Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Joshua 14:6–15 | This passage highlights the remarkable faith of Caleb, one of only two men from the wilderness generation permitted to enter the Promised Land and one of the most remarkable men of faith in the history of God’s people. While an entire generation perished in unbelief, Caleb stood firm, trusting God’s promise when others gave in to fear. At 85, his strength had not waned, and his faith had not dimmed—he was still ready to take the hill country God had promised. When we read about Caleb, we are supposed to want to see more of this faithfulness in the Biblical story. Then, when we come to Christ, we see it fully and perfectly. Caleb’s wholehearted devotion reminds us of Jesus, who perfectly trusted the Father and secured the greater inheritance of eternal life for all who believe.
Joshua 16:10 | However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day. | This is a massive bummer and it’ll come back to bite them later on.
Joshua 14-19 | For many of us, this will be tedious and boring reading. That’s the challenge of these detailed texts. It’s location and name after location and name—and you might recognize 1% of the names and places. It isn’t our turf or our homeland, so none of this minutiae is directly relevant to us. Or is it?
As you are reading, remember that this is Holy and inspired Scripture. This is telling you something important—God is about real estate. Why do they call it “real” estate? Because you may own a lot of things, but 99% of those things don’t last. They wear out or break. But land, land is permanent. That’s why they call it “real” estate, it’s property that lasts over generations. It’s practical, it’s walkable, and it’s workable land.
For most of human history only the rich owned land. Or the king. Not in God’s kingdom. There’s abundance and provision for everyone! This reflects Jesus’ comfort to His disciples in John 14:2. What an odd thing for Jesus to say. But it bears out—Jesus knows these land grants and inheritance for His people in the book of Joshua are just temporary blessings, and He promises a new and better heaven and earth. That’s the point being taught in these boring texts, God is committed to the day in and day out rescue of His people, to their ordinary and boring concerns about housing and shelter. His rescue and salvation are complete in every part. Praise Him.
Luke 17:5 | The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” | What’s striking is that Jesus doesn’t rebuke them for asking—He welcomes the request. This shows us that growing in faith isn’t something we accomplish by sheer determination or effort. Instead, faith is a gift that we humbly ask for. Rather than striving to muster it up on our own, we are invited to turn to the Lord and earnestly plead, “Give me more.” He is not offended by our weakness; He delights in our dependence.
Luke 17:11-19 | Ten lepers get healed. Only one says thanks. Besides being good preparation for general human rudeness, what else is in this story? It’s the Samaritan, the outsider in the group of leprous outsiders, who praises God. The good news is always erupting and pushing its way out, pushing the boundaries of grace and love out into the nations. This is the trajectory of God’s kingdom. That’s the forward and visionary message of this story.
But there’s also more. We’ve read the skin regulations about rashes and leprous spots in the law. What does that reveal about Jesus and His power? It keeps bringing us back to how it's all about revealing Jesus. He told us He didn’t come to get rid of all of those laws. No, He came to fulfill them and make sense of them. This is a message of hope and freedom from the law and its regulations, as well as good news of hope for those outside the kingdom—there is a way in through Jesus’ healing power and redemptive love.
Tuesday
Joshua 20 | God sets up solutions to real world problems. Justice is a constant human problem, and folks don’t often take time to figure out if you killed their brother by accident or out of malice. They’re just upset that you hurt their family and they want to get revenge. It’s an ancient and thorny issue, and because of the complications and emotions involved, God sets aside cities of refuge. These are places of safety when demands for justice are being made.
What a picture of Jesus’ kingdom and His church, and what an enticing vision for us to seek in our time and from our God. The modern idea of sanctuary cities is similar, but it really isn’t the same. Sanctuary cities are political statements against policies. Cities of refuge are redemptive statements against human vengeance. But as we read, let us personalize this. There aren’t many truly safe places in this world. It seems that God has a vision of His people being such a place, and it’s something we should pray for God to build us into.
Psalm 15 opens with a piercing question: “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” What follows is a list of the kind of blameless, righteous life required to stand in God’s holy presence—a life marked by integrity, justice, truth, and purity. If we’re honest, reading this list should crush us, because we know we fall far short. On our own, we have no hope of dwelling with God. But then Jesus steps onto the scene—the only One who has ever truly lived Psalm 15. In His perfect obedience, both in action and in heart, He fulfills every requirement. And through what theologians call the great exchange, His righteousness is credited to us, while our sin is laid on Him. Now, because of Christ, we are welcomed into God’s presence—not as intruders, but as beloved children who belong.
Luke 18:9–14 | This is one of my (Jon) favorite sections in all of scripture. It’s so comforting, and it really shows us the beauty of the gospel story. In this parable Jesus teaches “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” One man—the Pharisee—stood tall, listing his spiritual accomplishments like a résumé before God. He fasted, tithed, avoided certain sins, and measured his worth by comparison to others. The other—the tax collector—stood at a distance, wouldn’t lift his eyes to heaven, and simply prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus says only one of them went home justified, and it wasn’t the one who looked the part.
