Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

Of Milk and Honey Joshua 24:16-18 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods, for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went. … And the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”   This testament of Joshua’s life and ministry has provided an unprecedented and spectacular vision of the Kingdom of Heaven. To me, it’s greater than the Genesis glimpse of God fashioning Adam and Eve in His image and walking with them in the cool of a garden, because the glory of redemption outweighs the glory of original creation. And greater even than God’s promise to make of Abraham a great nation, because a promise fulfilled outweighs a promise given. And greater still than the marvels of Moses parting ...

The Bland and the Beautiful Joshua 23:1-2 a  & 14 A long time afterward, when the LORD had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, …“And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.”   Over a decade has passed since the previous episode regarding that altar of witness, yet Joshua decides not to fill us in at all on what life’s been like in a war-free, idolatry-free commonwealth. He gives no story of the Thanksgiving-like feast enjoyed by these pilgrims at their first harvest. No mention of the hymn-singing done around a campfire on clear, starry nights. Which is strange when we consider how much ink has been sp...

Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from A.C. Palmer’s hymn, “Ready”)   Ready to suffer grief or pain, Ready to stand the test; Ready to stay behind and send Others if God sees best.   Ready to go, ready to bear, Ready to watch and pray; Ready to stand aside and give Until He clears the way.   Ready to speak, ready to think, Ready with ear and mind; Ready to stand where He sees fit, Leaving all else behind.   R Ready to go, ready to stay, Ready my place to fill; Ready for service—lowly or great Ready to do Your will.

War, No More Joshua 22:32-33 Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the chiefs, returned from the people of Reuben and the people of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan, to the people of Israel. … And the report was good in the eyes of the people of Israel. And the people of Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them to destroy the land where the people of Reuben and the people of Gad were settled.   Before we move on from the controversial events of Joshua 22, we need to make a special mention of Phinehas’ mediatorial role during the exchange.   First, go back in your mind to that gruesome sequence of events recorded in Numbers 25, beginning in verses 1-5, for a refresher on who Phinehas is:  “While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. … And Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Each...

The Meek Shall Inherit the Land Joshua 22:21-22 a  & 28 b Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh said in answer to the heads of the families of Israel, “The Mighty One, God, the LORD! … He knows; and let Israel itself know … ‘we should say, “Behold, the copy of the altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you.”’”   There’s a touch of irony in this exchange here because it mirrors the previous exchange in Numbers 32 between these same tribes and Moses. To refresh your memory, before crossing the Jordan, the chiefs of Reuben and Gad saw that the land on the other side was perfect for their flocks, so they asked Moses if he’d give them that region as an inheritance. Moses, however, assumed the worst of their motives, thought they were trying to cleverly dodge the coming wars, and berated them for wanting to abandon their brothers. Yet, amazingly, upon being f...

Swords to Plowshares—and Visa Versa Joshua 22:10 b -12 … the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size. And the people of Israel heard it said, “Behold, the people … have built the altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region about the Jordan, on the side that belongs to the people of Israel.” And … the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them.   Someone once quipped that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the same can be said of the road to civil war among the body of believers.   Marvel at this scene, friend. Learn from it. The tribes of Reuben and Gad have just arrived back to their pasturelands on the other side of the Jordan, draped in the manifold riches earned by their travail. No doubt they were showered with bearhugs from their comrades, and tears of joy from grateful women and children, and the sound of the...

For the Joy Set Before Us Joshua 22:7 b -8 And when Joshua sent them away to their homes and blessed them, he said to them, “Go back to your tents with much wealth and with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brothers.”   In his must-read essay, “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis draws a helpful distinction between the pursuit of mercenary awards and the pursuit of natural rewards. For instance, the natural reward for an athlete’s labor is the joy of triumph rather than the manufactured trophy he receives. The soldier’s prize in war is victory and honor, not a medal of honor The evangelist’s prize is a converted soul, not a lucrative cross-country tour. But there are mercenaries in every field, aren’t there? Doctors who pursue surgical careers for money rather than an innate desire to heal people. Pastors who wish to get popular rather than teach the truth and lead their congregations in the way...

