1–5). We all live by the grace of God.

So, in this context of God's sovereign freedom to act according to His will, let's look again at Achan. I'm only speculating here, but perhaps Achan's family all knew what he'd done and failed to come forward. As Israel moved through each tribe, clan, and family in a process of elimination, each stage may have represented a missed opportunity for repentance by Achan and his family — until it was too late. We find a similar scenario with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, where the husband is judged for lying, but when the wife is given the same opportunity to come clean, she doesn't take it, and is judged as well.

As for the soldiers who died in the first battle at Ai, this certainly isn't the only time the whole group is punished for the sin of a few. When certain men intermarried with the women of Midian, all of Israel was punished for it, until they zealously removed the sin from their midst. In the Ten Commandments, God speaks of visiting the sin of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So even the "innocent" (in quotes, because no one is truly innocent before God) sometimes suffer alongside the guilty. This kind of generational punishment was changed under the New Covenant, so that each person is responsible for themselves (cf. Ezekiel 18; Jeremiah 31:27–34). Under the Old Covenant, there was a real place for interceding on behalf of the nation as a whole, because everyone's fate was interconnected, for good or for evil. That's why men like Daniel and Nehemiah, when they prayed, confessed not only their own sins but the sins of their people. After Christ's death, I don't see this kind of corporate confession mandated any longer. His death inaugurated the New Covenant (cf. Hebrews 8–10), and now each person confesses their own sins to receive forgiveness (1 John 1:9) — there's no mandate to confess the sins of your family, group, or church on their behalf.

Now, on the matter of correcting others, even the children of others — the Bible teaches us to both encourage and admonish one another (cf. Colossians 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:14). We're told to rebuke one another with the goal of restoration (cf. Matthew 18:15–17; James 5:19–20), with Scripture as our primary tool for this (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Unfortunately, we're not yet the kind of community where biblical correction, discipline, and restoration are practiced regularly. As for the children of others specifically, since parents carry the primary responsibility for raising their children in the instruction of the Lord (cf. Ephesians 6:4), I'd encourage you to speak to the parents about disciplining their children before speaking to the children directly yourself.

I'm not sure this addresses all of your questions, so feel free to keep interacting with it. I praise God for your pursuit of life-applicable truth.

AI-Expanded Reflection

One angle worth adding to an already thorough reply: the New Testament does have a genuine category for corporate, not just individual, accountability — it just looks different from Achan's story. In Revelation, entire churches are addressed and judged as bodies, not just as collections of individuals; the church at Thyatira is rebuked specifically for tolerating a false teacher in their midst, even though presumably not every member there was personally deceived by her (a paraphrase of Revelation 2:20). That's a real form of communal responsibility surviving into the New Covenant — not inherited guilt across generations, which Ezekiel 18 does close off, but a congregation's shared responsibility for what it tolerates in its own midst while it's happening. It may be a more useful category for the questions this comment is wrestling with than either the Achan story or pure individual accountability alone: the question isn't "am I guilty for a stranger's sin," but "what am I tolerating in my own community."