SOAP Reading: Joshua 2 & 6
"When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, the wall collapsed." – Joshua 6:20

During the Civil Rights Movement, men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Lawson led peaceful protests and marches to speak truth to systems that had perfected the use of violence, fear, and death to enforce compliance. Anyone who wished to participate in these protests was given explicitly detailed protocol and instructions, and was required to agree, sign off on, and abide by the terms listed. These terms became known as the 10 commandments of non-violence:

Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
Remember always that the non-violent movement seeks justice and reconciliation – not victory.
Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.
Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
Follow the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.1

The people of Israel were finally entering the land God had promised, even though they were like little “grasshoppers” compared to the sophisticated technology, advanced weaponry, and superior strength of the numerous militarized city-states inhabiting the area, of which Jericho would be a prime example. Israel was sure to be gobbled up as soon as they took their first step toward their Promised Rest. Adding insult to the potential for injury, God gives the people strange instructions for disassembling Jericho’s towering defenses. They must first trust Him, then march, and then shout. This would become (or should have become) the strange new normal for Israel: Gather together to obey God’s strange instructions (often appearing weak and vulnerable to the trained tactician) and then celebrate when God wins the battle. May we have ears to hear, like Rahab, the strange stories of God’s salvation and, like Israel, the strange instructions for His march. And may we too “follow the directions of the movement and of The Captain” on His “demonstration” (Romans 5:8).

Reflection:

  • What “walls” in your life need to fall?
  • How can you step out in faith and obey God’s instructions?
  • How does this story encourage you to trust His timing?
  1. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/dexter-avenue-baptist-church-members ↩︎
  2. Found in 1909 near village of Anikova, Perm Province, Russia. The scene on this plate has been identified as a series of episodes from the biblical book of Joshua. Reading from the bottom up, the harlot Rahab peers out the window above a door through which she lets Joshua’s spies into the Canaanite city of Jericho. Above, in the center of the plate, priests blow trumpets as the Israelites’ Ark of the Covenant is held aloft (Joshua 2 and 6), and farther up, another Canaanite city has been taken. At the top are the sun and the moon, which at the orders of Joshua (the warrior on horseback in the upper right of the plate) have come to a standstill in the heavens (Joshua 10:12–13). Although the plate was found near Malaya Anikova in the region of the Ural Mountains in Russia, it was probably made in and for a Sogdian Christian community located in Semirechye (southeast Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan). Situated along trade routes leading east, the region had been settled by Nestorian Christian Sogdians, whose communities survived into early Islamic times. ↩︎