WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: A colleague told me that he would accept Christianity if the miracles were removed from the Bible. He didn’t feel such events had a place in our modern, scientific world and the church needed to ‘get real’ if it wanted to win modern people. What do you think? Keeping a promise Joshua’s reputation had spread and rather than risk a fight, the King of Gibeon (a large city) made a peace treaty with him (v 1). Joshua was pragmatic and accepted. Five neighbouring kings were suspicious, however; they saw this as an unholy alliance and forged a pact with the aim of attacking Gibeon, whom they feared (v 2). Joshua kept his promise and when Gibeon was threatened he stepped in to protect it. Divine assistance As at Ai he acted according to God’s Word and his promises (v 8), not simply to protect his honour. God’s support was visible: he caused confusion in the enemy ranks (v 10), followed by a lethal cocktail of hailstones (v 11). Despite this divine assistance Joshua swithered: daylight was fading and the battle not yet won. So he asked God to provide light, to command the sun to stand still until the battle was won, which it did for a full 24 hours! This happened because ‘God listened to a man’ (v 13, NIV). Joshua had no problem asking for miracles or accepting them. Neither should we. Respond: Archbishop Temple was once challenged that what he called miracles were really a series of co-incidences. His answer was simple: ‘Well, if that’s so, it seems that coincidences happen when I pray’! http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-05-26