This parable hits close to home for many churchgoing evangelicals in the U.S. It’s easy to slip into a version of Christianity that measures faith by attendance, giving, and visible morality—mistaking performance for righteousness. But Jesus shows us that God is not impressed by outward religion or moral résumé. What He desires is a heart that knows its need. We must come to Jesus not clothed in pride, but in brokenness—not pointing to our achievements, but pleading for mercy. The good news is that when we do, we find a Savior who justifies the humble and lifts up the lowly.
Wednesday
Joshua 23:6-8 |This is Joshua’s parting advice for the people he has led. And basically, as soon as he kicks the bucket, the people ignore this advice and spend 400+ years during the period of judges in a cycle of turning away from YHWH.
Joshua 24:14-15 | Joshua tells the people to make a choice for God, and that call to “make a decision” has been an evangelical call for saving faith all of my life. But reread these verses carefully, and try to remove your American evangelical glasses for a moment.
Verse 14 has four commands in this order: fear God, serve God, put away idols, and serve God. Four imperatives, which in other languages is an emphatic order. In English, we would put an exclamation mark to make the same urgent point: Fear God! Serve God! Put away idols! Serve God! That’s pretty dramatic and strong and reflects the actual Hebrew grammar. None of those commands are options. They aren’t choices to be made. If there is a choice, it’s simply between what’s morally right and wrong, but that’s not what Joshua is saying. He’s ordering them to do these things.
Now notice what is jarringly said next. If you think it’s a wrong or evil or a bad choice to follow God, to obey these four direct orders, then just go ahead and choose whatever god you want. It’s on you. So it isn’t really about your choices. As broken and ruined people, we’re not that good at choosing well. Our choosing ability is broken too, something that exposes how democracy can’t really save the world. We will choose wrong over and over. Joshua tells them that even their “choice” for God is false, because they won’t really follow through.
What does this reveal that God needs to do? We need Him to do everything. We need Him to choose to fill our choices with the Holy Spirit and His new life in us. Otherwise we can’t do anything. Isn’t it amazing how the Old and New Testament are so unified in this: God loves sinners, and loves to make them new, to make new choices to fear, serve, and love Him.
Psalm 116:1 | Let me share my (Jon) new favorite quote with you. It’s a little long, but I’m thinking if I use a small font, I could get this tattooed on my face. It’s that good. It’s from the late, great R.C. Sproul, “You can’t demand mercy. Mercy by definition is voluntary. The moment you think you’re owed mercy, it’s no longer mercy—it’s justice. You can’t demand mercy; you can only beg for it.”
Thursday
Judges | The entire book follows a repeated cycle that reveals both Israel’s unfaithfulness and God’s mercy. It begins with Israel’s sin—turning away from God to worship idols—which leads to God’s judgment through foreign oppression. In their distress, the people cry out to the Lord, and He responds by raising up a judge, a temporary deliverer who rescues them and leads them for a time. But after each judge dies, the people return to sin, and the cycle begins again, often worsening with each generation. Importantly, each judge (whether it’s Gideon, Samson, or Jephthah) is an imperfect savior, marked by flaws and failures, reminding us that no human leader can bring lasting peace or righteousness. These broken deliverers point us forward to Jesus Christ, the perfect and final Savior, who breaks the cycle of sin and delivers His people once and for all.
Judges 1:7 | Here’s a glimpse into the ancient wickedness and cruelty of the nations around Israel. This king, Adoni-bezek, had seventy kings he had conquered. When he defeated those kings, he humiliated them by cutting off their thumbs and big toes. Now, unable to walk or pick things up, they groveled every day at his banquet table, fighting for scraps of food to survive. What a horror. This is cruelty as sport, delighting in the destruction and suffering of others. So many of these ancient cultures had degraded themselves and others. It’s just a snapshot, but it gets at why God describes His own experience as being “fed up” with human evil. How could He not be?
Judges 1:20, 26 | In many parts of the Bible there are references like this: “it’s still like that to this day” or some version of that. It makes you aware of how the Bible is a living document, something written in real people’s lives, capturing their real experiences. These little notes ground the story for the reader. The writer is saying in effect: look, all of these things I’m telling you about, they all really happened. This isn’t “once upon a time” storytime, this is history, and the effects of that history are all around us and define us. Let these little notes encourage you, the person who wrote these things wants you to be encouraged. Our God is living and real. This isn’t abstraction or fable. It’s connected to your world. Just look around and you’ll see. And as you’re reading the Bible, remember this glorious fact: It tells us the truth of who we are and who our saving God is. And to this very day, we are the same needy people, and He is the same God who loves sinners.
Judges 3:12–30 | This text recounts one of the most unexpected stories in Scripture—a left-handed man named Ehud delivering Israel from the oppressive hand of Eglon, the king of Moab. This moment in Israel’s history is more than just a clever underdog story; it’s rich with biblical theology and gospel echoes. The people of Israel had once again done evil in the sight of the Lord, and as a result, God gave them over to Moabite oppression for eighteen years. But in mercy, God raised up Ehud—a Benjamite (ironically, from the “son of the right hand”) who used his left hand to carry out a bold and unlikely rescue.
Ehud’s story reminds us that God often uses the weak, the unlikely, and the unconventional to accomplish His purposes. In the ancient Near East, left-handedness was often viewed with suspicion or weakness, yet God chose precisely that weakness as the means of deliverance. Ehud’s victory is a foreshadowing of the upside-down nature of the gospel, where strength comes through weakness and victory through apparent defeat. Just as Ehud penetrated the enemy’s stronghold and struck a decisive blow that led to Israel’s freedom, so Jesus Christ, in a far greater way, entered enemy territory, not with a hidden dagger, but with a cross—and there, through His death, struck the fatal blow to sin, Satan, and death.
Judges 3 leaves us not only with a historical rescue but with a longing for a greater Deliverer, one who would not merely bring eighty years of peace, but eternal redemption. Jesus is that true and better Ehud—unexpected, misunderstood, yet perfectly chosen by God to rescue His people. When we feel the weight of sin and the oppression of the enemy, may we remember that our salvation doesn’t come by our strength or strategy, but by looking to the Savior who won our freedom through weakness.
Psalm 16:8, 11 | Poetic imagery takes pictures and metaphors and uses them to play off of each other. In this poem it is “the right hand.” At first, in a surprising twist, God is the poet’s right hand! That seems reversed, wouldn’t it? And it would be, if it weren’t for the intimacy between God and the poet. The tension of the image is finally resolved in verse 11. Now he finds eternal pleasures where? In God’s right hand! The poetic images make deeply bold claims about intimacy with God. This becomes a picture of operative grace back and forth, as God is active in us and we are active in Him. This sounds like an echo of those New Testament texts where we are “seated in the heavenly places” in Ephesians, while still having to wrestle with spiritual forces in this world. In this poem, we get a model for how God works in us and we in Him, and so we can have hope against death and our own corruption.
Luke 20 | Here, Jesus enters into a series of public confrontations with the religious leaders—a kind of ancient theological “rap battle” common in Jewish culture, where rival teachers debated in the temple courts and the crowd judged whose wisdom prevailed. Each group—Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes—takes their shot, but Jesus responds with unmatched authority, silencing them one by one. The people marvel, not just at His answers, but at the authority behind them. This scene reminds us that Jesus isn’t just another voice in the crowd—He is the true Word made flesh, whose wisdom exposes pride and whose authority demands our trust and surrender.
Friday
Judges 4–5 | These two chapters tell the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael: three unlikely instruments God uses to deliver Israel from the powerful Canaanite oppressor Sisera. In a time of spiritual and moral chaos, God shows that He doesn’t need the strong or expected to accomplish His will—He works through the willing and faithful. The victory song in Judges 5 celebrates not just human bravery, but the God who goes before His people in battle. This story points us to Jesus, the greater Deliverer, who brings victory not through a sword or tent peg, but through a cross. Like Israel, we don’t need to be strong—we just need to trust the One who fights for us and sings over us in triumph.
Judges 5 | This is great and amazing poetry in its own right, but I love these prayers and songs by women in the Bible. Like Hannah in 1 Samuel 2 or Mary’s song in Luke1:46-55. Notice how similar these prayers are as well, the way that they reach into the heart of God’s kingdom values. A conservative denomination made a decision years ago to not allow women to read the Scripture out loud in worship. The decision made me angry. It is so outside the word of God as it is actually written. My response was and still is, “Huh, isn’t that funny? You’re not going to let a woman read the Bible out loud in worship? And yet more of the Bible was written by more women than by any man living. So tell me, does this mean Spirit made them write it, but stopped short of letting them read it? How does that work or make our Father’s kingdom anything but a joke?”
Judges 6:36–40 | In this text, Gideon asks God for signs with a fleece—not once, but twice—because he’s struggling to trust God’s promise. While God graciously responds, this isn’t a model for how we should seek guidance today. We don’t need to lay out fleeces, because we have something far greater: the clear Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Instead of testing God, we’re invited to trust Him, knowing He’s already given us everything we need to follow Him faithfully.
Luke 21:20-24 | This is a very accurate picture of the destruction of Jerusalem over 40 years later in 70 CE. Because of that, most elite modern scholars teach that Luke had to be written some time after that date. It has to be. Modern elite scholars do not, can not, and will not believe that anyone can tell the future. That’s absurd nonsense to them. And so, since the elite modern scholars say it, many Christians uncritically believe it. But these modern folks do not know God’s word or His power. This prediction in Luke 21 happens alongside other predictions. In Luke 19:28-40 and Luke 22:7-13, Jesus describes the immediate future in amazing detail, telling His disciples what they will find as they walk along, what folks will say to them, and what they should say in response. Perfect knowledge of events in sequence, 40 minutes or more into the future. No one who has ever lived, other than Christ, could do that.
Hear what the word is telling you: trust God’s words. Jesus did tell the future, because Jesus was not merely a man. He told us what would happen. These prophecies are meant to reveal to everyone how Jesus must be the Son of God. Who else would know such things with such clarity and accuracy? Instead of humbling themselves before this God, they mock His words as artificial and phony, written after the events to make it look like it was said before. So they make the Scriptures into just a clever lie. But that is not where the clever lying is actually happening. They’re doing that to themselves.