Curtain Call  Joshua 22:1-4a At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you. You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the LORD your God. And now the LORD God has given rest to your brothers, as he promised them. Therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies. …”   The events that unfold in Joshua 22 are a vast exegetical terrain, each path a primer for some unique aspect of covenantal life and fellowship among believers. This chapter will illustrate how ministries performed by good intentions can still lead to great fallouts and controversies, how godly leaders can divide and even war over misunderstandings, how communicating motives behind missions is essential to preventing unnecessarily c...

Sabbath Psalm (From G.A. Young’s hymn, “God Leads Us Along”)   In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet, God leads His dear children along; Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary one’s feet, God leads His dear children along.   Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright, God leads His dear children along; Sometimes in the valley, in the darkest of night, God leads His dear children along.   Though sorrows befall us and Satan oppose, God leads His dear children along; Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads His dear children along.   Some through the waters, Some through the flood; Some through the fire, But all through the blood; Some through great sorrow, But God gives a song; In the night season and all the day long.

The King’s English Joshua 21:13-15 And to the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron, the city of refuge for the manslayer, with its pasturelands, Libnah with its pasturelands, Jattir with its pasturelands, Eshtemoa with its pasturelands, Holon with its pasturelands, Debir with its pasturelands, …   Six summers ago, I had the privilege of traveling to Middlebury, Vermont, to take a Master’s course in literature at the Bread Loaf School of English (named after Bread Loaf mountain upon which the grad school stood). It was a course on Geoffrey Chaucer, the twelfth-century poet-politician who advanced the English language significantly, and although I’d prepared for the course by reading most of Chaucer’s  Canterbury Tales , I was shocked to learn upon the first class that the professor expected us to only read the work in its original,  untranslated , Old English form. Well, seven weeks later, even with a plethora of new words in my vocabulary (or old words), and e...

A City at the Center of the World Joshua 20:1-3 a  & 7 a Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there.’” … So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali…   My heart leapt within me upon seeing that precious word ‘Galilee’ written across this Old Testament parchment, especially in its symbolic relationship to a city of refuge. A refuge that in the generations immediately following Joshua’s ministry will specifically serve to protect men and women who accidentally kill a fellow man, but that, for us who’ve had the blessing of hindsight, who live in the afterword of Christ’s Passion, serves as an undeniable hint of coming redemption.    Now, upon seeing ‘Galilee’ in Joshua 20 today, it struck me as the very first appearance of the name in the Bible, so I turned to my concorda...

It is Finished Joshua 19:51 These are the inheritances that Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel distributed by lot at Shiloh before the LORD, at the entrance of the tent of meeting. So they finished dividing the land.   “It is finished,”  gasped our Lord through the shadows of a cosmic anguish subsiding in a final breath of death’s welcome relief. And although that word still reverberates unto eternity, although salvation’s atoning sacrifice is forever complete, our Shepherd still toils to advance His church against the unabating auspices of demons, still joins us day by day in the push-and-pull of a suffering world, still blazes fresh trails in the lives of unreached peoples, still unmasks the plots of wicked elites and opens the eyes of the blind and gives rest to the poor and liberation to the captives and forgiveness to the repentant.    Doesn’t that thought breathe wind into the ...

Working Class Joshua 19:49-50 When they had finished distributing the several territories of the land as inheritances, the people of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua the son of Nun. By command of the LORD they gave him the city that he asked, Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he rebuilt the city and settled in it.   If you ran into Joshua at your local grocer, do you think he’d be surrounded by an entourage of chauffeurs or would you find him all by himself, reaching for a jug of milk with dirt still caked to his working boots? Think about that for a moment. If he came to your church as a visitor this Sunday, would he arrive by motorcade and make a scene coming in, or would he slip into the back row, shake hands with the deacons, and then slip back out as covertly as he’d arrived?    To me, Joshua 19:49-50 is an exclamation point to the character of this leader we’ve been watching all along the way. Notice that while he’s the most highly reg...

A Bright, Morning Star Joshua 19:10, 13 a  & 15a The third lot came up for the people of Zebulon, according to their clans. And the territory of their inheritance reached as far as Sarid. … From there it passes along on the east toward the sunrise … and Kattah, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem.   Oh how meek and unassuming this directional hint toward our coming Messiah! A hint that, like the common visage Christ bore throughout His earthly ministry, doesn’t come through majestic poetic verve. That is, it doesn’t stand out for any genius of meter or form. Rather, like that heavenly sheen that sparkled in our LORD’s eyes for those who looked deep enough, and like that resonation of divine power that rumbled under his vocal cords as He spoke for those who listened with their hearts, this directional phrase ‘toward the sunrise’ bids us to look beyond the trappings of time and space and the confines of language itself, to a humble, meek, and mild pastureland where Almig...

Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Fanny Crosby’s hymn, “All the Way My Savior Leads Me”)   All the way my Savior leads me— what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy— Who through life has been my guide? Lasting peace, divinest comfort— here, by faith, in Him to dwell! For I know whate’er befall me— Jesus, He does all things well.   All the way my Savior leads me— cheers each winding path I tread; Gives me grace for ev’ry trial— feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter— and my soul athirst may be; Gushing from the Rock before me— lo! A spring of joy I see.   All the way my Savior leads me— O the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised  in my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal— wings its flight to realms of day; This my song through endless ages:  Jesus led me all the way.

The Receiving End Joshua 18:2-3 There remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned. So Joshua said to the people of Israel, “How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?”   Sometimes our protestant theology, while steering clear of any hint of self-merited grace, minimizes the condition of our God-given will in the life of faith. The story in Numbers 21, where Moses sets up a bronze serpent on a tree to heal any sick person who simply looks up, is a good picture of faith, yes. As Paul clearly writes in Ephesians 2:8-9,  “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; … so that no one may boast.”  We should write that truth in ink or in blood, on parchment or flame, for salvation is definitionally a gift of God. The ‘but’ isn’t about the nature of the gift, but about the condition of our reception of it.   Th...

A Most Sacred Place Joshua 18:1 Then the whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them.   Eight years ago, I had the special privilege of travelling to Israel with my father, a church friend, and a seminary professor who led us in a five-day tour of important biblical sites. Among the highlights from that trip included a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, a short hike up a hill along the seaside where historians think Jesus taught His Sermon on the Mount, Gordan’s Garden Tomb (a possible site of the LORD’s Resurrection), the ruins of the City of David being excavated underneath the modern city of Jerusalem, the synagogue at Capernaum where Christ preached the polarizing message that would turn thousands of fans into enemies in an instant— "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you can have no part in the kingdom” —and a walk through Hezekiah’s underground tunnel.    But by far my fa...

Just Do it! Joshua 17:16-18 The people of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us. Yet all the Canaanites who dwell in the plain have chariots of iron. …” Then Joshua said to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, “You are a numerous people and have great power … the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.”   As I packed my bag to leave for work this morning, my courageous wife was busy leading our now fourth-grade son Micah in a grammar lesson on paragraphs, and, to my frustration, when I came down the stairs to say goodbye, Micah was throwing a fit, exacerbated by the fact that he’d read the definition of ‘paragraph’ too quickly and hadn’t understood it. When Megan calmly asked him to read the definition again slowly, with comprehension, he responded as if she’d just asked him to give a...

Providence in the Pit Joshua 16:4 The people of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, received their inheritance.   Joshua 16 reads like a page from a cartographer’s travelling journal, giving a precise and detailed mapping of the terrain, the sort a surveyor would follow when marking boundaries. Yet, upon reading this account, I’m struck not so much by the specifications of this allotment to Joseph’s offspring, but rather by the fact that Joseph ever had offspring at all.    “There is not pit so deep that God’s love isn’t deeper still,” Betsy Ten Boom whispered triumphantly to her sister Corrie before dying in a Nazi death camp; and that’s the truth that comes back to mind when I think of Joseph. Think back with me to that scene in his early life, before kids and grandkids, before a wife and a cushy advisory position in the Egyptian palace, to the day his father sent him out into the countryside to check on his older brothers and they seized him in outrageous contempt, tore off ...

A Champion Emerges Joshua 15:16 And Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it.   It might seem awkward at first glance to read that Caleb gives his daughter to his own brother, but remember that ‘brother’ here is a general term for a member of Caleb’s clan, since Caleb and Othniel clearly have different fathers. Also note that while this exchange doesn’t quite read on paper as romantically as, say, the love story between Boaz and Ruth, I actually think Caleb’s call for a champion to earn his daughter’s hand could lead to a flourishing love story and a flourishing legacy.     For one thing, Caleb is now very old, perhaps knocking on the door of a century at this juncture, and he realizes his need to pass on the torch to the next generation of leaders, giving the sort of opportunity he himself was given by Moses all those years ago. But he’...

Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from Donald Thrupp’s hymn, “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us”)   Savior, like a shepherd lead us, Much we need Your tender care; In Your pleasant pastures feed us, For our joy Your folds prepare.   Oh the thought that You’d befriend us, Help and guide us on our way! Keep us, Lord, from sin—defend us! Seek us when we go astray.   You have promised to receive us, Poor and sinful though we be; You have mercy to relieve us, Grace to cleanse and will to free.   Early let us seek Your favor, Early let us do Your will; Blessed Shepherd, humble Savior, In Your steps we follow still.

The Chronicles of Caleb Joshua 15:14-15 a And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak. And he went up from there against the inhabitants of Debir.   The word ‘foreshadowing’ is a literary term that refers to some event or narrative clue that happens early on in a character’s story that gets fulfilled later on down the road, often in a negative sense as the word ‘shadow’ implies. Yet we shouldn’t think of foreshadowing as a strictly negative concept. For example, in Tolkien’s  Lord of the Rings , as the fires of Mordor continue to swallow up the world in a suffocating darkness, Tolkien continues to sprinkle the narrative with sparkles of hope, sometimes through the appearance of angelic eagles that rescue the heroes from peril, sometimes through the consoling words of companions who never lose heart, and sometimes through visions like the one an elvish princess receives of a coming throne and a newborn son right ...

Joshua 14:15 b And the land had rest from war.   This Scripture is a powerful example of the immeasurable hermeneutical landscape of historical facts and allegorical truths that God’s vision for our lives here on earth draws us into. Joshua 14:15 isn’t a mere sentence on a page, but a wide clearing all around, with paths leading every which way: one leading up a high mountain ridge with panoramic views at the summit, and one leading along a bubbling brook through an enchanting forest, and one winding through the open meadows flanked by daffodils and sunflowers, and one leading up the grassy hills where lions and lambs are resting together in the grove of mature oaks. And if we can’t decide which path to take, we can rest for a moment on the bench in the clearing as it were, looking from afar across the whole frontier, having our senses overwhelmed by the expanse of revelation, profoundly humbled by the thought that the Author and Perfector of such manifold goodness, truth, and beau...

Joshua 14:12-14 “So now give me this hill country of which the LORD spoke on that day, … how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.” Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb … because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel.   Ah, yes—the hill country! What a perfect resting place for a shepherd like Caleb. How magnificent it is to see him now, forty-five years after that decisive display of faith that nearly led to his martyrdom, effectively carrying a pouch of smooth stones to fit his sling, still looking for Goliaths. He’s part of that breed of unusual saints, like Abraham and Moses, who just seem to grow more vigorous the older they get. Content in his significant, finished work, yet still hungry for more, believing that the very same hand that raised him up at forty will give him victory again at eighty-five, or ninety, or one hundred, no matter how high t...

Joshua 14:6 b-7a   &10 b -11 And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “… I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land. … And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming.”   Forty-five years before this inspiring reunion between Joshua and Caleb, God commanded Moses with these words in Numbers 13:2  “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”  As you may recall, Joshua and Caleb were two of the twelve chiefs Moses selected, Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim, and Caleb from the Messianic tribe of Judah. Numbers 13 went on to recount in detail the trouble caused by ten of the spies who returned and reported the ominous ne...

Joshua 14:5 The people of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses; they allotted the land.   Joshua 14:5 is up there with the greatest moment in all recorded Scripture, even though no enthralling Red Sea crossings are performed, and no Goliaths are felled, and no faithful prophets are rescued from lions, and no prodigal missionaries are swallowed alive by giant fish, and no judge wipes out an army with a jawbone, and no fire falls from heaven against four hundred false prophets. This Scripture is as mundane a verse as you’ll ever read, and, because of that, it’s precisely the sort of line that I far too easily tend to skip over. Yet the lack of the spectacular here doesn’t take away from the grandeur and significance of the events recorded.  The people of Israel did as the LORD commanded . But wait—a skeptic might butt in here. They only allotted a bit of land, right? Isn’t it hyperbolic to call this deed a monumental one? No, because every remarkable advance in the life of fai...