April 22

Good Friday, 2011

Click here for today's text.

Joshua 24:1-33
(1) (2011) I always love reading this declaration by Joshua:

But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

(2)(2011) Another reason I fear the "veneration of saints"; praying to them:

19 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the LORD.”Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.”

24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.”

25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws. 26 And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD.

27 “See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.”

(3)(2013)The inanimate creature. Intrigued by Joshua's reference to the rock, Matthew Henry has this comment:

27. He set up a great stone under an oak, as a monument of this covenant, and perhaps wrote an inscription upon it (by which stones are made to speak) signifying the intention of it. When he says, It hath heard what was past, he tacitly upbraids the people with the hardness of their hearts, as if this stone had heard to as good purpose as some of them; and, if they should forget what was now done, this stone would so far preserve the remembrance of it as to reproach them for their stupidity and carelessness, and be a witness against them.

(4)(2014) Mixing case. Intriguing how "you" and "they/them" are interchanged in this passage:

When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen[a] as far as the Red Sea.[b] 7 But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

Luke 21:1-28

Psalm 89:38-52

Proverbs 13:20-23
(1)(2011)

22 A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children,
but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.

Years Read
2011, 2013, 2014