Naaman was a person who contracted leprosy; he wasn’t an Israelite. Through a slave girl, he came to know about the prophet Elisha who healed him.

The book of Joshua records the history of how the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan. The record is written from the viewpoint of a prophet so that, from history, we can see the Lord’s salvation and judgement upon the people. This is so that people will learn to fear God and turn to Him. More importantly, it is so that we know God speaks to people through history, and that all the words spoken by the Lord have been fulfilled. Therefore we have to study the book of Joshua with the viewpoint of a prophet, so we won’t think it’s just a dry piece of history but something that teaches us about the fight of life.

A main point discussed in previous sermons is for us to be able to see the throne which is in heaven. The throne in heaven is about the worship in heaven, and this is for us to reflect on whether our worship on earth is similar to the worship in heaven.

News comes to us through social media and these news and information tend to self-enforce our interests as our search engines know our previous searches. The algorithm will to prioritise certain news they know we’re interested in so that the more we use platforms, the more we’re sucked into it; this is why people are sucked into extreme ideologies. We need to be careful of not only the information we receive; not just whether it is true or false but also even if it’s true, we have to know how we can conclude from the news because our interpretation and conclusion will shape our outlook in life.

According to the commentary of the Jewish Bible, the Talmud, the author of the book of Joshua is said to be Joshua himself. Joshua 24:29-33 records what would happen after Joshua died. This short passage would have been added on by someone else and not written by Joshua himself. The span of time recorded in the book of Joshua is about 24 years. According to the Antiquities of the Jews book Josephus wrote, he divided the lifetime of Joshua into 3 separate segments.

1. 45 years in the land of Egypt
2. Departed from Egypt and co-worked with Moses for 40 years
3. Took over Moses and led the people of Israel when he was 85 years old