After Moses’ death the Lord speaks to Joshua and promises to
be with him as He was with Moses.
Because He is with Joshua he is to be strong and courageous, He need not
fear so long as he follows the Lord. We
have been given the same promise in the Great Commission, that the Lord will be
with us to the end of the age. We need
have no fear either. After the period of
mourning for Moses is complete, it is time to move out, cross the Jordan, and
begin to take the Land. Joshua tells
them to prepare for the crossing, taking the provisions they will need to begin
to enter their destiny.
Jesus goes to Capernaum and begins His ministry there by
teaching in the synagogue as one who had or possessed authority and not like one
of the scribes. Scribes taught with an
extrinsic authority, their teaching always had footnotes and sources. When Jesus did his first significant public
teaching in Matthew’s Gospel he would preface His teaching with the words, “You
have heard it said…” Rabbis would teach
by reference to what had been taught before them, but Jesus finished His
sentence with the words, “but I say to you…”
That would indicate that He was breaking with tradition and teaching on
His own authority. Here in Capernaum they
are amazed to hear this kind of teaching and then it is validated by the man
with the unclean spirit but that was not welcome testimony so Jesus cast out
that spirit which further authenticated Him and caused everyone to say,
“hmmmm.”
Was Paul disobedient to the spirit because he insisted on
going to Jerusalem in spite of multiple warnings not to? Remember that when Paul was first called and
commissioned he was told all he would suffer for the kingdom. It would be frustrating to prophets that he
would do what was sure to bring arrest and what looked like an end of his
ministry. Paul, however, followed the
Lord wherever He led, just as Joshua was to do.
He had no fear of man and he had no fear of suffering, much less the
belief that suffering was anathema to a Christian. Sometimes the Lord calls us to suffer for Him
and we must be willing to go where He leads believing that His glory is more
important than our safety, security and happiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment