The story is well known. At the beginning of the Israelites' conquest of the Promised Land, the fortified city of Jericho was blocking their advance and had to be destroyed. So the Lord instructed Joshua to command his troops to march around the city walls silently for six days, and on the seventh day to march round seven times as the priests blew trumpets.
This reference to a prostitute is an extraordinary example of how God speaks to people who are considered ungodly, giving them faith to believe what He is going to do. The narrative is quite extensive in Joshua 2:1-24 and 6:22-25. The details are so unusual and detailed, the dialogue so direct and authentic that it cannot be anything other than a true account.
The Bible is about people who put their faith in God, trusting His Word and doing it. Of course their lives are contrasted against others who refused to trust Him, and who rebelled against Him. So their faith is usually seen against the backdrop of conflict in which the faithful took their stand, often against human logic, by trusting what God had told them.
The Bible teaches that faith is the precious relationship of trust between a human being and the Sovereign Lord. It is directed by hope, which stems from God's Word, and bound by love. Faith is not the means of getting what we want, but the partnership of trust in which we know God's blessing as we work with Him to achieve His purposes in our lives and in the lives of others. Hebrews 11:1-34 describes how people trusted God and He used them to achieve great things for His kingdom.
Some people think that those who suffer because they trust in Christ do not have enough faith, or that they are being punished or even cursed by God. Not so. Believers in Jesus should not be surprised if those who resist His love persecute those who love Him (1 Peter 4:12-14, 16).
Wherever the Lord sees faith, He is pleased. Even though many 'heroes of faith' never saw the results of their obedience, God saw and promised to reward all those who trust Him (Hebrews 11:6). The faithful people of the Old Testament did not yet have the full revelation of Jesus, or the narrative accounts of the apostles and early church – yet they trusted God's Word to the point of being willing to be persecuted.
What do you do when you want to give up, when the pressure is too great and the cost of following Jesus seems crippling? That was one of the questions behind the writing of this letter, but may apply to us in many different circumstances - when we feel like that we seem uniquely isolated and alone. The writer has given us a series of Old Testament characters whose life stories should encourage us that we are not alone. Our struggles are like their struggles (Romans 15:4).
Everybody who has chosen to endure suffering has a strategy, otherwise the grief and pain becomes overwhelming. Jesus had a strategy. He chose to go to the cross because of the end result – the joy of seeing millions of people saved for eternity, reconciled with God, which is His long-term plan. The pain was agonising and the shame was dreadful as He bore the curse of sin for the world (Galatians 3:13). Even God the Father could no longer look upon God the Son. He was utterly forsaken.
However hard our struggles may be, it is important for us to realise that God's love is woven into our suffering. In the previous verses, it was the love of the Father for us that sent Jesus to the cross. That same love motivated Jesus to see His mission through as He anticipated the joy in heaven and the joy of sinners being saved and included in the kingdom of heaven. The writer has already said, "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:3). All his readers, and us today are still alive.
'Endure hardship', is a hard order to obey. But it is an order, and it must be obeyed. 'Endure hardship' is the kind of instruction from a coach to a sportsperson in training; or to a soldier in active service (2 Timothy 2:3-7). But here it is addressed to children of God. Immediately it dispels any sentimental idea that following Jesus is an easy life designed to satisfy the self-indulgent. 'Discipline' is a word related to 'disciple', which means a 'learner'.
